Us Official Photographs

Ascension Island in South Atlantic

It can now be revealed that tiny Ascension Island, midway in the South Atlantic between Brazil and Africa, has been in use since July, 1942, as the only stop on one route which the Air Transport Command uses in its trans-Atlantic operations. On March 30, 1942, units of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers landed on Ascension, which is the property of Great Britain. In three months the Engineers had blasted a runway out of the volcanic side of the island's only mountain, and named their new field "Wideawake," after the Wideawake, or sooty tern, which make the island their home. The Engineers reported that their hardest fight was with these birds. Hundreds of thousands of them persisted in nesting at the end of the runway, constituting a hazard to aircraft operations. Cats were imported to kill the terns, but the cats themselves were devoured by booby birds, a larger species. In desperation, the Army sent for an expert birdman, Dr. James P. Chapin, associate curator of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Dr. Chapin proceeded to Ascension, and concluded the way to persuade the birds to move elsewhere was to remove their eggs. This was done, and chicken wire was laid over some of the main nesting places. It has worked fairly well. To date more than 5,000 U.S. planes have passed through Wideawake Field en route to combat zones.