Ponam Island is located off the north coast of Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.[1]
 Location of the Ponam Island among the Admiralty Islands | |
  Ponam Island | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 1°54′45″S 146°53′8″E / 1.91250°S 146.88556°E |
| Archipelago | Admiralty Islands |
| Length | 2.4 km (1.49 mi) |
| Width | 0.365 km (0.2268 mi) |
| Naval Base Administrative |  United States Navy 1944-1947 |
The Ponam language is spoken on the island.[2]
The Ponam Airfield was built by the US Navy 78th Naval Construction Battalion "Seabees" between June and August 1944.[3] As half of the work area was swamp, coral was blasted and dredged from the ocean bed and used as landfill. During the Admiralty Islands campaign, it was used as a fighter base to provide repair and overhaul facilities for carrier aircraft, as part of Manus Naval Base. The USO entertainer Bob Hope stopped at Ponam Airfield in 1944 with an unscheduled show with troops from surrounding bases.[4][5]
Ponam Airfield
edit- Based at Ponam Airfield was:
- 78th Naval Construction Battalion
- 140th Battalion
- ACORN 28 - Seabee unit
- VMF-312 (24 x FG Vought F4U Corsair unit)
- VP-130 (15 Lockheed Ventura [PV-1] unit)
- VC-75 (Grumman F4F Wildcat unit)
- Carrier Aircraft Service Unit 42
- Carrier Aircraft Service Unit 13
- Carrier Aircraft Service 587
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Admiralty Islands". The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
- ^ Ponam language at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ "Ponam Airfield (HMS Nabaron), Manus Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG)". Pacific Wrecks. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
- ^ U.S. Navy Department (1947). Building the Navy's Bases in World War II, Volume II. History of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Civil Engineer Corps 1940–1946. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 301–302. OCLC 1023942
- ^ "Background to Ponam Airfield". October 21, 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-10-21.
Further reading
edit- Carrier, James G (1981). "Ownership of productive resources on Ponam Island, Manus Province". Journal de la Société des océanistes. 37 (72): 205–217. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
- Carrier, James G., and Achsah H. Carrier (1989). Wage, Trade, and Exchange in Melanesia: A Manus Society in the Modern State. Berkeley: University of California Press.
External links
edit- Photo of Ponam Island, Panaramio