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Howland Island
The island Amelia Earhart never reached
Howland Island is a narrow strip of sand and coral about 1.4 miles long, just north of the equator in the middle of the Pacific, roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia. On July 2, 1937, it was the destination of Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan on the hardest leg of their round-the-world flight. The Coast Guard cutter Itasca waited offshore and picked up Earhart's radio calls, but the plane never arrived, and neither flier was ever found.
Three runways had been graded for the flight, part of what was later named Kamakaiwi Field, and colonists from Hawaii had lived on the island since 1935 in a camp called Itascatown. The day after Pearl Harbor, Japanese bombers struck Howland, killing two of the young colonists, and the survivors were evacuated in 1942. A day beacon called Earhart Light still stands, and the island has been a national wildlife refuge since 1974.