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The U.S. Navy will resume operations on Wake Island — a largely dormant contingency airfield — after over 70 years of reduced staffing, as the service works to re-establish a competitive presence in the Pacific while a growing Chinese military deploys its Navy farther from home.
The resumption is part of a broader effort in the Pentagon to rehabilitate World War II-era airfields like those in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. In recent years, Wake Island, located in a remote expanse of the Pacific Ocean between Guam and Hawaii, has been used as a temporary stopover and austere airfield for exercises and emergencies. The last American units regularly stationed on the island date back to World War II, when the island’s Marine garrison sent its final transmission to Pearl Harbor on Dec. 23, 1941.
Related: Historic Tinian airfield slated for debut flight operations as Pentagon expands Pacific network
Now, the Navy is looking to deploy maritime patrol aircraft to Wake Island for a series of classified missions supporting the service’s top forward-deployed naval intelligence unit, according to contracting documents published by the service last week.
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