Tarawa Loses Air

Service

AN airmail service which Tarawa has enjoyed for seven months has been discontinued. That is about all that an official announce ment from Tarawa discloses but there is obviously a story behind the announcement.

PIM reported in March that a US military LST loaded with equip ment for a special meteorological station arrived at Tarawa in mid- December. American aircraft had flown in technicians and the station was hastily set up. This followed the visit to Tarawa of Amercan military officers some time earlier.

The Meteorological Service in Wellington, which operates a station at Tarawa as part of the South Pacific meteorological observing net work, could shed no light on the purpose of the American station in March, but supposed that it might have something to do with high altitude jet-stream research.

Others guessed that more probably it was connected with forecasting winds for the forthcoming 1956 American atomic bomb test series.

This now seems to be confirmed by the latest Tarawa announce ment, which shows that US aircraft have been regularly flying out air mail from the Colony, addressed to

PO Box 10, APO-187, San Francisco, for onward distribution.

The July Tarawa announcement says: “It is possible that odd planes may continue to arrive for a short time, in which case mail sent to the above address may be carried, but the service will officially cease on July 15.”

In other words, the mail servii covered the bomb season, which hi ended for this year. + The King of the Belgians h conferred on the High Commi sioner for France in the Pacific C Grimald), the Royal Order of t; Lion.