"Paradise" Without Ballyhoo

Uncle Sam Builds An Island "Paradise" Without Ballyhoo

Pacific resort promotions are announced almost as often as the tides change. Most, however, are not nearly as solvent as the ocean’s waters.

From Ralph Craib in San Francisco

NOW a brand new island “paradise” of exceptional quality has been developed—without any advertising or lavish four-colour brochures.

It offers two swimming pools, bowling alleys, air-conditioned living quarters, frequent air and sea con nections, a nine-hole golf course, superb skin-diving and fishing and first run movies at a series of theatres, and, last if not least, no income tax.

There is only one drawback. You have to be employed in the United States missile programme to get on the island.

This new “paradise” is at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, site of the bustling US Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility and now home for some 3,000 Americans, most of them civilians.

In 1959 the US Army decided the island was an ideal launching site to test its “anti-missile-missiles”.

Missile launch sites were con structed, as were huge radar stations.

But the spending did not stop there.

For married military personnel, there are permanent, air-conditioned houses, all with modern furniture and appliances.

For their children, there are air conditioned elementary and high schools, staffed by teachers from the US and providing instructional equal to that of the mainland.

Teachers, the Navy says, are “lured by high wages, no income tax and the vacation-like living of the tropics”.

The island’s 627 acres have been equipped with lavish recreational facilities. There are indoor bowling alleys, libraries, five theatres, four clubs, tennis and basketball courts, a nine-hole golf course, and softball and football fields. Cabin cruisers are available to take sportsmen marlin fishing in their off-duty hours.

Two regularly-scheduled Military Air Transportation Service flights arrive from the US weekly and two Military Sea Transportation Service ships arrive monthly. The ships bring food from the US, Hawaii and Far East.

A huge commissary store sells everything from cigarettes to wash ing machines at prices below those in the US.

Photos show a US Navy officer and his wife displaying their tuna catches after a fishing trip; (centre) an aerial view of the Nike Zeus acquisition radar com plex at Kwajalein; and (bottom) one of the two swimming pools at the base. —Official US Navy photographs.