Fais Island is a raised coral island in the eastern

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the ce ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

, and forms a legislative district in

Yap State Yap State, also known in the Yapese language as Nam nu Wa'ab (lit. "Island of Yap") or simply as Wa'ab, is one of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The other states are Kosrae State, Pohnpei State, and Chuuk State. ...

in the

Federated States of Micronesia The Federated States of Micronesia (; abbreviated FSM) is an island country in Oceania. It consists of four states from west to east, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosraethat are spread across the western Pacific. Together, the states comprise a ...

. Fais Island is located approximately east of

Ulithi Ulithi ( yap, Wulthiy, , or ) is an atoll in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, about east of Yap. Overview Ulithi consists of 40 islets totaling , surrounding a lagoon about long and up to wide—at one of the larges ...

and northeast of

Yap Yap ( yap, Waqaab) traditionally refers to an island group located in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, a part of Yap State. The name "Yap" in recent years has come to also refer to the state within the Federated States of Micr ...

and is the closest land to

Challenger Deep The Challenger Deep is the deepest-known point of the seabed of Earth, with a depth of by direct measurement from deep-diving submersibles, remotely operated underwater vehicles and benthic landers, and (sometimes) slightly more by sonar bathym ...

, about 180 miles away. The population of Fais Island was 215 in 2000.

Geography

Fais Island is an oblong, oval-shaped raised coralline mass with a maximum elevation of , surrounded by a narrow lagoon and fringing reef except for its northeast and southwest extremities. It has a total land area of .

Legend

Friedrich Ratzel Friedrich Ratzel (August 30, 1844 – August 9, 1904) was a German geographer and ethnographer, notable for first using the term ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") in the sense that the National Socialists later would. Life Ratzel's father was th ...

in ''The History of Mankind'' related in 1896 that the Polynesian legend of the fishing up of the land from the depths of the sea took the following form in

: Motigtig went out fishing with his two elder brothers Morangrang and Motal. First, he hooked up crops of all sorts, and taro; then the island of Fais. His hook was stolen and kept by the chief in Gachpar in order to control the people; and since, if it were destroyed, Fais also would disappear, the inhabitants of that island were in constant subjection to the menaces of the Yap chiefs in Gagil.

History

First recorded European sighting of Fais Island was by the Spanish expedition of

Ruy López de Villalobos Ruy López de Villalobos (; ca. 1500 – April 4, 1546) was a Spanish explorer who sailed the Pacific from Mexico to establish a permanent foothold for Spain in the East Indies, which was near the Line of Demarcation between Spain and Portugal a ...

on 23 January 1543. Quite surprisingly for the Spaniards, the local people came out in canoes making the sign of the cross and saying "Buenos días, matelotes!" in perfect sixteenth century Spanish ("Good day, sailors!"), this being an evidence that one of the previous Spanish expeditions had been in the area. Fais was therefore charted as ''Matelotes''. Having known about this story, António Galvão governor of

Ternate Ternate is a city in the Indonesian province of North Maluku and an island in the Maluku Islands. It was the ''de facto'' provincial capital of North Maluku before Sofifi on the nearby coast of Halmahera became the capital in 2010. It is off the ...

at the time, in his ''Tratado dos Descubrimientos'' of 1563 says that this was because he had sent one Francisco de Castro as commander of a ship on a proselytizing mission to the islands discovered in the area of Fais by the Portuguese Diego da Rocha (

in 1526). However, while this could be a natural explanation of the incident, it doesn't explain why, according to Villalobos' records the local people greeted them in "perfect" Spanish and not in Portuguese. The original account of this story is included in the report that the Augustinian Fray Jerónimo de Santisteban, traveling with the Villalobos' expedition, wrote for the Viceroy of New Spain, while in

Kochi Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) ( the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of K ...

during the voyage home. French naval captain Louis Tromelin visited the island during a journey through the Pacific 1828-29 As with all of the Caroline Islands, Fais was sold by Spain to the

Empire of Germany The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

in 1899. The island came under the control of the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of Japan, 1947 constitu ...

after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and was subsequently administered under the South Seas Mandate. Japan built a radio station, Japanese phosphate refinery and oil refinery. Allied forces occupied Fais Island from January 1, 1945 and built an airstrip Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the island came under the control of the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

and was administered as part of the

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) was a United Nations trust territory in Micronesia administered by the United States from 1947 to 1994. History Spain initially claimed the islands that later composed the territory of the Trus ...

from 1947, and became part of the

from 1979.

Fais Airfield

The former Allied airstrip was built in World War II by the nearby Naval Base Ulithi. It was formerly serviced by chartered flights by Caroline Islands Air starting in 1995 and now by Pacific Missionary Aviation. The airstrip consists of a chipseal runway with no facilities (no fuel or terminal structure).

References

* Dunmore, John (1992); ''Who's Who in Pacific Navigation'', Australia:Melbourne University Press,

External links