| | Chuuk's Rich History
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Chuuk's isolated lagoon is a perfect harbor. Its fringing reef is over 140 miles around and has five navigable passages. The 822 square mile interior is large enough to hold all of the other islands of Micronesia and still have room for more. The Spanish had little interest in Chuuk and apart from a Jesuit interest that remains today had little to do with the islands through the 1800s. Germany purchased Spain's Micronesian interests after the Spanish American War in 1898, but also did little with these isolated islands except to change their name to Truk, by which they were known until the name Chuuk was restored following independence almost 100 years later.
Japan took control of the region at the beginning of the WWI and began developing the islands economically and militarily. Chuuk was ideally situated, half way between the Philippines and Hawaii, and became Japan's principal naval supply station for both merchant and military shipping. Japanese domination in the Pacific began in earnest in 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and an extensive submarine, aircraft and surface vessel base was created at Chuuk. By 1944 there were over 40,000 Japanese civilian personnel living and working on Chuuk. Over 1,000 war and supply ships were moored there and a total of five airfields supported close to 500 aircraft.
Chuuk was considered the most formidable of all Japanese strongholds in the Pacific. But the surprise Allied aerial attack in February 1944, caught the Japanese unaware and reduced the Japanese fortifications, ports and industry to rubble, creating a ghost fleet of 180,000 tons of shipping and 270 planes that are the basis of Chuuk's tourism industry today.
Following the war Chuuk, along with the rest of Micronesia, became a Trust Territory of the US until independence in 1986. While there has been little economic development in the six decades since, diving adventurers such as Jacques Cousteau, Al Giddings and Klaus Lindemann explored the wonders of this huge ghost fleet and introduced it to the world in the 60s and 70s, establishing Chuuk as the world's foremost wreck diving destination.
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