Chat About Chuuk: History

Now that we know where Chuuk is, let's learn about how it came to be the place it is today.

Not much is known about Chuuk's first inhabitants. It is assumed that they came from the neighboring islands of Kosrae and Pohnpei about 2000 years ago based on legends and language similarities, as well as similarities in pottery. The first Europeans did not come to Chuuk until the Spanish landed in the mid 1500's. They claimed Chuuk as part of their colonial territory of the Caroline islands, but did not take much interest in these islands except for the Jesuits who stayed to perform their missionary work. Other countries such as Germany, England, France, Portugal, Russia, and the U.S. all made brief visits to the islands, but in the 1880's Spain established a dominant presence in Micronesia to claim its colonial territories.

Control of Chuuk shifted to the German Empire when Germany purchased Spain's Micronesian interests after the Spanish-American War in 1898. Once again, little attention was paid to this isolated island territory except to change its name to Truk. After Germany's defeat in World War I, under a mandate from the League of Nations and a pact with Great Britain, Truk was turned over to Japanese control. A significant migration of the Japanese population began developing the islands both economically and militarily with naval and air bases. It wasn't long before Truk became Japan's principal supply station for both merchant and military shipping. In 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japan established its dominance of the Pacific and built Truk up to be an extensive submarine, surface vessel and aircraft base. Over 1,000 war and supply ships were moored in the lagoon, and 5 airfields supported nearly 500 aircraft. Due to its natural and manmade fortifications, this base was known to the Allied Forces as the "Gibraltar of the Pacific" during WWII.

What began as an early morning attack on February 17, 1944 executed by the U.S., named "Operation Hailstone", this bombardment lasted 3 days and culminated in wiping almost anything of value.  Although the larger warships had moved to Palau a week earlier, this Japanese equivalent of Pearl Harbor left a ghost fleet of 12 warships, 32 merchant vessels and 249 aircraft at the bottom of the lagoon. (Exact numbers of vessels vary depending on the source.) Japan surrendered in August 1945 and relinquished any claim to Micronesia. 

Through various alliances, Truk became a Trust Territory of the U.S. until gaining its independence on November 3, 1986 with the formation of the Federated States of Micronesia. It was then that Truk changed back to its original name of Chuuk.

 Chuuk was introduced to the world in the 60's & 70's by the scuba diving adventurers Jacques Cousteau, Al Giddings and Klaus Lindemann, establishing the lagoon as the wreck diving mecca of the world. Except for diving tourism, not much has been achieved as far as economic development after the devastation of WWII.