#FlashbackFriday: In 1944, the Exchange Arrived on a Tiny Island in the Pacific. It’s Still There.

On Feb. 25, 1944, 79 years ago this weekend, a PX opened on Kwajalein Island in the South Pacific. Kwajalein Island is part of Kwajalein Atoll, which is part of the Marshall Islands. It’s about midway between Hawaii and Papua New Guinea.

For a little perspective, “midway” means it’s a little less than 2,000 miles from Papua New Guinea and about 2,100 miles from Hawaii, and not much gets in the way when you’re headed in either direction.

Twenty-five days before the PX opened, U.S. forces landed on the island. By the time the PX opened, 14,000 troops were on the island—which is 800 yards wide. That’s about a half-mile.

According to “One Hundred Years of Service: A History of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service,” “The first exchange site was a bit of a battlefield, marked with craters and tops of palm trees. There wasn’t even a bulldozer to level the area.”

The 1944 photo above shows an associate waiting on a customer. The “AES” on the associate’s shirt stands for Army Exchange Service.

The Exchange still operates on the island, complete with such tastes of home as Anthony’s Pizza, Burger King and Subway. There is also a store on nearby Roi-Namur, another island that is part of the Kwajalein Atoll, for military personnel and civilian employees at a ballistic missile test site.

Kwajalein Atoll, by the way, is not the farthest south the Exchange gets in the South Pacific. There is also an Exchange in American Samoa, roughly 2,100 miles southeast of Kwajalein Atoll.

Sources: “One Hundred Years of Service: A History of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service,” Exchange Post archives, Exchange History on Flickr.