. Atoll research bulletin. Coral reefs and islands; Marine biology; Marine sciences. Figure 2. New recruit being welcomed to the Tokyo office. David B. Doan (3rd from left), Frank C. Whitmore (5th from left), Helen L. Foster (6th from left), Gilbert Corwin (far right). Geology Branch. In deciding which islands to map, the main criterion was diversity, a consideration that met both military and scientific needs. As far as I know, there was never any consideration of strategic importance in choosing islands to be mapped; I think that MacArthur's march across the Pacific, including many unlikely
. Atoll research bulletin. Coral reefs and islands; Marine biology; Marine sciences. Figure 2. New recruit being welcomed to the Tokyo office. David B. Doan (3rd from left), Frank C. Whitmore (5th from left), Helen L. Foster (6th from left), Gilbert Corwin (far right). Geology Branch. In deciding which islands to map, the main criterion was diversity, a consideration that met both military and scientific needs. As far as I know, there was never any consideration of strategic importance in choosing islands to be mapped; I think that MacArthur's march across the Pacific, including many unlikely atoll battlegrounds, was too fresh in our memories to allow us to attempt prediction of the course of future operations. So we chose island types: high complex islands such as Okinawa, which contains some Paleozoic rocks and which we now know to be related to continental plates; other high islands of more oceanic nature and with a heavy volcanic component, such as the Marianas; and then the series illustrating Darwin's theory of atoll formation, from the cone of Ponape (which was not mapped) to the sunken caldera of Truk to the atolls of the Marshalls. The list of islands to be mapped was made by the Military Geology Branch, and as far as I can remember our recommendations were always accepted by the Corps of Engineers. It is not the purpose of this paper to present a chronologic account of the mapping of the islands; this can be gleaned from Corwin, 1998. Rather, I wish to discuss the organization of the work, how it was undertaken, and how its philosophy evolved as the work went on. In 1948 and the years immediately following, it was hard to hire young geologists for work abroad at government salaries. Most young men had just gotten out of the armed services and had already seen enough of the world; many had gone back to. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of th
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