Best Sister

I think of my sister and know that she is the person who will be there for me, even when I can't be here for my self, who will cheer me to my greatest heights and who will console me when I've fallen down. She will stand up for me and lie down beside me. She will forgive me when I've hurt her and will, occassionally, even bite her tongue when she could so easily have said, "I told you so.

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Tuvalu Air Port

Funafuti Airport was built by a detachment of the 2nd Naval Construction Battalion (Seabees) of the United States Navy in 1943 during World War II.^[5][6]

The military airfield included an airstrip, control tower and facilities,^[5][7] with a radio station at Tepuka, connected by cable to the airfield. The base headquarters buildings were at the present-day Teagai Apelu's residence, and a bunker is there to this day.

The first offensive operation was launched on 20 April 1943 when 22 B-24 Liberator aircraft from 371 and 372 Bombardment Squadrons bombed Nauru. The next day the Japanese made a predawn raid on the strip at Funafuti that destroyed one B-24 and caused damage to five other planes. On 22 April, 12 B-24 aircraft bombed Tarawa.^[8] Marine Fighting Squadron 441 (VMF-441), flying the F4F Wildcat, operated from Funafuti from May to September 1943.^[9][10]

The airfield became the headquarters of the United States Army Air Forces VII Bomber Command in November 1943, directing operations against Japanese forces on Tarawa and other bases in the Gilbert Islands. The USAAF stationed two B-24 Liberatorheavy bomber groups, the 11th Wing and 30th Bombardment Groups on Funafuti in the implementation of Operation Galvanic, which led to the Battle of Tarawa and the Battle of Makin in November 1943.^[8]

By the middle of 1944, as the fighting moved further north toward Japan, the Americans began to withdraw. By the time the Pacific War ended in 1945, nearly all of them, with their equipment, departed.^[5][11][12] After the war, the military airfield was developed into a commercial airport.

A Beautiful Sunflower

A mathematical sunflower can be pictured as a flower. The kernel of the sunflower is the brown part in the middle, and each set of the sunflower is the union of a petal and the kernel.