Gilbert and Ellice Islands Ellice Islands", which replaced laws created during the BWTP. The Phoenix Islands were added to the colony in 1937. Banaba Island (Ocean Island) remained the headquarters of the colony until the British evacuation in 1942 during the Pacific War when Ocean Island and the Gilbert Islands were occupied by the Japanese. The United States forces landed in Funafuti on 2 October 1942 and on Nanumea and Nukufetau in August 1943 and constructed an airfield on each island and other bases. The atolls of Tuvalu acted as a staging post during the preparation for the Battle of Tarawa and the Battle
Pacific Islands the Pacific Ocean once colonised by the British, French, Dutch, United States, and Japanese, such as the Pitcairn Islands, Taiwan, and Borneo. In other uses it may refer to islands with Austronesian linguistic heritage like Taiwan, Indonesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, Myanmar islands, which found their genesis in the Neolithic cultures of the island of Taiwan. Many islands located within the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean are not considered part of Oceania. These islands include the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador; the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, United States; Vancouver Island in Canada; the Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands; the island nation