Kwajalein, An Island Like No Other - Paperback

by R. Meimei Pan (Illustrator), Lynn a. Jacobson (Author)

In the 1960s, Kwajalein, a remote 900-acre Pacific island leased from the Republic of the Marshallese for reentry missile tests, was characterized by sharks, water rationing gone wrong, Dear John letters gone even more wrong, incomes on steroids, ship diving, Chinese satellites, gazillion-dollar radars, lovelorn bachelors, Russian multi-radar "fishing" trawlers, and local interceptor missile launches.

Kwaj was home to an elite core of 2,000 expat scientists and engineers (including families); a small military contingent handling island logistics; 3,000 highly paid, seriously female-deprived, lonely bachelors; and several hundred Marshalleses who commuted each day by ferry from their nearby home island.

These 5,000 inhabitants with too much money, too little opportunity to spend it, too few available women, no cars, no TV, no overseas phone service, and too much isolation proved that they were also far too human.

Who better to tell the collective stories of their lives, their quirks, their heartbreaks, and their adventures than author and MIT engineer Lynn A. Jacobson. In his book, Kwajalein, an Island Like No Other, Jacobson details his time on Kwaj, which included two tours with family (including the birth of a daughter) and one as a bachelor, where he was more privy than most to the happenings on the island.

Author Biography

With three MIT engineering degrees, Lynn Jacobson joined MIT Lincoln Labs in 1961 as a circuit designer for MIT's solar plasma probe and gamma ray telescope satellite programs. In 1964 he transferred to Kwajalein Island, the remote Pacific downrange terminus for US missile tests, where he lived and worked for a total of five years-an experience like no other.

During his career Jacobson published journal articles in optics, circuit design, and physics; taught several evening college courses; and has been awarded two patents.

The proud father of five daughters, Jacobson lives with his wife in Palo Alto, California. His daughters and wife cajoled him into sharing his many stories collected over the years, which led to his first two books, Surviving Five Daughters and Secrets of a Trophy Husband, and most recently, Kwajalein, An Island Like No Other.