I will be callimg my oldest Brother over these. He worked for Brown Engineering out of Hawaii. He was stationed on Kwajalein for 5 and 1/2 years. Like it was mentioned they did missle tracking. The Air force would fire missles from California and these teams would rate the accuracy as the missle came into the lagoon. They also recovered the missle cones by divers to test for different materials later used in space shots.
An atoll by the way is the top of a mountain volcano that has erupted and you are left with the rim or part of it above the water.
One end of the island was a military base and the other end was where the civilians lived. The island is appox 2 1/2 miles lomg and 1/2 mile wide. There was to be no co-mengaling between the two except at work. Typically the civilians did it because after 18 months all your previous wages were tax free. Also no rent, utilities, etc. Your only expense was food and drink. Naturally the civilian side people would get cabin fever and Brown Eng. would do a lot of stuff to entertain them. Fly in electronics from Japan, fur coats from Russia, etc. I was told of the wives softball games, where there were bets of $100's of dollars on the next pitch being a ball or strike followed by similar bets on whether the batter would swing at the next one. There was a thing called snowball also. I don't remeber all the details, but it starts with a phone call, which triggers another until the last person is stuck with a party for 30 to 50 people heading to your house right now.
There were very few vehicles on the island, everyone used bicycles. No police only security guards. When my nieces came home and I was driving them. They would ask "why did you stop" I said you were supposed to at red light or get a ticket from the police. "Who are they?" Quite a different life style to exprience in your formitive years.
I will post again if he has any answers on the whale chips.