Captain Fife's words were borne out - Aitutaki's airfield today is the most visible and positive legacy of WWII, bringing hundreds of visitors to the island each year and providing vital transport, supply and communication links for the island.

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After Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and began its invasion of other Pacific countries, the United States military had to quickly establish safe air routes across the Pacific that skirted the theatre of war. Aitutaki was one of many islands that allowed establishment of an airfield that would enable a strategic link from Hawai'i to Australia and the Western Pacific.

 

The US engineering firm, Sverdrup and Parcel, were given approval to build Aitutaki's airfield - it was referred to as Amuri Field.

Sverdrup's engineer, De Witt C. Wolfe, described the construction:

We didn’t build from plans; we just knew what we wanted, how long and how wide, and we just went in there and built them with what we had. We were building coral surface airstrips before the Seabees were even organised, can you believe that? The base course was made up with large hunks of coral which we ran over with tractors until they came down to size and then we topped it with coral sand. Coral has a lot of lime in it and we kept it wet with sea water so it could pack down. W’ed wet it and roll it and wet it and roll it again - it got almost like concrete. Our equipment came down from Honolulu by way of tugs and barges - the stuff started moving about six months after war was declared. The New Zealand public works department provided us with skilled labour and engineers. We hired native labour whenever we could. We paid them with money advanced to us by the US Army Corps of Engineers). Once the strips were completed we drew as-built plans. Those were the only plans which ever existed. 

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Amuri Field was completed by the end of August 1942 when a 16-man unit of US military engineers arrived to begin making preparations for the arrival of Task Force 8408 on the 14 November 1942.

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Two airstrips were constructed on what was previously a low lying and partial swampy peninsular. One landing strip 600 feet (1829m) by 200 feet (61m) ran North-South. The other strip of 5100 feet (1555m) by 200 feet (61m) ran in an East-West direction at the Northern end of the field. Both landing strips have been maintained to this day. Though only the North-South strip is in full-time use and in 2003 was bitumen sealed as part of an upgrade that brought it up to Boeing 737 passenger jet standards.

 

Eight revetments, or bunkers, were constructed randomly along both landing strips. These were to house and camouflage aircraft parked on the ground. Several of these are still evident. A large dispersal area was formed along approximately 300 metres of what is today the main road leading to Arutanga from the intersection at the East-West strip.

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The air base on Aitutaki is reputed to have cost the US  four and a half million dollars (Priday 1945).