COVER STORY | THE MALDIVES
The enemy was never far away from this tropical outpost , and U boats patrolled the waters . In March 1944 , the German submarine U-183 fired through the Gan channel , torpedoing the oil tanker British Loyalty , anchored in Addu Lagoon . The tanker was damaged but not sunk , and its oil spilled into the lagoon and on the beaches .
The British Loyalty was repaired and remained a storage hulk in the lagoon for the rest of the war . It was finally scuttled in January 1946 , inside the atoll southeast of Hithadhoo . The wreck sits at the bottom of the lagoon and is one of the most spectacular dive sites in the Maldives .
When World War II ended , the British Royal Air Force wanted to hold onto this strategic position at Addu , building a new airbase at Gan and a radio communications center at Hithadhoo in 1957 . It was an ideal refueling and supply post on the route linking the UK to Hong Kong , Singapore , Australia , and the rest of East Asia .
A lease was granted to the British to occupy the Addu Atoll Gan Island for 30 years , an agreement upheld after the Maldives gained independence in 1965 . In fact , the British withdrew from Addu in 1976 , before the lease expired .
RAF Gan was a busy and vital base . It covered one of the largest aerial search areas in the world and handled thousands of aircraft and passengers during its operation .
The buildings are well preserved ; today , the RAF airfield at Gan has become an international airport . In addition , the base has been transformed into one of Addu ’ s few resorts , the Equator Village , and the old forces hospital now houses a dive center .
The British also had a base in the northern tip of the Maldives for a very short period . In 1945 , they established a staging post in Kelaa until the end of World War II as a complementary northern base to the southern base in Gan .
The RAF base in Kelaa was used as a refueling station for planes . Today , it is possible to see two concrete anchor columns built by the British in the lagoon for this purpose . They used a carrier to transfer their army from seaplanes to land , which now lies in ruins in the lagoon .
Around 100 RAF soldiers were stationed at the base at a time , most of whom were pilots . In addition to these barracks , a small jetty was built for army vessels . Since the buildings were built near the beach , a windbreaker was constructed along the coast using timber boxes .
During its glory days , the RAF base also had an armory for storing weapons . The armory ’ s walls are still standing , and conservation works are ongoing by the island council and local NGOs .
One humorous story was about the day the British held an urgent meeting with the island chief concerning marks around their buildings . The markings looked like Japanese characters , and the British were worried that it might have been a message from the Japanese .
They were informed by laughing locals that these marks were left by hermit crabs .
The British stayed at the Kelaa base for 11 months . Once the war ended , they left , leaving their material behind , which was taken to Malé by the government .
Early trade in the Maldives was made through a barter exchange using cowrie shells . These were considered the 5th most valuable currency and used for trade as early as the 5th century . In addition , iron , gold , silver , and bronze were regarded as high-value and used for exchange .
High-value items for barter included spices , lacquer work , coir rope , coconut , coral , turtle shells , triton shells , dry fish , smoked fish , and shark fin . Thankfully we don ’ t trade many of these items today , and the trade of turtle shells and shark fins is prohibitive .
By the end of the Middle Ages in the early 16th century , gold and silver coins emerged as currency . The economy was driven by pole and line fishing , a traditional method introduced by older generations and still widely used today .
Today , tourism is the foundation of the Maldives ’ economy , having grown over 50 years from a thirdworld to a developing country with a 34 % GDP contribution from the tourism sector .
So , how did tourism come to be ?
In the late 1960s , a team of experts from the United Nations
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