The Battle of Wake Island began simultaneously with the Attack on Pearl Harbor and ended on December 23, 1941, with the surrender of the American forces to the Japanese.
| Battle of Wake Island | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Pacific Theater of World War II | |||||||
 A destroyed Japanese patrol boat {#33} on Wake. | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Empire of Japan |
.svg){kind=small} United States of America | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Shigeyoshi Inoue | Winfield S. Cunningham | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
|
•2,500 IJN Land Forces (Rikujo Butai) •Unknown number air & naval personnel |
•523 military •small unit of civilian volunteers | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
•700-900 killed •Two destroyers •Two patrol boats •Twenty aircraft |
•Fifty-two military & seventy civilians killed •Thirty-seven military & twelve civilians wounded •Twelve aircraft | ||||||
It was fought on and around the atoll formed by Wake Island and its islets of Peale and Wilkes Islands by the air, land and naval forces of the Empire of Japan against those of the United States of America, with marines playing a prominent role on both sides.
The island was held by the Japanese until September 4, 1945, when the remaining Japanese garrison surrendered to a detachment of United States Marines.
Prelude
In January 1941, the United States Navy constructed a military base on the atoll. On August 19, the first permanent military garrison, elements of the 1st Marine Defense Battalion, totaling 449 officers and men, were stationed on the island, under Navy Commander Winfield S. Cunningham. Also present on the island were 68 U.S. Navy personnel and about 1,221 civilian workers.
The Marines were armed with six old 5" (127 mm) cannon, removed from a scrapped cruiser, 12 3" (76.2 mm) M3 antiaircraft guns (with only a single working anti-aircraft sight between them), 18 Browning M2 heavy machine guns and 30 heavy, medium and light water- and air-cooled machine guns of various manufacture and operating condition.
On December 8, 1941, the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor (Wake being on the opposite side of the International Date Line), 16 Japanese medium bombers flown from bases on the Marshall Islands attacked Wake Island, destroying eight of the twelve F4F Wildcat fighter aircraft belonging to Marine Corps fighter squadron VMF-211 on the ground. All of the Marine garrison’s defensive emplacements were left intact by the raid, which primarily targeted the naval aircraft.
First landing attempt
Early on the morning of December 11, the garrison, with the support of the four remaining Wildcats, repulsed the first Japanese landing attempt by the South Seas Force, which included the light cruisers Yubari, Tenryu, and Tatsuta; the destroyers Yayoi, Mutsuki, Kisaragi, Hayate, Oite, and Asanagi; two old destroyers converted to patrol boats (Patrol Boat No. 32 and Patrol Boat No. 33), and two troop transport ships containing 450 Special Naval Landing Force troops. The U.S. Marines fired at the invasion fleet with their six 5-inch (127 mm) coastal artillery guns, sinking the Hayate and damaging most of the other ships. The four Wildcats also succeeded in sinking another destroyer, the Kisaragi. Hayate was the first Japanese naval ship sunk during World War II. The Japanese force withdrew before landing. This was the first Japanese defeat of the war. The first battle of Wake Island also marked the only occasion in all of World War II when an amphibious assault was repulsed by shore-based guns. After the initial raid was fought off, American news media reported that Cunningham had quipped “Send more Japs!” when queried about reinforcement and resupply. In fact, Commander Cunningham sent a long list of critical equipment—including gunsights, spare parts, and fire-control radar—to his immediate superior: Commandant, 14th Naval District.[1]
But the continuing siege and frequent Japanese air attacks on the Wake garrison continued, without resupply for the Americans. The initial resistance offered by the garrison prompted the Japanese Navy to detach two aircraft carriers (Soryu and Hiryu) from the force that attacked Pearl Harbor to support the second landing attempt.
Task Force 14
The projected U.S. relief attempt by Admiral Wilson Brown’s Task Force 14 (TF-14) consisted of fleet carriers Saratoga and Lexington, the fleet oiler USNS Neches, the seaplane tender Tangier, the cruisers Astoria, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, and ten destroyers. The convoy carried the 4th Marine Coastal Defense Battalion, the VMF-221 fighter squadron equipped with F2A “Brewster Buffalo” fighters, along with 9,000 five-inch (127 mm) rounds, 12,000 three-inch (76.2 mm) rounds, and 3,000,000 .50 cal. (12.7 mm) rounds as well as a large amount of ammunition for mortars and other battalion small arms.
On December 22 at 21:00, the task force received orders signed by Vice Admiral William S. Pye, the Acting Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, to return to Pearl Harbor for fear of losses, so no naval battle took place.
Second landing and American surrender
The second Japanese invasion force came on December 23, composed mostly of the same ships from the first attempt with some new additions, plus 1,500 Japanese marines. The landings begain at 02:35 hours where, after a preliminary bombardment, the ex-destroyers Patrol Boat No. 32 and Patrol Boat No. 33 were beached and burned in their attempts to land the invasion force. After a full night and morning of fighting, the Wake garrison surrendered to the Japanese by mid-afternoon.
The U.S. Marines lost only 49 killed during the entire 15-day siege while three U.S. Navy personnel and at least 70 civilians were killed. The Japanese losses were recorded at between 700 to 900 killed with at least 1,000 more wounded, in addition to the two destroyers lost in the first invasion attempt, as well as at least 20 land-based and carrier aircraft. The Japanese captured all men remaining on the island, of whom the majority were civilian contractors employed with Morrison-Knudsen Company.
Captain Henry T. Elrod, one of the pilots from VMF-211, was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his action on the Island during the Japanese landings on the 23rd for shooting down two Japanese A6 Zero fighters. A special military decoration, the Wake Island Device was also created to honor those who had fought in the defense of the island.
Japanese occupation and eventual surrender
Fearing an imminent invasion, the Japanese reinforced Wake Island with more formidable defenses. The American captives were ordered to build a series of bunkers and fortifications on Wake. The Japanese even imported a heavy artillery piece, captured from the British, from Singapore. On February 24, 1942, USS Enterprise attacked the Japanese garrison on Wake Island. The United States forces bombed the island from 1942 until Japan’s surrender in 1945. On July 8, 1943, B-24 Liberators in transit from Midway Island bombed the Japanese garrison on Wake Island. George H. W. Bush also conducted his first mission as an aviator over Wake Island. Afterwards, Wake was occasionally raided, but never attacked en masse.
War crimes
On October 5, 1943, American naval aircraft from USS Yorktown conducted an extremely successful raid. Two days later, fearing an imminent invasion, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of 98 captured American contract workers remaining on the island who had been doing forced labor for the Japanese. They were taken to the northern end of the island, blindfolded and machine-gunned. One of the prisoners (whose name has never been discovered) escaped the massacre, apparently returning to the site to carve the message 98 US PW 5-10-43 on a large coral rock near where the murdered Americans had been hastily buried in a mass grave. This unknown American was recaptured within a few weeks, after which Sakaibara personally beheaded him with a sword. The inscription on the rock can still be seen and is a Wake Island landmark. After the war, Sakaibara and his subordinate, Lieutenant-Commander Tachibana, were sentenced to death for this and other crimes. Several Japanese officers in American custody had committed suicide over the incident, leaving written statements that incriminated Sakaibara. Tachibana’s sentence was later commuted to life in prison.[2] The murdered civilian POWs are buried in Honolulu Memorial, Hawaii.
On September 4, 1945, the remaining Japanese garrison surrendered to a detachment of United States Marines. In a brief ceremony, the handover of Wake was officially conducted.
Wake in media & popular culture
Cinematic portrayal
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The Paramount studio began work on a movie before the real life battle for Wake Island was over. The resulting 1942 film, directed by John Farrow, tacks unrelated romantic subplots onto a straightforward re-telling of the Battle of Wake Island. The film contains factual errors, leaving viewers with the impression that the island's defenders fought to the last man. However, the film succeeded in its primary purpose of creating a stirring patriotic film. Wake Island was nominated for four Academy Awards, including best picture. Farrow won the 1942 New York Film Critics Circle Award for best director. The film was released on DVD by MCA Home Video in 2004.
A 2003 television documentary, Wake Island: Alamo of the Pacific, included interviews with both U.S. Marines and Japanese sailors who took part in the fighting. (The film received a 2004 Emmy nomination for music and sound.)
In the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) mentions to a young Butch Coolidge that his grandfather was killed fighting the Japanese at the Battle of Wake Island.
Video games
Several games based on World War II scenarios make mention or even feature a 'Wake Island' map or ___location. The most noted of these is the Digital Illusions CE/Electronic Arts game Battlefield 1942. Wake Island quickly became a favorite among players of Battlefield 1942 because of its immense size, and the fact that it allows for spectacular aerial dogfighting between the two opposing teams. This map offers action between the Japanese and American military, with the Americans defending the island and the Japanese attacking from a aircraft carrier and a destroyer. EA's latest Battlefield game, Battlefield 2, added a new map to the original line-up called Wake Island 2007, included in a upgrade patch to version 1.03 released on the 5th of October, 2005. Based on its BF1942 counterpart, this version of Wake Island features the Chinese People's Liberation Army initially defending the island against the amphibious assault by the United States Marine Corps, and the island's defenses are updated with advanced technologies of modern warfare, including features consistent with all BF2 maps, such as land-based artillery. Wake Island 2007 differs from its older sister in that the land-based anti-aircraft guns have been replaced by manned heat-seeking missle launchers, a small island in the mouth of the lagoon has been added to hold the American artillery howitzers, some bridges can be temporarily destroyed, and the Wasp-class Assault Carrier (USS Essex), unescorted, is immobile and indestructable. As a consequence, the shore guns from the BF1942 version have been removed from the island and replaced with bunkers. Wake Island 2007 still has remnants left from World War 2 version, including the bunkers, huts, and a wrecked Japanese Zero in the lagoon. Like its BF1942 counterpart, it is also a favorite among players. The Wake Island 2007 map correctly depicts the overall shape of Wake Island, but doesn't accurately reflect the modern state of the island. Notably the orientation of the airfield is depicted as running North - South, where in reality it runs close to East - West.
Notes
- ^ Robert J. Cressman, A Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Defense of Wake Island, World War II Commemorative Series, ed. Benis M. Frank (Marine Corps Historical Center: Washington, D.C.:1998). Electronic version - accessed 6-10-2006
- ^ Hubbs, Mark E. "Massacre on Wake Island". Retrieved 2006-06-03.
References
- Sloan, Bill. Given up for Dead: America's Heroic Stand at Wake Island. Bantam Books, 2003. ISBN 0-55-380302-6
External links
USMC Historical Section Publications
- The Defense of Wake
- A Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Battle for Wake Island
- Part Three: The Defense of Wake
Others
- Wake Island Civilian Survivors Association
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