The Lake Norman Brief
Wake Island
The Battle of Wake Island, 8 to 23 December 1941: nine chaptered articles on the Pan Am base and the naval air station, the first raid, the landing thrown back on 11 December, the siege, the relief that turned around, the final assault, the prisoners, the 98 and Wake today. Start with the interactive atoll atlas.
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Memory and Legacy: Medals, Myths, the 1942 Film and Wake Today
How the Battle of Wake Island has been remembered since 1941: the medals and the long fight for the civilian workers’ recognition,…
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Occupied Wake, 1942–1945: Raids, Starvation and the Murder of the 98
Japan held Wake Island for more than three and a half years. American raids and the blockade starved the garrison, and on…
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Captives: The Nitta Maru, the Camps in China and the Men Left Behind
What happened to the Wake Island prisoners of 1941: the Nitta Maru voyage and the five men beheaded at sea, Woosung and…
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23 December: The Final Assault and the Surrender
Before dawn on 23 December 1941, about a thousand Japanese naval infantry landed on Wake and Wilkes. The Marines on Wilkes destroyed…
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The Relief That Never Came: Task Force 14 and the Recall
In December 1941 the carrier Saratoga, the seaplane tender Tangier and a 12-knot oiler steamed toward Wake Island with Marines, radar and…
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Under the Bombs: The Siege, 12–22 December
For eleven days after the failed landing, Japanese bombers hit Wake Island almost daily while Marines, sailors and civilian workers moved guns…
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11 December: The Landing That Failed
At dawn on 11 December 1941, Marine gunners on Wake Island held their fire until a Japanese invasion force closed to a…
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8 December: The First Raid and the Wildcats Lost on the Ground
Just before noon on Monday, 8 December 1941, some three dozen Japanese bombers came out of a rain squall over Wake Island.…
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Before the Storm: Pan Am, the Contractors and the Build-Up on Wake
Before the Battle of Wake Island: how Pan Am’s 1935 Clipper base, the Hepburn Board, 1,146 civilian contractors and an undermanned Marine…