Wake Island
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America was at last forced to officially enter World War II. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially declared war on the Japanese and in his famous radio address to the American people, he professed that December 7 was a day that would live in infamy. Americans and Japanese alike, still remember Pearl Harbor Day, but how many remember the gallant, fighting Marines who served on a tiny atoll in the Pacific by the name of ?
Prior to the war, , located 2300 miles west of Honolulu, was an unincorporated territory of the United States, which was placed under the jurisdiction of the Navy in 1934. It was also a Clipper stop on ...
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the first bombing of the island. The bombings by the Japanese continued until December 23, when under continuous shelling, the Americans, under U.S. Navy Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham, were finally forced to surrender. Although the Japanese finally took the island, they incurred heavy losses. Three cruisers and one transport sustained heavy damage, two destroyers and one patrol boat were sunk, while 820 Japanese soldiers were killed, with another 333 wounded. In contrast, American military casualties included 120 killed, 49 wounded, with two missing in action.
Initially, Japanese strategists assumed that the tiny island would be overwhelmed in a matter of hours. However, they underestimated the fighting spirit of the military personnel and civilians stationed on the island. For sixteen days these brave men fought against overwhelming odds, but demonstrated both to the Japanese and to their fellow Americans back at home that the Americans could and would put up a ...
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wire and made to stand in the hot sun for two days with no food and very little water. Back on the homefront, besides worrying about the safety of their loved ones, the families of the civilians were left without the regular financial support that the construction crew had been sending prior to their unintended involvement in the war. Twenty-six civilians died during the sixteen-day siege of Wake.
On January 12, 1942, approximately 1200 American prisoners of war were loaded on board the Japanese passenger ship, the Nitta Maru, for the twelve-day voyage to China. Twenty of the wounded passengers were dropped off in Japan while five of the Americans were beheaded while aboard ship. The ...
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Wake Island. (2005, September 22). Retrieved November 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Wake-Island/33747
"Wake Island." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 22 Sep. 2005. Web. 23 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Wake-Island/33747>
"Wake Island." Essayworld.com. September 22, 2005. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Wake-Island/33747.
"Wake Island." Essayworld.com. September 22, 2005. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Wake-Island/33747.
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