The Battle of Wake Island 1941 - Animated

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After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Empire of Japan sets its sights on a number of strategically important targets in the Pacific. The US atoll of Wake is a key island in the Pacific Ocean which, if captured, would allow the Japanese military to project power and influence towards other US islands in the region. With US Marines dug in, the invasion will be a much tougher challenge than anticipated.

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[TheOperationsRoom]

Follow my link to get the game as well as an exclusive bonus. Thank you for supporting the channel!

[paulroberts]

I didn’t realise that the Wake defenders sank a couple of Japanese ships and initially drove off the invasion force. I already thought that the defenders were heroes for holding their ground against overwhelming odds. But I have a great deal more respect having watched this video.

[mattelliott]

My grandfather, George Rosandick, was one of the Morrison Knudsen contractors working on the airfield on Wake when the Japanese came. He spent the entirety of the war, 4.5 years, in a Japanese POW camp watching his friends killed and in a constant state of hunger. His trial absolutely changed the path of my families’ life. He passed in 2005 but his greatest achievement was the strong, loving family he raised and left in his native Idaho. He didn’t hold a grudge against the Japanese people and visited Japan and Wake again later in his life. Thank you for telling this story.

[jeanhunter]

A lot of the defenders were hastily equipped civilian contractors as well. Though a large portion of them and the marine wake POWs would be murdered by the Japanese before the end of the war.

[AmericanIdiot]

The men defending Wake island were legendary and shall never be forgotten. It is sad to see how they were treated after the battle, they all should get Medals, including the civilians.

"As we lay down our arms on the twenty third day The Japs cheered the news of defeat. But they could not believe a few crummy Marines Had stopped the whole Japanese fleet." -Wake Island by Oscar Brand

[PhizzleOut]

Imagine promised help, although late, then getting news that that mission was abandoned.

[peterslaby]

Huge props to those Wildcat pilots for all those accurate hits. It had probably been a awhile since they had had a chance to train with anything.

[southseasflying]

Our company goes to Wake regularly. It's really impressive to see some of the old sites and "98 rock" is a solemn reminder of what awaited these brave men after they surrendered. There were about 1200 civilians on Wake Island at the time of the attack, mostly military contractors and some Pan Am Airlines employees.

[pablopablo]

If they knew how savage the Japanese were to prisoners they would have probably fought to the last man.

[nicksmth]

Something that is very saddening. after wake island was captured. 98 soldiers and civilians were kept on the island for slave labor.

they were treated horribly and tortured regularly. Soon the US was advancing on the pacific so the Japanese commander ordered all of the 98 to be killed. 1 soldier or civilian managed to escape and hide next to a large boulder for a few hours. He etched into the rock the words “ 98, US, PW 5-10-43”.
soon after he was captured and personally beheaded by the japanese commander.

The rock is now known as “98 rock” and you can actually go and see it

[kilcar]

Our dear friend Richard was a civilian contractor who volunteered to assist the Marine shore battery. He was sworn in, and He was captured with the Marines, while his co-workers, ( civilians who did not fight) were tortured & butchered by Japanese, and many worked to death by Japanese Marines of the IJN who were "fiendish animals" according to Richard, who worked in coal mines in Japan as slave labour till liberation in August, 1945.

[Ie_Shima]

As bombs fell on Ford Island and torpedoes slammed into Battleship Row, the 520 soldiers, sailors, and marines of the Wake Island garrison found themselves trapped on a glorified sand spit in a suddenly hostile Pacific. Trapped with them were 1, 221 civilian employees of the Morrison-Knudson construction company.


While many of the MK men refused to help the garrison during the campaign, hundreds stepped forward to fill whatever role was needed. They utilized the heavy construction equipment on hand to dig trenches and build bunkers. They laid and wired dozens of improvised mines made from dynamite and blasting powder. They carried ammunition for the atoll’s antiaircraft batteries during the endless air raids and, when the shorthanded garrison couldn’t man all of the guns, formed an impromptu gun crew to help. Their mechanics worked day and night to aid the marine aviators in refueling, rearming, and repairing the dwindling handful of war-torn Wildcats that flew patrols until they literally fell apart. They cheered with the garrison as the shore batteries sank a Japanese destroyer during the first invasion attempt, the first enemy surface ship sunk during the war, then cheered again when word came back that a second destroyer had succumbed to the atoll’s pilots.


And when the last Wildcat had been shot down, as food and ammunition dwindled, as the bombing intensified, as word came from Pearl Harbor that the vital rescue force had been ordered to turn back, and as a second Japanese fleet appeared over the horizon, they stood with the garrison and met the invaders at the water’s edge, fighting with rifles, rocks, and their own bare hands.

The 3" gun that rained fire into the Japanese patrol boats on the south shore was captained by Marine Lieutenant Robert Hanna and Corporal Ralph Holewinski. Manning the gun alongside them were civilians Bob Bryan, Paul Gay, and Eric Lehtola. Bryan and Gay would not survive the night.

Major Paul Putnam, commanding officer of VMF-211, was ordered to take his 22 surviving officers and men and form a scratch defensive line between the shore and the airfield. As they moved out to take their positions, 22 civilians, led by work boss John Sorenson, followed them. Putnam ordered the MK men to turn around, warning that they had no spare weapons for them and that if they were captured the Japanese would surely execute them. Sorenson, who towered over the diminutive Marine, responded, "Major, do you think you're really big enough to make us stay behind?" And so Putnam made his stand with half his force comprised of civilians. Ten of them would die in the fighting. Sorenson would be among them, killed as he charged a Japanese position with his bare hands to buy time for his comrades.

Captain Henry "Hammerin' Hank" Elrod, the pilot who had on the 12th attacked a formation of over twenty Japanese aircraft by himself, shooting down two in the process, and then capped his success by sinking the destroyer Kisaragi, was also with Putnam's group. Reportedly wielding a Thompson submachine gun, and then a captured light machine gun, as well as he handled a Wildcat, Elrod was at the point of every counterattack against the Japanese. He was killed early in the morning of the 23rd, gunned down as he threw grenades to cover men bringing up ammunition and taking back the wounded. He would be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in the sky and on the ground, the first to be given to an aviator during the war.


But despite these efforts, it wasn’t enough. On December 23rd, fifteen days after the start of the war, the defenders surrendered. The Japanese quickly transferred the garrison and the able-bodied civilians off the atoll, putting them to work in POW camps in Japan and China. The wounded, and several members of the defender’s medical staff who volunteered to stay behind, remained on the islands as they were quickly cut off by the advancing Allied counter offensive. Soon, the occupying forces received a taste of their own medicine as American bombing raids and blockades severely hampered resupply efforts. Facing potential starvation, the Japanese commander made an appalling choice.


On October 5th, 1943, the 98 remaining American prisoners were taken to the northern end of the island, blindfolded, and then killed with machine guns. Amazingly, one of the POWs managed to escape the massacre, but he was discovered the following morning and executed.


At the end of the war, the Japanese garrison surrendered to the American Navy. When questioned about what happened to the POWs that had remained on the island, the commander insisted that the shelter they were staying in had been hit by an American bomb, killing all of them. Knowing that this was a lie, as it was to convenient to have taken place, the Americans conducted a search of the island. They quickly found what they were looking for


Unbeknownst to the Japanese, they had not covered all of their tracks. In the dead of night, the massacre’s lone survivor returned to the beach and, in the darkness, carved a message into a coral boulder at the water’s edge:


98 US PW 5-10-43


When confronted with this, the garrison admitted to their crimes. The Japanese commander was sentenced to death, and his subordinates spent the rest of their lives in prison.


Today, Wake Island is wildlife sanctuary, established to protect the thousands of rare bird species that call the coral atolls of the Pacific their home. The airbase there is used as an emergency field for transpacific flights, and the total population numbers less than 100 American military personnel.


The rock, and its mournful message, are still there.

[DakotaofRaptors]

Should be noted that the last WW2 MoH recipient passed away on the 29th of June. RIP, Hershel "Woody" Williams...

[Tekisasubakani]

I can't recommend "Pacific Alamo" by John Wukovits enough, it is an excellent coverage of pre-, during and post-battle, and tells the stories of those involved [civilian, USMC, IJN] very well.

[cming]

Those Marines simply shot the HELL out of anything that came near them. I was always disappointed that Wake Island wasn't recaptured a lot sooner in the Pacific War. If for Morale reasons if nothing else. We would've owed it to those Marines who so gallantly did their Duty and gave the Japanese Navy a really bad bloody nose so soon after Pearl Harbor.

[jakobsievers]

I have such fond memories of playing "wake island" in Battlefield 1942 when I was younger, that I honestly got really happy when I saw the notification for this video. Always wanted to know how it actually went down.

[Applekrate]

Such a damm shame those brave men were not reinforced or rescued somehow, submarine, etc. They served and fought so bravely. It hurts me to see they were abandoned. Excellent video by the way. I have read a few great books on the subject but, the video and narration here are well done and help further. thank you for great historical work!

[mr.mgarand]

Been waiting for this one! Probably my favorite battle of the early war

[billytaylor]

My Grandfather William Taylor was a civilian contractor on Wake who helped fight off the Japanese invasion. It’s amazing how brave those men were. After the battle he was one of the lucky ones taken prisoner to mainland China and put in a prison camp. He miraculously escaped by jumping off a moving train and was captured/rescued by Communist Chinese forces under the command of General Mao. He wrote a book “Rescued By Mao” that tells his whole story.

[Binkley-rjgf]

Love your videos. A small suggestion - it struck me that this video would have been improved by adding dimensions at various points of the narration like how long is the southern shore, how wide is the mouth of the harbor, how far from the northeast battery to the southwest battery, etc. Some scale to the island would have provided a higher level of appreciation of what was going on, the difficulty the American had given their small numbers, etc