The Fantail - Navy Blog - Navy Times

The “Alamo of the Pacific”

It’s the evening of June 21 and the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, screened by the Canadian frigate Regina, steamed within 10 miles of Wake Island — scene of a vicious battle between American defenders and Japanese invaders in December 1941.

Steaming to the Northeast, the Kitty Hawk passed by the southern side of Wake — the same side the Japanese invaded from. It was also from near these waters that the second aircraft carrier, Yorktown, pummeled the islands in late 1943, a practice that U.S ships and aircraft would continue for the remainder of the war, inflicting hundreds of casualties on the Japanese garrison.

Wake Island should figure much more prominently in the lore of American and U.S. Marine Corps history. Here, a small band of more than 400 Marines held off the Japanese for over two weeks in December 1941, aided by a large number of civilian contractors who were helping build the island’s defenses.

With the civilians, the group repulsed the first Japanese landing on the island, killing hundreds of enemy troops in the process. Along with the aviation Marines of Fighter Squadron 211, they shot down numerous aircraft and sunk two destroyers and a gunboat while damaging other ships of the Japanese invasion fleet Dec. 11, 1941.

But few of those details got through to the American public, still reeling from the attacks of Dec. 7, 1941, on Pearl Harbor and on the Philippines on Dec. 8.

After the initial success of the Marines, officials promised a resupply but pulled back at the last moment when a superior Japanese invasion force reappeared off Wake on Dec. 23. Outgunned and nearly out of ammunition and supplies, the U.S. forces capitulated.

Most would spend the next four years in captivity in China and Japan. After the October raids in 1943, the Japanese executed the remaining 96 civilians left on the island, considering them a liability.

With flight operations over, many of Kitty’s crew came up to the flight deck and the island to catch a glimpse of the historic island. Now it’s an airfield stopping point for aviators crossing the Pacific Ocean.

But the island was the scene of a selfless stand. With so many heroic battles to come in the next four years, few today discuss Wake in the same breath as Saipan, Iwo Jima or even Okinawa.

But those who care to take a look and read about those heroic Marines and sailors will find it is worth the time spent learning about “the Alamo of the Pacific.”