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The Battle of Wake Island was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on Wake Island.The assault began simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor naval and air bases in Hawaii on the morning of 8 December 1941 (7 December in Hawaii), and ended on 23 December, with the surrender of American forces to the Empire of Japan.
On December 23 Wake Island was captured by the Japanese and Putnam, along with the other surviving Wake Island defenders, was taken prisoner. He was held in Japanese POW camps from December 1941 until September 1945, when he was released at the end of the war.
USS Enterprise was 200 miles west of Hawaii, returning from Wake Island. [18] IJN Protection for 1st Air Fleet Returning Home From Pearl Harbor Raid (Dec 8 1941) IJN Main Body/3rd Carrier Division (distant cover): IJN Hōshō (CV) IJN Zuihō (CVL) IJN Invasion of Wake Island (7–23 December 1941) IJN Sōryū (CV) IJN Hiryū (CV)
On December 4, 1941, Captain Elrod flew to Wake Island with twelve aircraft, twelve pilots, and the ground crew of Major Paul A. Putnam's fighter squadron, VMF-211. Hostilities in the air over Wake Island commenced on December 8, 1941. On December 12, he single-handedly attacked a flight of 22 enemy planes and shot down two.
It was the location of some of the fighting during the Battle of Wake Island in December 1941. Wilkes was the site of a shore battery and defenses, as part of the overall defenses of Wake island, when WW2 broke out. Japanese troops landed on the Wilkes island as part of the invasion of island, which fell 23 December 1941. [9]
[3] [12] Ro-62 followed on 14 December 1941. [13] The Battle of Wake Island ended as Wake Island fell to the Japanese on 23 December 1941. [3] Ro-61 saw no action off Wake and returned to Kwajalein on 27 December 1941. [3] She and Ro-62 were reassigned to the Marshalls Area Guard Unit on 5 January 1942 and patrolled off Kwajalein thereafter. [3 ...
The Battle of Wake Island ended in Japanese victory. The Japanese invasions of Lingayen Gulf and Lamon Bay were completed. Douglas MacArthur declared Manila an open city and began withdrawing to Bataan. [3] The British passenger ship Shuntien was torpedoed and sunk west of Alexandria by German submarine U-559.
In November 1941, VMF-211 embarked 12 of its 24 F4F-3 Wildcats and 13 of its 29 pilots aboard USS Enterprise for movement to Wake Island, the scene of the squadron's heroic battle, launching from the carrier and arriving at Wake on 3 December. [4] On 8 December 1941, the Japanese attacked Wake, destroying seven of the aircraft on the ground.