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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.
The first Marine airman to be awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II was VMF-211's Henry T. Elrod. A planned operation to reinforce Wake Island was deemed too dangerous by the fleet command, and on 23 December Wake Island was finally overrun by a numerically superior enemy. VMF-211 F4U-4s on USS Coral Sea in 1952
Observations by those visiting the Pan-Am hotel in the late 1930s provided some of the only observations of living Wake Island rails, a flightless bird that was native to the atoll but went extinct during World War II. Wake Island is credited with being one of the early successes of hydroponics, which enabled Pan American Airways to grow ...
After the war, Putnam continued his career in the Marine Corps and was promoted to colonel retroactive to November 15, 1942. In 1947 he was awarded the Navy Cross for heroism on December 21, 1941, when he took off in a plane on an unescorted flight in an attempt to find the Japanese aircraft carrier whose planes were attacking Wake Island.
Servicemembers search for POW/MIAs on Wake Island : Source: Digital: Image title: A memorial to prisoners of war is seen Jan. 12 on Wake Island. The "98 Rock" is a memorial for the 98 U.S. civilian contract POWs who were forced by their Japanese captors to rebuild the airstrip as slave labor, then blind-folded and killed by machine gun Oct. 5 ...
The Wake Island Device is an award device of the United States military which is presented as a campaign clasp to both the Navy and Marine Corps Expeditionary Medals. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The Wake Island Device is authorized for any sailor or Marine who was awarded the Navy or Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal due to service during the defense of Wake ...
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.
Walter Lewis John Bayler (8 April 1905 – 8 December 1984) was a brigadier general in the United States Marine Corps who was famed during World War II as the "Last Man Off Wake Island" and the only American to see combat at Wake Island, Midway and Guadalcanal.