Wake Island

In past essays I have written about a number of Pacific Ocean islands, some of which I have personal knowledge and others of which I have read or know of indirectly.  Wake Island falls into this latter category. 

Actually, what is referred to as Wake Island is really three islands formed into a long crescent with the

open end of the lagoon facing westward.  The islands are Wilkes, Peale and Wake with Wake at the apex; Peale forming the northern leg and Wilkes the southern.  The three islands have a total land mass of 2.5 square miles and are a maximum of 21 feet above sea level, a bit higher than Midway, but not much.

At the turn of the 20^th century, Japan felt threatened by Russia’s expansionist policies in the Far East where they had already expanded into Manchuria at the expense of China.  During 1904-05, Japan attacked Russia, and in a series of bloody battles ending with the destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Tsushima Straits, defeated Russia and forced its withdrawal from Manchuria, which was returned to China.  As part of the settlement of the war, Japan assumed control of Korea.  Until their victory over the Russians, the Japanese did not control the seas.  The victory changed that.  With the Russian fleet no longer dominating the seas around Japan and China, control fell to Japan.  With their newfound sea power, Japan expanded into Manchuria.  During 1931, they created an incident at Mukden, on the Southern Railroad, and used the incident as a pretext to occupy all of Manchuria, incorporating it into Japan through a puppet government and renaming it Manchukuo. 

It was during this period that the Japanese military took note of the distribution of the islands in the western Pacific Ocean.  They reasoned that dominance of the Pacific required control of the western Aleutian Islands as an anchor with additional bases in the Marshall Islands and Midway.  With the entire western Pacific under their control, the United States, the only other power in the Pacific, would be faced with a dagger pointed at the Hawaiian Islands and the west coast of the mainland.  Under the circumstances, the Japanese military reasoned that any U.S. incursion into the Japanese controlled western Pacific could easily be flanked and defeated.  Unable to expand into the areas controlled by Japan, the U.S. would be forced to negotiate a peace, which would create a naval stalemate, guarantee the continued dominance by the Japanese, and permit them to solidify their conquests, as the World War I settlements had provided them with most of the former German strategic Pacific Ocean colonies, which they extensively fortified.  How could they lose?

This was the background during the early 1930s when Japan invaded China, rejected efforts by the League of Nations to restore peace, and ultimately left the League.

When the United States protested the actions of Japan in the Far East, imposed embargoes on Japan, and

took other non-military actions in an effort to persuade Japan to return to peaceful pursuits, the Japanese responded with the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and other Pacific bases of the united States, causing extensive damage to facilities and the Pacific fleet. 

  

Concurrent with their attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched an attack against Wake Island on December 8, 1941, local time, with land-based bombers, destroying facilities and all but four Wildcat fighters.  At the time of the attack there were only 400 Marines defending the island.  The civilian staff, which was in the process of constructing the airfield, fortifications and a submarine base, consisted of approximately 1,200 workers.

After the air attack, the Japanese navy moved a large force of cruisers and destroyers with a landing force aboard to Wake in a daylight attack.  The Marines permitted the fleet to approach to within point blank range before opening fire.  In the ensuing battle, the Japanese lost two destroyers with seven additional fleet units suffering damage.  The fleet was forced to retire.

Having been defeated in their initial attempt to land a force, the Japanese returned to bombing the islands.  The bombing continued for almost two weeks during which time three of the four remaining Wildcats were destroyed, leaving the islands virtually defenseless against air attacks.  On December 23, the Japanese navy returned in force and attempted a night landing on Wilkes Island.  The attack was repulsed with over 90 of the landing force killed.  The Marines had their second victory.  However, the landings on Wake Island were overwhelming and the U.S. naval commander was forced to capitulate. 

After an initial threat to kill all of the captives, the surviving military and contractor personnel were transported to China to perform slave labor in support of the Japanese war effort.  Less than 100 contractor personnel were retained at Wake to build defense emplacements for the Japanese.  The Japanese were expecting an immediate retaliatory counterattack, which never came.    The U.S. Navy, in its severely weakened state, chose to bypass Wake Island and to neutralize it with bombardment from ships and planes, including planes from Midway. 

During the early months of the war, the United States chose to conduct destabilizing raids against Japan, such as the bombing of Tokyo and the Makin Island raid.  While the military value of these attacks was low, the effect on the nation’s morale was beneficial.  The added defeats of the Japanese in the Solomon Islands and in the critical naval battle at Midway, where they lost four of their major fleet carriers and the cream of their naval combat pilots, started the Japanese on their path to ultimate capitulation.

After the Japanese stabilized Wake Island, they constructed a floatplane facility in the lagoon and moved in a number of four-engine Kawasaki flying boats.  These planes were capable of flying long distances with heavy bomb loads and were strongly defended, including a four machine gun turret in the tail.  The risk to Midway was obvious. 

In December 1942, heavy B-24 bombers operating from the Midway Islands bombed the facilities on Wake Island, including the Kawasaki terminal, on Christmas Day and removed the threat.  The Japanese never replaced the destroyed planes.

The Wake Island Japanese commander was so enraged at the American bombing and shelling of his facilities, and his inability to transform the island into viable threat, that he ordered the remaining contractor personnel killed.  After the war ended, he was given a fair trial and hanged.  During his trial, he attempted to blame the contractor’s deaths on the American bombings.  Forensic evidence, however, clearly showed that the deaths were by execution.

In a side note, it was established after the war that the Aleutian thrust was never more than a threatening move by the Japanese, which placed western Canada and Alaska at potential risk, and was designed to force the diversion of Allied troops and facilities to defend against a potential attack that was never intended unless an unexpected opportunity presented itself.  

Prepared from material abstracted from the Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004 CD, personal recollections, and a television documentary Wake Island viewed on Ch-13 on July 4, 2004.   

July 2004

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