ISBN 0-8032-4555-6
727 pages

Preface; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Wake Island Survivors Who Contributed to This Book; photos; maps; Epilogue; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Appendices: Organization and Defense Installations of the Wake Island Detachment, First Defense Battalion, 6 December 1941; The Wake Invasion Force and Its Supports, 8-11 December 1941

   The Siege of Wake Island might not have been the largest or most significant action of the Second World War, but it scores very high on the books-per-combatants scale with several first-hand accounts from American defenders and several more third-person histories. Despite all the ink already spilled over the battle, the new tome from Greg Urwin succeeds as the pre-eminent book on the topic and one not likely to be unseated from that position any time soon.
   Urwin starts his book at what almost seems the beginning of time, with a studious lecture on the island's topography and geology, in the process reminding us that Wake is actually an atoll made up of the three distinct islets of Wake, Peale, and Wilkes. His survey continues with the earliest discoveries and explorations and later claims by the U.S. government and the first stirrings of interest in the remote specks. In 1934 Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order transferring Wake directly under U.S. Navy administration; the Navy promptly agreed to permit a commercial installation there. After centuries of uninhabited obscurity, in May 1935 an expedition from Pan American Airways set out to construct facilities on Peale, without which it would have proved impossible for Pan Am to begin flying its Clippers from San Francisco to the Philippines and China via the trans-Pacific route of Hawaii, Midway, Wake, and Guam.
   In November 1936 Pam Am initiated regular flights from California to the Philippines, covering 8210 miles in about 60 flying hours spread over six days. This, when measured against the average transit time of three weeks via steamship, caused military leaders in Tokyo to sit up and take notice. Urwin then backtracks to trace the development of Japanese-American relations from 1853 onward and then places the development of the civilian seaplane base at Wake neatly into the larger geo-political and military picture.
   As Wake's strategic possibilities become gradually more apparent in the age of airpower, the Navy commenced the lengthy and difficult task of gaining support, approval, and appropriations for building USN facilities there. Despite recommendations of the Hepburn Board and secret Navy plans to fortify the atoll (including surreptitious surveys, projected TOEs, and even the marking of positions for gun emplacements), it proved to be a case of too little too late. Not until the summer of 1940 was final authorization and funding secured. Construction finally began in January 1941.
   That's also the point at which Urwin begins his detailed description of the construction operations and the individuals involved in the work, devoting several chapters to explaining exactly who the civilian contractors were, what they were doing, how they were doing it, and what life was like for the workers on such a remote and tiny place. The goal of all this construction effort? A base for a squadron of twelve PBY seaplanes and a division of submarines, conveniently located to secure Hawaii against enemy intrusions, protect the American line of communications to Manila, and to be ready to accept B-17s and other reinforcements to be used offensively against Japan and its Pacific possessions.
   Admiral Husband Kimmel, who assumed command of the Pacific Fleet on 1 February 1941, in October proposed an even larger force for Wake: an additional two fighter squadrons, one patrol squadron, half a dive-bomber squadron, and half a torpedo-bomber squadron plus a reinforced Defense Battalion amounting to 1851 Marines. But—despite the fact that construction work accelerated from eight-hour days five days per week to round-the-clock effort seven days per week—the years of neglect and delay meant facilities were still not ready for more than a fraction of the garrison.
   In August 1941 the first defenders—a detachment of the 1st Marine Defense Battalion—arrived on Wake and promptly began to set up shop. These and their gradually increasing number would come under the command of Major James P. S. Devereux, USMC. After an experimental flight in September, the U.S. Army Air Forces began ferrying B-17s to the Philippines via the still incomplete airstrip in October. Because the Marines were required to spend long hours refueling the bombers (using hand-cranked pumps), preparation of defensive positions suffered. More Marine, Navy, and a few Army reinforcements arrived and at the end of October Wake received a new commander, Commander Winfield S. Cunningham, USN.
   On 3 December a squadron of PBY-5s arrived to patrol and cover the arrival of the USS Enterprise and its precious cargo. On 4 December, 12 Marine F4F-3 Wildcats of VMF-211 flew from the Big E to base on Wake although the airbase facilities ranged "from primitive to nonexistent." The patrol aircraft departed on 6 December and, despite the grand but belated plans, there were no more reinforcements.
   The aviation Marines began trying to hack together ground facilities, but after working non-stop for weeks, military and civilians alike were treated to a rare break with a day off on Sunday, 7 December 1941.
   On the morning of Monday, 8 December—Wake being west of the International Date Line—radios on the island picked up military and commercial transmissions from Hawaii as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor got underway. The Wake garrison scrambled to as yet unfinished battle stations, four Marine fighters took to the air, the Pan Am clipper that had just departed for Guam was recalled, and civilian workers with military training reported to the Marine positions to offer assistance.
   At noon, Wake Island time, 27 Japanese "Nell" bombers, cloaked from the Marine CAP by clouds, arrived from their base 660 miles away in the Marshall Islands and delivered a hard blow against the island while many of its troops and civilians still disbelieved that war had come to America, Hawaii, and their isolated outpost. The air strike, concentrating on the airfield, hit just as the Marines were preparing six more fighters to relieve the four F4F-3s on CAP. The main fuel dump immediately exploded and 80,000 gallons of flaming gasoline began spreading over the field. Seven of the eight aircraft on the ground and their meager stores were totally destroyed in two bombing and strafing passes.
   From this point Wake Island was cut off and under siege and Urwin recounts day by day, almost man by man events as the island was repeatedly attacked by medium bombers, the first Japanese invasion force met humiliation at the hands of a few under-manned shore batteries and four Marine fighter aircraft (sinking two DDs and damaging at least three CLs, two more DDs, a patrol boat, and a transport for some 340 attackers killed against five Marines slightly wounded), a patrolling Japanese submarine was sunk by the Marine pilots, and Japanese flying boats and then carrier-based aircraft eventually joined the fray.
   While they battled against everything thrown at them, the defenders were succored by the hope of relief. Urwin shifts the scene to Pearl Harbor and Washington, DC to follow the wangling, planning, and dispatch of that expedition by Admiral Kimmel before he was dismissed and the relief force recalled. During this period the garrison received nothing but radio messages and a single PBY which arrived with two ensigns bearing orders (but no critically needed spare parts) who then promptly flew away with a single passenger (Major Walter L. J. Bayler, who would later write Last Man Off Wake Island) but none of the wounded or civilians.
   The final Japanese assault landing under cover of darkness, the heroic defense, and the sudden, unexpected surrender—the Marines have caused hundreds of casualties for a handful of their own losses and have eliminated one of the enemy beachheads—are lavished with the same careful attention to detail as the earlier stages of the action.
   The final chapter covers the fate of the defenders as POWs in China and then Japan where, mostly imprisoned together, their unit cohesion (and sense of victorious superiority over their captors) continued to sustain them to the extent that they suffered an uncommonly low death rate in Japanese captivity. Most of the civilian contractors were interned with them. Some contractors remained on Wake as slave labor rebuilding the defenses and in 1943 the last 98 American workers were machine gunned to death on the beach.
   In his Epilogue, Urwin delves into the post-war controversy over credit for Wake's defense and discusses Robert D. Heinl's somewhat one-sided USMC monograph The Defense of Wake, Devereux's rather extravagant The Story of Wake Island (which helped propel him to fame and a career in Congress), and Cunningham's unfortunate, not always forthright rebuttal, Wake Island Command.
   In addition to researching the archival records, Urwin also interviewed dozens of Wake survivors and builds the book by interweaving their stories with the broader perspective of historical context and documentation. His text is meticulously annotated with over a hundred pages of endnotes and a bibliography that runs over twenty pages.

   As the Americans extinguished Japanese resistance [on Wilkes Island], Captain Platt asked his subordinates to take a couple of prisoners for interrogation purposes. The Marines spared two wounded SNLF troops and brought them to the captain. The rest of the enemy, including some more wounded men and a few skulkers trying to play dead, were quickly disposed of with gunshots or bayonet thrusts.
   Inspecting the corpse-strewn clearing, Platt remarked in a matter-of-fact tone: "Well, we've secured the island." His men, too dazed by the recent fighting to celebrate, stood around the searchlight truck exchanging terse comments and smoking cigarettes. Among the bedraggled crowd, Platt recognized someone from his own Battery G, Pfc. Jack E. Davis, whose searchlight had highlighted the Japanese landing craft some four hours earlier. Platt remembered that Davis had been born on 23 December 1920. He wished the new legal adult a tongue-in-cheek "Happy Birthday" and asked if he had enjoyed the birthday party fireworks. "Yes, sir," Davis responded with a grin, "and to think these people came all the way from Japan to help me celebrate."

   Not only the definitive book on the Siege of Wake Island, but also one of the best books of the year. Don't miss this one.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from University of Nebraska Press.
   Thanks to University of Nebraska for providing this review copy.