Wake Island :: essays research papers fc

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on declination 7, 1941, America was at last obligate to officially enter human beings War II. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially declared war on the Japanese and in his famous radio address to the American people, he professed that celestial latitude 7 was a day that would live in infamy. Americans and Japanese alike, mollify remember Pearl Harbor Day, barely how many remember the gallant, bit Marines who served on a tiny atoll in the Pacific by the epithet of Wake Island?Prior to the war, Wake Island, located 2300 miles west of Honolulu, was an unincorporated land of the United States, which was placed under the jurisdiction of the Navy in 1934. It was in any case a Clipper stop on goat god American Airlines famous Trans-Pacific run, and in 1939, the U.S. Navy began construction of an air and submarine base, which was half perfect at the time of the attack. Because of the construction of the base, approximately 1200 civil ians were on the island, working for the American construction firm, Morrison-Knudsen, in addition to the Navy power and Marines who had been sent to hold up the island. The first attack came at noon on declination 7, 1941, when 36 Japanese bombers initiated the first bombing of the island. The bombings by the Japanese continued until December 23, when under continuous shelling, the Americans, under U.S. Navy Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham, were finally forced to surrender. Although the Japanese finally took the island, they incurred heavy losses. Three cruisers and one transport carry on heavy damage, two destroyers and one patrol boat were sunk, while 820 Japanese soldiers were killed, with another 333 wounded. In contrast, American military casualties included 120 killed, 49 wounded, with two missing in action. Initially, Japanese strategists assumed that the tiny island would be overwhelmed in a matter of hours. However, they underestimated the fighting spirit of the mi litary personnel and civilians stationed on the island. For sixteen days these brave men fought against overwhelming odds, but demonstrated both to the Japanese and to their fellow Americans back at kin that the Americans could and would put up a courageous fight. During the first air raid, Pan Americans facilities were destroyed, and ten civilian employees of the airline were killed. When the assault on the island was first launched, the Americans had twelve aircraft. By December 21, they were down to two planes and by the 22nd of December, none was left in the fleet.