23 December in military history: Fall of Wake Island, 1941

Japanese bombers first struck Wake on 8 December, hours after Pearl Harbor on the other side of the date line. Its defenders, a detachment of the 1st Defense Battalion and the fighter squadron VMF-211, with naval personnel and civilian construction workers, repulsed the first Japanese landing on 11 December and sank two destroyers. The Japanese came back with a much stronger force, including the carriers Soryu and Hiryu, whose aircraft shot down Wake's last two fighters on 22 December.¹

The last night

The landing began before dawn on 23 December, on the south shore. The Marine Corps monograph on the defense puts the assault force at about 1,000 men of the Special Naval Landing Force, and Gregory Urwin at about 900.²

The Marines, sailors and contractors fought as infantry. On Wilkes islet they wiped out the Japanese landing party. But the Japanese cut the field telephone lines, and Major James Devereux, the Marine commander, isolated in his command post, believed that most of his positions had been overrun. Cunningham knew that the relief expedition from Pearl Harbor had been recalled, and when Devereux asked whether any friendly forces were near, the answer was no; Cunningham decided to surrender. Devereux went forward under a white flag to pass on the order, and Wilkes, the last strongpoint, gave up about 11 hours after the fighting began.³

The cost

The Marine monograph says the garrison had suffered almost 20 percent casualties and that Japanese losses, never known exactly, must have exceeded 1,000. Urwin puts the Japanese toll for the whole campaign at 900 to 1,000 lives, two destroyers, a submarine and 21 aircraft, and the American dead at fewer than 100, including 46 Marines and three sailors. The survivors went into Japanese captivity.⁴

Our full account, The Battle of Wake Island, 1941, tells the whole siege, from the first air raid to the fate of the prisoners.