Battle of Wake Island The Battle of Wake Island began simultaneously with the Attack on Pearl Harbor and ended on 23 December 1941 , with the surrender of the American forces to the Empire of Japan . It was fought on and around the atoll formed by Wake Island and its islets of Peale and Wilkes Islands by the air , land and naval forces of the Empire of Japan against those of the U . S . , with Marine s playing a prominent role on both sides . The island was held by the Japanese for the duration of the Pacific War ; the remaining Japanese garrison on the island surrendered to a detachment of United States Marines on September 4 , 1945 . Prelude . The United States Navy constructed a military base on the atoll . On 19 August , the first permanent military garrison , understrength elements of the 1st Marine Defense Battalion , totaling 450 officers and men , were stationed on the island , under Major James P . S . Devereux . Also present on the island were 68 U . S . Navy personnel and about 1 , 221 civilian workers for the Morrison - Knudsen Company . Forty - five Chamorro men were employed by Pan American Airways at the company ' s facilities in Wake Island , one of the stops on the Pan Am Clipper transPacific air service initiated in 1935 . The Marines were armed with six 5 in ( 127mm ) / 51 cal pieces , originating from the battleship ; twelve / 50 cal anti - aircraft gun s ( with only a single working anti - aircraft director among them ) ; eighteen Browning heavy machine gun s ; and thirty heavy , medium and light water - and air - cooled machine guns of various manufacture and operating condition . On 28 November , U . S . Navy Commander Winfield S . Cunningham reported to Wake to assume overall command of U . S . forces on the island . He had only 10 days to examine defenses and assess his men before war began . On 8 December , just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor ( Wake being on the opposite side of the International Date Line ) , 36 Japanese Mitsubishi G3M3 bombers flown from bases on the Marshall Islands attacked Wake Island , destroying 8 of the 12 F4F - 3 Wildcat fighter aircraft belonging to Marine Corps fighter squadron VMF - 211 on the ground . The remaining four Wildcats were in the air patrolling , but because of poor visibility failed to see the attacking Japanese bombers . These Wildcats did down two bombers on the following day , however . All of the Marine garrison ’ s defensive emplacements were left intact by the raid , which primarily targeted the naval aircraft . Of 55 Marine aviation personnel , 23 were killed and 11 were wounded . First landing attempt . Early on the morning of 11 December , the garrison , with the support of the four remaining Wildcats , repelled the first Japanese landing attempt by the South Seas Force , which included the light cruisers , , and ; the destroyer s , , , , , and ; two " Momi " - class destroyer s converted to patrol boats ( " Patrol Boat No . 32 " and " Patrol Boat No . 33 " ) , and two troop transport ships containing 450 Special Naval Landing Force troops . The U . S . Marines fired at the invasion fleet with their six 5 in 127mm coastal artillery guns . Major Devereux , the Marine commander under Cunningham , ordered the gunners to hold their fire until the enemy moved within range of the coastal defenses . " Battery L " , on Peale islet , succeeded in sinking " Hayate " at a distance of with at least two direct hits to her magazines , causing her to explode and sink within two minutes , in full view of the defenders on shore . " Yubari " s superstructure was hit 11 times . The four Wildcats also succeeded in sinking another destroyer , " Kisaragi " , by dropping a bomb on her stern where the depth charge s were stored . Both Japanese destroyers were lost with all hands , with " Hayate " becoming the first Japanese surface warship to be sunk during World War II . The Japanese force withdrew before landing . This was the first Japanese defeat of the war , and it was the last time in history that a forced landing attempt was repelled by shore batteries . After the initial raid was fought off , American news media reported that , when queried about reinforcement and resupply , Cunningham was reported to have quipped “ Send us more Japs ! ” In fact , Commander Cunningham sent a long list of critical equipment — including gunsights , spare parts , and fire - control radar — to his immediate superior : Commandant , 14th Naval District . It is believed that the quip was actually padding ( a technique of adding nonsense text to a message to make cryptanalysis more difficult ) . But the continuing siege and frequent Japanese air attacks on the Wake garrison continued , without resupply for the Americans . The initial resistance offered by the garrison prompted the Japanese Navy to detach two aircraft carrier s ( and ) from the force that attacked Pearl Harbor to support the second landing attempt . USN relief attempt . The projected U . S . relief attempt by Admiral Frank Fletcher ' s Task Force 11 ( TF 11 ) and supported Admiral Wilson Brown ’ s TF 14 consisted of the fleet carrier , the fleet oiler , the seaplane tender , the heavy cruisers , , and , and 10 destroyers . The convoy carried the 4th Marine Defense Battalion , the VMF - 221 fighter squadron equipped with Brewster F2A - 3 Buffalo fighters , along with 9 , 000 5 in ( 127mm ) rounds , 12 , 000 rounds , and 3 , 000 , 000 rounds , as well as a large amount of ammunition for mortars and other battalion small arms . TF 11 — with the fleet carrier , three heavy cruisers , eight destroyers , and an oiler — was to undertake a raid on the Marshall Islands to divert Japanese attention . At 21 : 00 on 22 December , after receiving information indicating the presence of two IJN carriers and two fast battleships ( which were actually heavy cruisers ) near Wake Island Vice Admiral William S . Pye — the Acting Commander in Chief of the U . S . Pacific Fleet — ordered TF 14 to return to Pearl Harbor for fear of losses . Second assault . The second Japanese invasion force came on 23 December , composed mostly of the same ships from the first attempt with the major reinforcements of the carriers " Hiryu " and " Soryu " , plus 1 , 500 Japanese marines . The landings began at 02 : 35 where , after a preliminary bombardment , the ex - destroyers " Patrol Boat No . 32 " and " Patrol Boat No . 33 " were beached and burned in their attempts to land the invasion force . After a full night and morning of fighting , the Wake garrison surrendered to the Japanese by mid - afternoon . The U . S . Marines lost 47 killed and 2 MIA during the entire 15 - day siege , while three U . S . Navy personnel and at least 10 U . S . civilians were killed , 10 Chamorros civilians killed , and 12 civilians wounded . Japanese losses were recorded at between 700 to 900 killed , with at least 300 more wounded , in addition to the two destroyers lost in the first invasion attempt and at least 28 land - based and carrier aircraft either shot down or damaged . The Japanese captured all men remaining on the island , the majority of whom were civilian contractors employed with Morrison - Knudsen Company . Captain Henry T . Elrod , one of the pilots from VMF - 211 , was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his action on the island during the second landing attempt , having shot down two Japanese A6M2 Zero s , and sunk the Japanese destroyer . A special military decoration , the Wake Island Device , affixed to either the Navy Expeditionary Medal or the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal , was created to honor those who had fought in the defense of the island . Japanese occupation . Fearing an imminent invasion , the Japanese reinforced Wake Island with more formidable defenses . The American captives were ordered to build a series of bunkers and fortifications on Wake . The Japanese brought in an 8 inch ( 200 mm ) naval artillery gun that they had captured in Singapore . The U . S . Navy established a submarine blockade instead of an amphibious invasion on Wake Island . As a result , the Japanese garrison starved which led to the extinction of an endemic bird . On 24 February 1942 , aircraft from the carrier attacked the Japanese garrison on Wake Island . U . S . forces bombed the island periodically from 1942 until Japan ’ s surrender in 1945 . On 24 July 1943 , B - 24 Liberator s led by Lieutenant Jesse Stay of the 42nd Squadron ( 11th Bombardment Group ) of the U . S . Army Air Forces , in transit from Midway Island , struck the Japanese garrison on Wake Island . At least 2 men from that raid were awarded Distinguished Flying Cross es for their efforts . Future President George H . W . Bush also conducted his first combat mission as a Naval Aviator over Wake Island . After this , Wake was occasionally raided but never attacked " en masse " . War crimes . On 5 October 1943 , American naval aircraft from raided Wake . Two days later , fearing an imminent invasion , Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of the 98 captured American civilian workers remaining on the island , kept to perform forced labor . They were taken to the northern end of the island , blindfolded and executed with a machine gun . One of the prisoners ( whose name has never been discovered ) escaped the massacre , apparently returning to the site to carve the message 98 US PW 5 - 10 - 43 on a large coral rock near where the victims had been hastily buried in a mass grave . The unknown American was recaptured , and Sakaibara personally beheaded him with a " katana " . The inscription on the rock can still be seen and is a Wake Island landmark . On 4 September 1945 , the remaining Japanese garrison surrendered to a detachment of U . S . Marines . The handover of Wake was officially conducted in a brief ceremony aboard . After the war , Sakaibara and his subordinate — Lieutenant - Commander Tachibana — were sentenced to death for the massacre and other war crimes . Several Japanese officers in American custody had committed suicide over the incident , leaving written statements that incriminated Sakaibara . Admiral Sakaibara was hanged on June 18 , 1947 . Eventually , Tachibana ' s sentence was commuted to life in prison . The murdered civilian POWs were reburied , after the war , in Honolulu ' s National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific , commonly known as Punchbowl Crater . Escapee . William L . Taylor , like many of the Wake Island POWs , was relocated to China for forced labor for the Japanese army . In 1945 he was traveling on a Japanese train as work detail from Shanghai when he escaped with Jack Hernandez by jumping off the train when Japanese guards were not looking . Hernandez broke his leg and was forced to stay as Taylor continued his journey . Down the line , Taylor reluctantly met up with Chinese Communist soldiers who he quoted as saying : " You ' re OK now , we are friends with the Americans . " After 10 weeks of traveling with the Chinese Communists in northern China he was able to contact American military forces who called for a plane to pick him up and take him to an American base in northern China . Before he left China he met Mao Zedong , who gave him a gift of Chinese rugs and told him he was the only POW who had successfully come through north China . In an interview with the History Channel during the episode " Wake Island : The Alamo of the Pacific " , he claims that Mao " saved his life " . Portrayal in popular culture . The Paramount studio began work on a movie even before the real life Battle for Wake Island was over . The resulting 1942 film , directed by John Farrow , tacks unrelated romantic subplots onto a straightforward re - telling of the battle . The film contains numerous factual errors , leaving viewers with the impression that the island ' s defenders fought to the last man ; that the island ' s naval commander was killed in a bombing raid ( he survived ) ; that cruisers rather than the smaller destroyers were sunk ; and that the Island defense was in the hands of USMC officers . However , the film succeeded in its primary propaganda purpose of creating a stirring patriotic film . Others state that it was standard Hollywood procedure to embellish the situation , much like they do today . " Wake Island " was nominated for four Academy Awards , including best picture . Farrow won the 1942 New York Film Critics Circle Award for best director . A 2003 television documentary , " Wake Island : Alamo of the Pacific , " included interviews with both U . S . Marines and Japanese sailors who took part in the fighting . The film received a 2004 Emmy nomination for music and sound . In the 2002 computer game Battlefield 1942 players can replay on the map Wake Island ( a fair copy of the island ) the second attack of the Japanese . In the 1994 film " Pulp Fiction " , Christopher Walken ' s character , Captain Koons , references the battle when recounting the somewhat painful journey of the young Butch Coolidge ' s father ' s wrist watch .