Wake

Wake (166.644E 19.280N) is a small atoll in the central Pacific some 2000 miles west of Hawaii. It was uninhabited and undeveloped until the Pan American built a seaplane ramp here for its Clipper flying boats. The U.S. Navy took increasing interest in the atoll as war loomed, and built an airfield and began dredging the lagoon. However, in late 1941 there was still no decent anchorage and cargo ships supplying the island had to be unloaded by lighter. There was also no radar for the airfield, but the island boasted a number of 6” coastal defense guns, 12 3" antiaircraft guns, and 388 Marines of 1 Marine Defense Battalion. The airfield had 25,000 gallons of aviation fuel on hand and, because there were plans to stage B-17 bombers to the Philippines through Wake, the airstrip was long enough to accomodate large aircraft. Air cover was provided by VMF-211 with twelve Wildcats.

Construction of new facilities was being undertaken by some 1200 civilian contractors when war broke out in the Pacific. These men were trapped on the island and interned by the Japanese, who insisted on treating them as prisoners of war.

The Battle of Wake

Japanese aircraft bombed the atoll shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Without radar direction, the four Wildcats on combat air patrol were unable to intercept the raid, which destroyed the remaining eight aircraft of the squadron.  Three days later, the Japanese attempted a landing, but this initial invasion attempt was repulsed by the coastal guns and the four surviving Wildcats.  The Japanese lost two destroyers and suffered damage to other ships before withdrawing.

Japanese order of battle, first Wake assault

Wake Invasion Force

24 Air Flotilla

U.S. order of battle, first Wake assault

1 Marine Defense Battalion

VMF-211 with 4 Wildcats

The second attempt followed two weeks of aerial bombardment in which the Japanese suffered heavy bomber losses but destroyed two more of the Wildcats.  The Japanese supported this attempt with a division of heavy cruisers and carrier aircraft from the Hiryu and Soryu.  Elements of 2 Maizuru SNLF came ashore on the night of 22 December 1941 and could not be dislodged.  An American relief expedition covered by the Pacific Fleet carrier task forces was called off by the interim Pacific commander and the island fell to the Japanese after a bitter ground fight.

A controversy later arose over whether Fletcher was insufficiently aggressive during this campaign. Fletcher paused just outside air search range of the enemy to refuel his escorting destroyers. He encountered considerable difficulty doing so: Sea conditions were poor, with moderate winds and a long cross-swell. Navy crews were still relatively inexperienced at underway refueling, and seven oil lines were parted and only four destroyers were refueled in ten hours. His oiler, Neches, could only sustain about 12.75 knots speed, holding back his task force still further. Morison (1948) suggests that Fletcher should have left his destroyers behind and made a high-speed run in to attack with Saratoga escorted by his cruisers, but Fletcher clearly was still surface-oriented in his thinking. He flew his flag in Astoria and did not conform his movements to Saratoga, leaving her behind when she turned into the wind to conduct air operations.

Historians have argued over the likely outcome had the American relief force pressed on. Most seem to feel that the odds favored the Americans, and an examination of the order of battle suggests that the Japanese carrier force was weak on escorting destroyers and inferior in total number of aircraft. In addition, the force was well to the northwest of Wake, where it was ill-positioned to intervene had the Americans attacked the invasion force from long range. Against this must be weighed the fact that the Japanese were much more experienced and the Americans were, in some cases, flying inferior Buffalo fighters.

Japanese order of battle, second Wake assault

U.S. order of battle, second Wake assault

1 Marine Defense Battalion

VMF-211 with 2 Wildcats

TF8 (Enterprise)

TF12 (Lexington)

TF14 (Saratoga) with VMF-221 (18 F2A Buffalo)

SS Tambor

SS Triton

Carrier Raids on Wake

Wake was raided by Halsey on 24 February 1942 and on other occasions, but remained in Japanese hands for the rest of the war. 

The raid of 5-8 October 1943 was of particular importance to the Gilberts campaign. When a Japanese reconnaissance plane found Pearl Harbor empty of shipping on 17 October, Koga concluded that the Americans were about to assault Wake, and shifted Combined Fleet from Truk to Eniwetok. When no attack materialized by 24 October, Koga concluded that it was a false alarm, shifted Combined Fleet back to Truk, and flew its air groups to Rabaul. This left Combined Fleet unprepared to intervene when the Gilberts were invaded.

Following another carrier raid in October 1944, the Japanese commander, Rear Admiral Sakaibara Shigemitsu, ordered the massacre of 98 American civilian construction workers interned since the fall of the island in 1941. He was hanged for this crime at Guam on 19 June 1947.

References

Fuller (1992)
Huie (1944)
Morison (1948)

Sloan (2003)
Wildenberg (1996)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007-2009 by Kent G. Budge.  Index

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