Wake Island

A small U.S. Marine garrison on Wake Island mounts a determined defense against overwhelming Japanese naval and air assaults in the days following Pearl Harbor. Despite repelling an initial invasion attempt, the outnumbered defenders are eventually overrun. The film was among the first Hollywood productions to dramatize the early Pacific War.

Wake Island was attacked by Japanese forces beginning December 8, 1941, with the garrison initially repelling a landing attempt on December 11 before being overwhelmed on December 23, becoming an early symbol of American resistance in the Pacific.

Made shortly after the actual battle as a morale-boosting wartime picture; it fictionalizes personal stories while keeping the battle's broad outcome.

The first American ground offensive of the Pacific war, fought over a single airfield and the sea lanes that supplied it.

Marines seized the airfield — renamed Henderson Field — and held it through months of night attacks, naval battles and disease. Japan evacuated its surviving troops in February 1943.

Directed by John Farrow

Cast: Brian Donlevy, Robert Preston, Macdonald Carey, William Bendix

Positioned at December 8–23, 1941 within the World War II phase of the war, as part of the Battle of Wake Island. This is entry 51 of 150 in the chronological archive.

• Wake Island
• Marines
• early Pacific War
• wartime propaganda film

• 

  From Here to Eternity

  Summer 1941 – 7 December 1941

• 

  Pearl Harbor

  7 December 1941 – 18 April 1942

• 

  In Harm's Way

  December 1941 – 1943

• 

  They Were Expendable

  December 1941 – April 1942

• 

  So Proudly We Hail!

  December 1941 – May 1942

• 

  Guadalcanal Diary

  August 1942 – February 1943