Transcriber’s note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed into the public domain. Boldface text is indicated by =equals signs=. Contents A Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Battle for Wake Island Sidebar: Major James P S. Devereux Sidebar: Commander Winfield S. Cunningham Sidebar: Major Paul A. Putnam Sidebar: Defensive Mainstay: The M3 Antiaircraft Gun Sidebar: The Nells, Bettys, and Claudes of Japan Humbled-by Sizeable Casualties Sidebar: The Defense Battalion’s 5-Inch Guns Sidebar: Captain Hentry T. Elrod Still No Help Sidebar: Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher All Hands Have Behaved Splendidly This Is As Far As We Go A Difficult Thing To Do Sources About the Author About this series of pamphlets Transcriber’s Notes A MAGNIFICENT FIGHT: MARINES IN THE BATTLE FOR WAKE ISLAND MARINES IN WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES BY ROBERT J. CRESSMAN [Illustration: _In 1945, RAdm Shigematsu Sakaibara, back to camera at right, surrenders his garrison to returning Americans._ (_Department of Defense [USMC] Photo 133686_)] [Illustration: _Col Walter L. J. Bayler, reputedly “the last Marine off Wake” in December 1941, is the first to set foot on the island in 1945._ (_Department of Defense [USMC] Photo 133688_)] A Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Battle for Wake Island _by Robert J. Cressman_ It is Monday, 8 December 1941. On Wake Island, a tiny sprung paper-clip in the Pacific between Hawaii and Guam, Marines of the 1st Defense Battalion are starting another day of the backbreaking war preparations that have gone on for weeks. Out in the triangular lagoon formed by the islets of Peale, Wake, and Wilkes, the huge silver Pan American Airways _Philippine Clipper_ flying boat roars off the water bound for Guam. The trans-Pacific flight will not be completed. Word of war comes around 0700. Captain Henry S. Wilson, Army Signal Corps, on the island to support the flight ferry of B-17 Flying Fortresses from Hawaii to the Philippines, half runs, half walks toward the tent of Major James P. S. Devereux, commander of the battalion’s Wake Detachment. Captain Wilson reports that Hickam Field in Hawaii has been raided. Devereux immediately orders a “Call to Arms.” He quickly assembles his officers, tells them that war has come, that the Japanese have attacked Oahu, and that Wake “could expect the same thing in a very short time.”