WAKE ISLAND, BATTLE OF

battle for a small atoll named Wake Island in the central Pacific in December 1941, waged between U.S. Marine and civilian defenders and Japanese invaders. At that time, Wake Island was the site of a half-completed U.S. air and submarine base. The Japanese first attacked Wake with 36 bombers at noon on Dec. 8, 1941 (Wake time; December 7, Hawaiian time), a few hours after the Pearl Harbor attack. A Japanese naval task force that included cruisers and destroyers appeared on December 11 but was repulsed with considerable loss by the coastal-defense guns and aircraft. Thereafter, however, the Japanese had the atoll under almost continuous air attack, and a U.S. relief force failed to reach the area before the Japanese returned on December 23 with a much more powerful force and in five hours forced the surrender of the island forces under U.S. Navy Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham. Altogether 1,616 Americans were captured, and most of them were evacuated to China and Japan. The Japanese fortified the atoll heavily, but repeated attacks by U.S. aircraft during the remainder of the war devastated it completely. The Japanese garrison surrendered the atoll on Sept. 4, 1945.