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The Hello and welcome to episode 526 of the Unauthorized History of Pacific War podcast.

My name is Seth Perid and historian and deputy director of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum.

And with me, as always, is my co-host historian and author john partial i got it

right this time i didn't screw it up how are you john i'm really good actually i just uh about 10

minutes ago got uh comps for the cover design for my 1942 book which is really cool and uh you know

makes you feel like my god this thing is actually going to be real. Yeah, it's becoming a real thing. So, yeah, that's pretty sweet. Anyway. That's awesome. Awesome. Getting close. Getting close to the finish line. All right. So we're going to pick up this week where we left off last week. It's not really a cliffhanger because we all know how it comes out. Yeah, right. But the details, the devil is in the details, as they say. So war came to the Americans on Wake Island early on December 8, 1941. Japanese air raid that morning wiped out eight of the 12 F4F Wildcats on the

ground and killed or wounded 60% of VMF 211's manpower. First Marine Defense Battalion fared somewhat

better in terms of casualties, as did the civilians ashore, but their time too would come.

Weathering days of successive air raids made

Marine Major James Devereux fully aware that a Japanese amphibious landing and operation to

capture the American outpost would come all too soon. How soon he did not know, however,

until it came, all he and his Marines could do was wait and hope. Back in Pearl Harbor, steps were being taken to make the Marines hope a reality. Relief efforts were being put into action involving reinforcement, an effort that would employ nearly everything in the Pacific Fleet's very depleted arsenal of ships. Back in the States, news of the Marines' defense against a seemingly unstoppable Japanese war machine

registered on every newspaper in the country.

Every American, younger, old, man, or woman kept themselves pinned to the radios and newspapers

as the heroic stand of the beleaguered Marines against the Japanese juggernaut played out

in the latter days of December 41.

On Wilkes, Peel, and Wake Proper, the Marines with the more than willing assistance of now over 400 civilian volunteers,

dug in, prepared machine gun positions and ready defenses for the expected Japanese invasion should it indeed come.

And the marshals, Japanese rear Admiral Kajiyoka, was licking his wounds and preparing

another attack. He indeed would be back, and he wouldn't make the same mistakes twice. The Japanese

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