World War Ii Commemorative Bibliography The Battle Of Wake Island

A gripping narrative of unprecedented valor and personal courage, here is the story of the first American battle of World War II: the battle for Wake Island. Based on firsthand accounts from long-lost survivors who have emerged to tell about it, this stirring tale of the “Alamo of the Pacific” will reverberate for generations to come. On December 8, 1941, just five hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes attacked a remote U.S. outpost in the westernmost reaches of the Pacific. It was the beginning of an incredible sixteen-day fight for Wake Island, a tiny but strategically valuable dot in the ocean. Unprepared for the stunning assault, the small battalion was dangerously outnumbered and outgunned. But they compensated with a surplus of bravery and perseverance, waging an extraordinary battle against all odds. When it was over, a few hundred American Marines, sailors, and soldiers, along with a small army of heroic civilian laborers, had repulsed enemy forces several thousand strong––but it was still not enough. Among the Marines was twenty-year-old PFC Wiley Sloman. By Christmas Day, he lay semiconscious in the sand, struck by enemy fire. Another day would pass before he was found—stripped of his rifle and his uniform. Shocked to realize he hadn’t awakened to victory, Sloman wondered: Had he been given up for dead—and had the Marines simply given up? In this riveting account, veteran journalist Bill Sloan re-creates this history-making battle, the crushing surrender, and the stories of the uncommonly gutsy men who fought it. From the civilians who served as gunmen, medics, and even preachers, to the daily grind of life on an isolated island—literally at the ends of the earth—to the agony of POW camps, here we meet our heroes and confront the enemy face-to-face, bayonet to bayonet.

Gailey (history, San Jose State U.) provides a chronology of the history of this evolving branch of the US armed forces: from its establishment in 1775 as the Continental Marines, to its 1994 mission in Haiti. The dictionary covers the "Abrams (M1 and M1A1) tank" to "Zeilin, Jacob"-- the marines' seventh commandant who escorted Commodore Perry on his 1853 Asian visits. The bibliography affords general works, official, and nonofficial publications by era. Includes insider acronyms and maps. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

On the morning of December 7, 1941, Chief Aviation Ordnanceman John W. Finn, though suffering multiple wounds, continued to man his machine gun against waves of Japanese aircraft attacking the Kaneohe Bay Naval Station during the infamous Pearl Harbor raid. Just over three years later, as World War II struggled into its final months, a B-29 radioman named Red Erwin lingered near death after suffering horrific burns to save his air crew in the skies off Japan. They were the first and last of thirty U.S. Navy, Army, and Marine Corps aviation personnel awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions against the Japanese during World War II. They included pilots and crewmen manning fighters and dive bombers and flying boats and bombers. One was a general. Another was a sergeant. Some shot down large numbers of enemy aircraft in aerial combat. Others sacrificed themselves for their friends or risked everything for complete strangers. Who were these now largely forgotten men? Where did they come from? What inspired them to rise “above and beyond”? What, if anything, made them different? Virtually all had one thing in common: they always wanted to fly. They came from a generation that revered the aces of World War I, like Eddie Rickenbacker, the civilian flyer Charles Lindbergh, and the lost aviator Amelia Earhart—and then they blazed their own trail during World War II.