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By Islomaniac | August 5, 2007
I recently had a friend get back from the Marshall Islands, it was her first visit and she had an amazing time. I was so inspired by her enthusiasm for this very remote island chain that I thought I would do a post on one of its most remote and most famous atoll. Wake Island is the northern most atoll of the Marshall Islands. The island is over 3,600 km from Honolulu and 1,100 km north of Kwajalein (the largest atoll in the Marshall Islands).
The island is most famous for its attach during world war II. On December 8, 1941, the same day as the Attack on Pearl Harbor, twenty-seven Japanese bombers attacked Wake Island, destroying eight of the twelve fighter. The garrison, containing civilian volunteers, repelled several Japanese landing attempts. Despite this defiant spirit, the garrison was eventually overwhelmed. In the end fifty-two military personnel killed, along with approximately seventy civilians. American air raid on October 5, 1943, the Japanese garrison commander Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of the ninety-eight prisoners on the pretext that they were spies. After the war, Sakaibaira was tried for war crimes, found guilty, and executed at Guam; his subordinate was sentenced to life in prison.
To read more about this fascinating piece of A merican history in the south pacific click here.
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