I am pleased to announce that Casemate Publishers has released a new paperback edition of my book, Building for War: The Epic Saga of the Civilian Contractors and Marines of Wake Island in World War II. The hardback edition sold out last winter, though some copies are still available through used book dealers. The e-book and paperback editions are available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble online. Casemate designed a new cover for the paperback...

Alice Ingham Obituary

I am sad to report that Alice Ingham passed away on May 9, 2024. Alice organized and led the Wake Island reunions from 2004 to 2017 in Boise, Idaho. I had a good visit with Alice last fall in the lovely house in Oregon where the family moved her and her sister for extended care and to be near the family. While much of her memory had fallen to Alzheimer’s disease, she remained as friendly and gracious as ever. Eight years ago, Alice and her...

In the spring of 1975 Wake Island’s population briefly soared to over eight thousand, the largest number of humans ever on the little coral atoll in the mid-Pacific. Operations Babylift and New Life evacuated tens of thousands of refugees in the closing days of the Vietnam War, and Wake Island became an overflow station for the New Life program. While the island had been home to a bustling community of over a thousand Americans and Filipino...

In the decades after World War II, many civilian survivors of Wake Island took pen to paper to write recollections of their experiences on Wake as workers, the battle for the island in December 1941, and forty-four grueling months as prisoners of the Japanese. Some fleshed out their memoirs as autobiographies, including memories of their youth and postwar lives; others zeroed in on the war and how they faced the challenges that befell them from...