One of the earliest clues to the story of my father’s wartime past came in the mailbox every month or so when I was growing up: an envelope bearing the return address of the “Survivors of Wake, Guam, and Cavite.” As the years went by I connected a few dots, but Dad never told his story. He had some mysterious scars and debilitating, recurring illnesses relating to the war, but he didn’t talk about it and we knew better than to ask. My father...

Knowing my interest in WWII aircraft, some friends recently forwarded a video about the restoration of a PBY 5A Catalina, a real workhorse of prewar and wartime Pacific air power. Many PBYs landed on Wake Island’s turquoise lagoon in 1941 and the contractors were building the naval air station as a base for this type of plane. The U. S. Navy used the versatile PBYs for patrols, scouting, and when war was underway, for search and rescue...

Every semester in my early World Civilizations class I teach a unit on the migrations that populated the Americas and Oceania. In the last decade advanced DNA research has thrown traditional migration theories into question. My recent involvement with the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) on the Wake Island mission has raised my interest in genetic research and the corresponding...

On October 21, 1953, a memorial ceremony was held at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl in Honolulu to mark the mass burial of 178 Americans killed on Wake Island in World War II. Fourteen marine survivors attended, as well as some family members of the deceased and officials and dignitaries. An actual recording of the Wake mass grave dedication ceremony has recently become available at the AFRTS Archive website. See end...

Watching the Wake Island episode of Oliver North’s 2005 series “War Stories” last week, I was reminded of Brigadier General John F. Kinney’s heroic escape story. Very few POWs attempted escape from Japanese camps in WWII, and fewer still succeeded. For those interned in Japan proper escape was inconceivable, but in Japanese-occupied territories outside the homeland there was a slim chance of success. Physical escape was the least of the...