Among the ninety-eight Americans murdered by the Japanese on Wake Island in 1943 was the civilian doctor, Lawton Shank, who had provided and coordinated vital medical services during the siege and battle of Wake in December 1941. Numerous sources attest to Dr. Shank’s continuing medical services through the difficult transition to captivity on Wake and, after the majority of prisoners were shipped out in January 1942, for the nearly four...

For a small atoll of less than four square miles total land mass, Wake Island has a lot of beach. Together Wake, Peale and Wilkes form a narrow wishbone-shaped coral island that opens wide to the west. Linear distance tip to tip to tip is about ten miles, but altogether the coastline – including both sea-facing and lagoon shores – exceeds twenty miles. Comprised entirely of bleached, broken coral and ledges, none of it is “barefoot beach,” but...

Drawings may look simple on the surface, but they convey complex messages about both the subject and the person making the drawing. During my research for Building for War I encountered many line drawings from 1941: some were professional and purposeful, others were personal sketches found in letters and diaries. I found them as revealing as the written primary sources on which I based much of the book, but only one made it into the published...

The Depression-era workers who hired on for the big prewar navy construction projects in the Pacific came from many states, but a good number hailed from the Pacific and Inland Northwest. In 1939-40 the navy contracted with a consortium of big construction companies to build naval air stations and facilities on Oahu, Palmyra, Johnston, Midway, and Wake Island (and later in the western Pacific at Guam, Cavite in the Philippines, and American...

Every few weeks I write a post to highlight the ongoing mission of the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) to locate family members of the 98 men massacred on Wake Island in 1943 for possible DNA matches. For more information, see my November 2012 post on the JPAC Mission. This week I want to talk about the nearly 100 men who drew their last breath on the north beach of Wake, October 7, 1943. When the Tachibana Maru pulled away from Wake...

Wake’s human population may be small these days, but the neighborhoods are full to bursting with birds (see video link below!). The remote, isolated atoll has hosted a wide variety of migratory and resident seabirds for time out of mind. The ravages of the WWII Japanese occupation and postwar feral cat predation left indelible marks, but researchers are encouraged by signs of robust recovery across the atoll. During my visit to Wake in the fall...