Wake Island was the center of action last week when it anchored a test of the U.S. military’s multi-layered, integrated ballistic missile defense system. The irony is inescapable. Wake Island, where the absence of even the most rudimentary radar in 1941 doomed hundreds of Americans to devastating surprise attacks by undetected Japanese bombers, became the base of operations seven decades later for state-of-the-art missile detection and...

Recently Doug Miller, webmaster at the excellent Pan Am Historical Foundation website, shared a very interesting story with me. Miller was contacted by the son of a Wake Island civilian contractor who had in fact escaped the island aboard the Philippine Clipper following the initial attack by the Japanese on December 8, 1941. In all my research I had never come across any mention of a contractor seizing the opportunity for a ride out that...

Last week President Barak Obama proclaimed September 18, 2015, National POW-MIA Recognition day, reinforcing our national commitment to those defenders who never came home. “We rededicate ourselves to our ironclad commitment to never leaving one of our own behind,” the proclamation reads, “and we pay tribute to those patriots known to God and never forgotten.” The quest to locate, identify, and return the remains of our nation’s war dead...

Plans are underway for a Manhattan Project National Historical Park, a joint effort of the Department of Energy and Department of the Interior to link the three sites that developed the atomic bomb during World War II: Hanford, WA; Los Alamos, NM; and Oak Ridge, TN. The two federal agencies are consulting with local political and tribal leaders and community members as they work toward a December 19, 2015, deadline to formally establish the...

Wake Island dodged a bullet earlier this month. On July 11 a tropical storm formed south of Hawaii near Johnston Atoll and rapidly gained strength as it tracked west toward Wake. The storm packed typhoon-force winds as it approached the atoll and predictions called for a close pass on July 16, prompting a Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness 2 on Wake. On July 15 Hawaii Air National Guard evacuated all Wake base personnel to Anderson AFB on...

A few days ago the Associated Press announced that Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation apologized to American POWs used as forced labor during World War II. In a ceremony held at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles on July 19, 2015, Mitsubishi senior executive Hikaru Kumura apologized to California veteran James Murphy, 94, the only living survivor able to make the trip, and by extension to all ex-POWs subjected to forced labor by the company...