Camp Two

 Second World War 1939-1945, settlement

In January of 1941, a work party of 80 men from the Morrison-Knudsen construction company unloaded supplies from the USS William Ward Burrows to begin a three year construction program at Wake, in preparation for the atoll's eventual military role.

This camp was built in 1941 as the new camp for 1,221 Pacific Naval Air Base contract workmen on Wake Island. The original camp was a temporary camp located where Camp One was located to the south. The Morrison-Knudsen Company workmen were at Wake Island helping to build Naval Air Station, Peale Island. They were also contracted to build a submarine base and airfield, and dredge an access channel in the lagoon for the submarines.

The small group of U.S. Marines and civilians at Wake successfully fended off the first invasion attempts, first by air on December 8 and then by sea three days later on December 11. The naval assault included thirteen Japanese vessels that were repelled by gunners on the island, who were successful at sinking two Japanese destroyers, three cruisers, one troop transport, and possibly a patrol boat as well. As many as 340 Japanese personnel aboard the ships may have been killed. The crippled Japanese fleet retreated to Kwajalein Island, making this the United State's first successful repulse of an amphibious landing by the Japanese, as well as the only time that coastal guns were able to drive off an amphibious landing during the War in the Pacific, and the first loss of Japanese naval vessels during WWII. This success in initially driving back Japanese forces so soon after the loss at Pearl Harbor became a symbol of hope for Americans and boosted morale in a time of dark despair. When the Japanese later captured Wake on December 23, 1941, the threat to their line of defense from Tokyo to the Marshall Islands was removed.

The civilians, sailors and Marines captured at Wake Island were some of the earliest POWs during WWII. On 12 January 1942, 360 civilians were left behind on Wake Island while all of the other POWs were transported by ship to POW camps in China and Japan, mostly Shanghai and Fukuoka. Those left behind were forced to build bunkers and other infrastructure for the Japanese invaders.

Aircraft from the USS Yorktown raided Wake Island on 05 October 1943. By then, there were only 98 of the 360 civilians alive. Garrison commander Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara, thinking the October raid was a sign of an imminent American landing, ordered all of the remaining civilians to be executed. One managed to escape the massacre and chiseled "98 US PW 5-10-43" into a coral rock (now called "POW Rock" or "98 Rock") near the mass grave located on Wilkes Island. The unknown POW was later recaptured and personally beheaded by Sakaibara. For his role in the Wake Island massacre, Sakaibara was hung as a war criminal on 18 June 1947. The bodies of the 98 civilians were exhumed and reburied at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in section G.

celticowboy.com/WakeDefense1.htm
www.yorktownsailor.com/yorktown/massacre.html
www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-C-Wake.html
www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/npswapa/extcon...