James Devereux (1903–1988)

A well-crafted account of the attacks and invasion of Wake Island by the Japanese following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese were surprised to find such resistance from a desolate island far from friendly forces. The book is more of a blow-by-blow account of the maneuvering and resilience of the troops and civilians on the island against an overwhelming force. It took the Japanese two weeks to defeat the small group of defenders but found it was quite costly for them in losses of lives and equipment.

After the Americans surrender, the author sums up their captivity for the next four years. Touching on the morbid living conditions and the brutality of the guards watching over them. I did find typos in the earlier parts of the book and also duplicated punctuation marks...not sure if this is because of the Kindle formatting or the actual manuscript.

I would recommend the Story of Wake Island for those interested in learning more about individual battles of WWII.… (mehr)