A Tiny Island with Battleship Guns Beat Japan for 15 Days All Alone 

Massive respect from a former grunt to your GrandPops!

God bless your grandfather Josef

My grandfather was a range finder for the gun on peacock point.

His name was guy james kelnhofer

If you have any information on him in that book please let me know

T. Elrod was a true hero. Thank you and dark seas for sharing this with me.

I had the honor of meeting his cousin when I was young doing a flag waving in Florida. My grandfather fought with Henry and i soon became a close friend to him till his death.

After the planes were finally all knocked out , "the Wingers " joined their brother Marines as infantry . As they have over and over . Semper Fi !!!

Hammer'in Hank!!

He also had a Oliver hazard Perry class frigate named after him.

That’s human hubris and irony in full display and force. That’s why I always advocate never to “assume” or “underestimate” or let confidence get the best of you, human folly, perhaps as well as supernatural cosmic force (debatable) always intervening at opportune moments.

Marines and civilian contractors fought the wake defense but it was a U.S Navy that surrendered wake island Marines do surrender we were winning that battle ooorah.

The commander of Wake Island was Maj. Devereux U.S. Marine. The Marine ground pounders would have never surrendered, but Maj. Devereux did. Sorry, I can't let you put in on the navy.

@@eddiehaskell1957 He had no means of fighting, ran out of big gun ammunition, no planes left, and had 1000 civilians. They hoped that the Japanese would not kill everyone, but as we know, they took great pride in executing any American they could in retaliation of their early failures and loss of honor.

​@@usahobbies9067 please study the battle. The Marines were winning but communications was cut to the command post and the Major didn't employ runners which would have revealed that the Marines were winning -- however he assumed that lost communications meant defeat and ordered surrender. HUGE MISTAKE!

Many thanks for your Grandfather's service .

the sad thing was that with a resupply, they could've beat of the invasion. in fact, your grand father may have been one of the hero's. one of the gun batteries and it's marines were taking back the island when they learned of it's surrender. the japanese leaders had to take the commander to the marines to tell them of the islands surrender. the commander didn't know that marines and gun crews were slowly taking back the island. the comms were cut off early in the invasion. depending on who you talk to, the defenders would have retaken the island if the main base had held out longer. the book that i read was a real accounting of the battle and no longer in print (as most wwII books), we've lost a lot of real history because of these books being looked down on and not kept for their value.

Thanks for sharing your story 🪖🎖️

My grandfather was there as well. He didn't tell me where he was on it either.

They were eating the Americans

Thanks for sharing your story 😊

God rest. Better things in the afterlife, probably. Hopefully, at least.

My dad Thomas Malone was sent to China as well. 1st Marine division. Slave labor camps

Oh boy they deserve it verry well. I mean come on, 21 aicraft divided by 4, makes a couple of aces!!!

So many were DOING IT back then.

One did. Hank Elrond.

Wargasm achieved

@@sandhilltucker 🤨

Your old unit now flies the f-35b and was more than half the aircraft on the British carrier queen elizabeth on her first deployment. The rest were from 617 squadron, the dam busters.

There’s a good movie…IMO…about Wake Island, of the same name, that was made during the war. It probably has half fact and half fiction because it was made to stir up American moral. You need to check it out.

@@philbrown9764 thanks for the tip, I will definitely look for this film! 👍👍

There's a good documentary called Wake Island, Alamo of the Pacific. It's on RU-vid. Explains before during and after the battle. Interviews with survivors. Highly recommend ☺️

@@swankles3877 thanks for the recommendations, as soon I can I will have a look 👍 👍👍

@@paoloviti6156 You're welcome 😊

The Japanese never used "HMIJS" in WW 2. They were simply called by their name.

The overall commander of the Wake Island force was a Naval Officer. It was lhe who order the Marines to surrender. It didn't matter that they had whipped the Japs on one of the atoll islets and were moving to back-up the other units still fighting. the Japenese commander had convinces the Naval officer to surrender. I forget who the Officer was that gave the order to surrender.

You beat me to it when I first saw the title. Those 5 inch 51calibers may have been part of the battleship's secondary armament but the 5"gun has been and still is a destroyer gun. When one thinks of battleship guns being used for coastal defense, the 14" guns of Fort Drum and Fort Frank in the Philippines or the 12" guns in various coastal defense batteries.

@@merryprankster2367 More details for intuitions: Army coastal defense batteries were making widespread use of *heavier guns* -- in addition to the 14" and 12" guns mentioned above -- making the Wake Island accomplishments more impressive than just saying "Battleship guns". Details: "Caliber" can be ambiguous. For naval guns, it is barrel length divided by barrel diameter. For small arms and some artillery (esp US), it is the barrel diameter. "Caliber" in the former sense is useful in comparing guns using the *same* shell and the *same* charge (propellant). Higher caliber roughly means there is more barrel length for the propellant to act on the shell, allowing heavier shells, longer range, higher velocity or a combination. Using millimeters for comparisons: "Battleship guns": barrel diameter, 5 inches = 127mm caliber (barrel length / barrel diameter), 51 yields 6.477m barrel length = 23.9 feet The most common US coastal defense gun was the M1918 55mm GPF (derived from the French Canon de 155 mm GPF). barrel diameter = 155mm barrel length = 5.9m = 20ft for a barrel/diameter of 38.2 The M1A1 "Long Tom" was just being introduced, but wouldn't have been on Wake Island: The Army was beefing up coast defense with M1918 GPFs from storage. barrel diameter = 155mm caliber 47 = yields 6.975m barrel length = 22.8 feet

@@DouglasMoran Don't forget that traditionally the same gun's caliber on a ship would be referenced in inches and on land in metric. Thus the 155mm on a ship like French tween wars light cruisers would be referred to as a 6.1" gun, On German ships light cruiser guns would be a 4.1" (pre-WWI cruisers like Emden) and 5.9" calibers. The 8.2" used by the German Wehrmacht as a 21cm Morser 18 howitzer and the 4.1" is a 10.5cm. No mater what people say, warships have 3" guns and the army 76mm. Traditions matter!

5" naval guns , 3" AA guns The enemy kept looking for "hidden" larger guns

My family and i visited uss Texas many years ago

From what i read elsewhere, a naval commander out ranked the marine commander and ordered the marines to surrender. the marines at that time was regrouping from losing ground but had inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese. The naval officer didn't want to lose any more men and the Japanese commander bluffed his way in and convinced the officer to surrender everyone or else. The marines would have fought to the last man and reeked more havoc on the invaders. i also understand that many of the marine were executed and/nor came home.

@@johnsheldon4880 Correct, it was Cmdr Winfield S Cunningham who ordered the surrender as the situation then was critical and hopeless for the defenders with Japanese marines already swarming the island. Admiral Pye ordered the US navy task force sent to reinforce Wake Island to return to Pearl Harbor, half way through the voyage. That pissed off all the sailors on the task force. President Roosevelt and USMC never forgave Adm Pye for his decision.

@@estellemelodimitchell8259 How it worked out was this way. The Japanese had landed troops on all three islands of the Wake atoll. Commander Cunningham was the designated island commander, and Major Devereaux the commander of the Marine Defense Battalion troops under Commander Cunningham. Their was no tactical radio communication available to the defenders and the radio they did have was for communicating with Pearl Harbor. Tactical commo was by runners or tactical telephones. The Japanese naval and air bombardment had torn up the telephone lines so Commander Cunningham had no idea his Marines were doing as well as they were. Japanese records later revealed that Wake was a "desperate" battle from their perspective too. Cunningham ordered the surrender as he felt there was no chance to defeat the Japanese. Perhaps the Marines and civilian defenders might have driven the invaders off, but realistically, the Japanese would be back and in much greater numbers. The Marines reluctantly surrendered and only because Major Devereaux had accompanied the Japanese surrender party and ordered his troops to surrender as he found them. He did order them to destroy as much of their weapons and equipment as possible before turning themselves in. The Marines weren't as upset with Commander Cunningham was they were with Admiral Pye. Cunningham was the man on the spot and made a decision based on the poor information he had available. Realistically, Admiral Pye, had poor information as well and his ships were using far more fuel than expected.

The fleet was almost completely put out of action at Pearl Harbor. There was nothing to send and no way to get it there. Same with the Philippines. The big worry at the time was a possible invasion of Hawaii.

@@DaveP326 Not true. Remember the Japanese had completely missed out US Navy aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor. TF-14 under Admiral Fletcher was quite a sizable fleet with one aircraft carrier, 3 cruisers, 8 destroyers and a few other support vessels. They had more than enough firepower to support and hold Wake Island had there been no orders to turn back the task force.

They didn't really have the budget because the government didn't give it too them because there wasn't a great deal of public support for military spending.

At least they had realized Wake’s importance and had spent all of 1941 working on its defenses (hence the 1,100 civilian workers there when the war started). Guam wasn’t so lucky; its Marine defenders didn’t even have artillery, and were overwhelmed in hours. Two years later, when the US landed the island to take it back, the Japanese showed how well it could be adapted to a prolonged defense.

The preparations late 1941 were quite impressive compared to what they were. If war could have waited 1 more month Jan 7,1942 things may have turned out quite different

@willisscott3107 I think the word you want is "isolationists".

5”/25?

@@grahamstrouse1165 I ve read a bit about Wake from 2 books Major James Devereux s book The Story of Wake Island , and A Magnificent Fight by Robert Cressman . Also magazine articles . The Marine Corps Museum could help too . The AA guns were mobile 3" guns . Fire control gear was lacking , I think Battleship Texas may have that type of 5" broadside gun's .

Destroyer guns... cruiser guns are in the 8inch range

As a main armament, the WW2 five inch gun was reserved for AA cruisers such as the USS Juneau. Most USN cruisers carried 8 inch and 6 inch guns as their main armament.

@@grimmpickens5766 8inch guns are for heavy cruisers. Light cruisers were generally armed with 6inch guns with the exception of the Atlanta class AA cruisers. Those cruisers had eight twin 5"38 dual purpose mounts.

cruiser guns are...heavy cruiser 8 inch, light cruiser 8 or 6 inch, both with 5 inch and 3 inch secondary guns.

I have it on DVD

That film and other, " Guadalcanal, Gung Ho, Bomberdier, Destroyer, and a few others were filmed during late 42 - 1943. The purpose was to get the people to not start sitting back. To get the people to the level of anger of Pearo Harbor. They worked some. But the real kicker to cause the people to work harder for victory was news reel films taken by Marine camera men and made into a long film. The battle for Tarawa. Actual footage of America dead....Previous films of real fighting did not show american dead. The people were shown the real war and the terrible waste of war. A book " One square mile of hell" is about that battle and reading it tells you the waste of war.

@@mikeholland1031 I've watched it at least 50 times.

@@robertspeicher5047 Wake Island beat them all to the Box Office. Tarawa was a nightmare but look up Peleliu. That was the most horrific island of them all. "The reduction of the Japanese pocket around Umurbrogol mountain has been called the most difficult fight that the U.S. military encountered in the entire war. The 1st Marine Division was mauled and remained out of action until the invasion of Okinawa began."

The Japanese and war crimes committed during WW2, name a better duo

POW rock. Very moving to see it.

he had it coming

We should have done the same to the Emperor as well. Hirohito was the biggest criminal of the war

Less well known were the civilian workers who were executed by the Admiral as well .

Hollywood already made a movie about Wake Island. It was made back in 1942.

They did, in 1942. Starring Brian Donlevey, Robert Preston, Macdonald Carey, Albert Dekker, Barbara Britton and William Bendix.

Wake is very, very small. Not much you can do to disperse the aircraft. Wake Island was doomed from the start. In the grand scheme of things I am sure it was a tough decision to call back the relief force, but had those been lost, it would have catastrophic for the U.S. If they would have lost the Saratoga. The Japanese had long range guns and it would have been just a matter of time.

Without early warning radar on the island, once Hiryu and Soryu showed up as they historically did - it would have been game over for the US aerial opposition all the same.

OK, and lets think about all the non-disbursed Air assets around Pearl Harbor had been disbursed. And all the Capitol ships had been sent to sea and not moored. Hind sight is a great virtue.

@@itsjohndell Pearl Harbor did not have a solid warning that they were to be attacked. Wake Island knew of the Pearl Harbor attack and could reasonably assume that they were on the target list.

@@itsjohndell But that would have foiled the PLAN! Read _Day of Deceit_, based on information declassified in the early 1990's. Until then, anyone saying the US had advance knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack was a CONSPIRACY THEORIST.

Check out Wake Island, Alamo of the Pacific. It's on RU-vid. Probably the same documentary you're talking about. Explains before, during and after the battle ☺️

You have an uncle the family must be very proud of

BB's had secondary armament of 5" guns on small turrets arrayed along the flanks of the superstructure. When the Iowa class battleships were modernized in the 1980s several 5" guns were removed to make space for tomahawk cruise missile launchers.

Very brave people. RIP.

Some were kept prisoners of the Japanese who made them make defense emplacements for them. I believe some were eventually shipped to Japan.

as far as i know the survivors were shipped off in "hell ships" to slave labor camps where many died or were ijured for life

After one of the devastating air raids, the Japanese commander of the island executed all the civil workers on the island as spies. After Japan surrendered, he was hung as a war criminal.

@@Mike-is4qv Americans who survived WW2 on Wake Island were all gumned down before surrender.

AND when the Japanese finally captured the island, they would not believe their ships were sunk by such "puny" guns! They demanded to see the 16-inch guns, which were non-existent. Major Devereaux's book.

And in well trained hands they can be a force to be reckoned with let alone they had aimed for ammo on the decks. Setting ships on fire is effective way to deal with even the large vessels.

I think they have. If not Dark Sea, one of the Dark channels has. I'm sure if it.

@@McPh1741 yes I have seen it

Really would like to know.

But his comrades on that mission that were captured by the Japanese were cannibalized