British Couple Reacts to 450 Marines Vs The Imperial Japanese Navy - Wake Island 

The U.S marines will always be the strongest fighting force in the world crayon eaters or not you got to admit they’re badass💪

My 6th Grade teacher was one of those 450 Marines. He was one hell of a disciplinarian, worse than any nun. OTOH, when I brought a training grenade, a gas mask and a bayonet to school one day for Show and Tell, he was the only teacher who wasn't losing his shit. That was in '75, but it was still unusual for a kid to bring a fragmentation grenade to school. Nowadays, I'd probably still be in the nuthouse.

The reason you know the human body is 80% water is because the Japanese would weigh prisoners and put them into a convection oven until they were beef jerky and then weigh the bodies. Look up Japan's Unit 731

Marines back then were trained in near death conditions But the number one thing that was Trained into them was Accuracy Rifle Accuracy is the number one priority second only to close Quarter combat

I wish you would watch til the end. He usually has something at the end. This one has the actual footage of the one guy saying they didn't have a dog on the island. Not all his videos have something at the end but a lot of them do.

Wake and Midway were indeed two separate actions. Midway occured about 6 months after Wake

I realize y'all are relatively new to TFE, but you need to keep playing until the very end. He almost always has a little extra after the credits roll. On this one he says he'd have kept the rugs then shows footage of the surviving men from that battle and has a couple of them talking about the movie he referenced at the end. He does this on almost all of his videos.

As a former squid (navy), I am reluctant to admit this publicly but we are very proud of our marines. They do the impossible and have been doing so since they were first established. The marine hymn is an ode to impossible situations. It mentions the "shores of Tripoli". In effect, a naval officer named Stephen Decatur filled a rowboat with a bunch of marines and attacked a "battleship". They won. Even your Lord Nelson was impressed.

Former President George H.W. Bush was a naval aviator during WW II. Because he flew Grumman Avenger torpedo bombers, the nickname for the USS George H.W Bush (CVN-77) is "Avenger." That was the last of the Nimitz class aircraft carriers built.

Those Marines showed the enemy why they earned the nick name of Devil Dogs...

When I was a kid I had a freind whose father was a Marine in the Pacific War. Actually in the 50s and 60s most of our fathers were WWII vets, some were Korean War vets.

Wake Island is both a heroic story of what Marines and Americans can do when they are put into a dangerous situation together and a common enemy. It is also one of the most TRAGIC stories from WW 2, due to the way that after doing such a remarkable job of defending their island, they get "left behind" by politicians who were too afraid of failure to even TRUE to get them out. I mean, it is clearly one thing to attempt a rescue mission and it doesn't work. But it is entirely something else to LEAVE people behind and do NOTHING to give them hope, or help.

It makes me very happy to hear our friends across the pond recognize how uniquely patriotic America is.

Retired Navy here, one of the ships I was stationed on was the USS Elrod, named after Hammering Hank! I was a Plankowner (first crew) on the USS Elrod, the ship is no longer in commission but we do have an annual reunion. I enjoyed this reaction. Thank you.

Just so you know the BB referenced, I believe is the older model made of lead and dipped in copper fired with air pressure or spring power. It is not the much safer Airsoft BB made of plastic.

7:30-7:37 American "BB Guns" aren't always shooting plastic pellets, or at least they didn't when I was young in the 1970s and 1980s. They fired a metal ball about 2-3mm in diameter using the force of compressed air. Some BB guns can fire a half gram metal sphere at a velocity exceeding 500 feet per second / 152 meters per second which can actually break bones, and are sometimes used as a means of exterminating wild vermin or very small game hunting

I work here!!! Been here for the past 3 years! The history here is insane

The guy tells the facts in a very interesting way. I was hooked.

My grandfather was one of the Marines on Wake Island. After he was captured, he was sent to China, Korea, and finally Japan till the end of the war. The high survival rate was partially due to the fact that the camp was regularly visited by the Red Cross and that unlike the Philippines, the island was way too small to march them to death. He still ended up losing a hundred pounds due to malnutrition but had no ill will towards the Japanese people.

Another David vs Goliath (US vs Japan) story from WW2 is the story of US naval Task Force Taffy3 at the Battle of Samar. This time it's Navy badassery on display. Worth the watch.

My uncle was one of the original Navajo Code Talkers, he was Peleliu, Saipan and Iwo Jima. He NEVER talked about his service.

My father and an uncle had served with the Marine Corps in the Pacific during WW-2. That's whey I joined out of high school in 1964. We still had some WW-2 and Korean war vets. as our instructors in boot camp at that time. Best thing I ever did. Tom Boyte GySgt. USMC, retired Vietnam 1965-66/1970-71 0331, Infantry machine guns / 0369 Infantry unit leader

One of my Grandfather's was in that battle. Still proud of him.

If you guys really want to delve into the rabbit hole of Japanese war crimes in WW2, I have a few recommendations for you. 1st. Wendigoon: "The most disturbing Human experiment ever", a 45 minute video about the infamous Unit 731. Of course a long video might not fit in with your schedule or format, so I have a shorter video on the same subject is 2nd . World War Two: "Japan's biological terror! - The horror of Unit 731 - WW2 special" coming in at 15 minutes Of course the cover up story of the war crimes is just as morbidly intriguing as the actual acts themselves, so I have two recommendations for these too. 3rd. Hello Future Me: "The US covered up Japan's worst warcrime. Here's how", this is the longest video at 1 hour and 45 minutes, but i can personally attest that it is as engaging as any movie. 4th. Knowing Better: "Playing the victim | Historical Revisionism and Japan", once again a shorter version coming in at 25 minutes. If you guys decide to react to the shorter versions of the videos, I still recommend checking out the longer videos on your own time, as they are documentary level quality in their research, detail, and presentation. I do understand if you don't do an official reaction to them of course, due to the length. Hope you guys enjoy the videos, and learn about a sorely neglected part of human history in Western education.

Semper Fi

My great uncle was taken prisoner and killed in a prisoner of war camp on the island of Hokkaido. My grandmother had a seething and uncurable hatred of anything Japanese until the day she died. One of the survivors of his regiment refused to tell her how her brother was killed.

What a couple of nice people. On the 1-10 “nice” scale, these two are both 10’s. She is a sweetheart.

If you really want to Japan's treatment of POW's, the Fat Electrician's "Ghost of Bataan" video mentions both the Bataan death march and hell ships. The death march was a forced march from the captured allied base in Bataan to a faraway prison camp that killed most of the prisoners. Hell ships were prison boats that left prisoners exposed to the elements 24/7 with zero shelter.

At one time there was an original order from command. That was "Hold until relieved." Officers knew that could mean that their unit was to be held as expendable.

The pacific war was as brutal as the eastern front. Different scale, but the hate was thick. And in a lot of ways more intimate.

To see how well the US and UK worked together, Please check out the Fat Electrician's "Biggest Logistical Flex Of All Time - Berlin Airlift". It is a feel good history lesson.

They left because we didn't have enough ships to adequately protect the carriers. It would have been far worse to have lost wake and a carrier then to just lose wake. Someone has to make the calls - and while we can disagree all we want there was a valid reason for it.

Guys guys! He has 2 post credits scenes in this video! I was really hoping to see your reaction to them! Also remember his ad reads add to his comedy. His ad reads are amazing! Definitely don't skip them!

This has nothing to do with the content, but I'm always happy with how she dresses. It's always modest and very nice.

I would. Like to see a reaction to the marine Navajo Code Talkers of WwIi

I don’t know who this guy is but I love the way he tells stories about my brother marines

Wake Island was called the Alamo of the Pacific.

10:50 on a strategic level it makes sense to hold onto ships as we had just had our asses to us at Pearl Harbor so a large part of our Pacific fleet was out of action. We treated the forces in the Philippines the same way. Any force that would have been sent would have been sunk and unrecoverable.

Its the philosophy of Sun Tzu If you are stronger then your enemy attack. If you are weaker, retreat. Never show your enemy your winning hand, so to speak. If the enemy thinks you are weak, then appear so until you lay a trap.

If you want to laugh your asses off. Watch his video "America Blew up a Whale with 1,000lbs of TNT" 😂

Wendigoon gas an amazing video in a horrific Japanese unit and research facility that covers some of the more horrific war crimes of that era. And that's saying something because competition for that gold medal was fierce.

If you want to do research on Japanese atrocities look up stuff on Nanking and unit 731. Unit 731 was the reason we know the % of human is water because they baked humans alive and weighed them to find out how much water evaporated.

I’m 65, so glad I got to see and talk to these men. They hardly said a word about what the saw and did. However they would tell you their units. Many of my football coaches fought in WWII, Korean, and Vietnam. They used many of their words from the military like Chow Hall and others. In football words like kamikaze, red dog which turned into blitz. They were men and carried themselves as such.

No! Wake Island was at the beginning of WWII days after Pearl Harbor. Midway was in June 1942.

10:45 I LOVE the way this guy tells historical events. So much more entertaining than all the history classes I took in grade school, middle school, high school, and in college.

Awsome as always! Still wondering how no channels have done the lewis millet from fat electrician. Probably 1 of the best

That's a good video this guy can really tell a story can't he 👍👍👍 great video James and Millie. I look forward to seeing the live stream this Friday😊😊😊

if you want to watch videos of Japanese war crimes you should watch videos of unit 731 and the rape of Nanking. in some ways Japan committed worse crimes than Germany to the point that a nazi party member tried to help Chinese civilians escape Japanese soldiers during the Nanking massacre.

Nick/The Fat Electrician is the history teacher we all needed in school.

Check out the movie "Unbroken" for some insight into Japanese camps. Brilliant and amazing movie!

I'm fascinated with WW2 history, myself. So, I appreciate the fact that you also seem to share this interest via many of your videos. I'm an American "Baby Boomer" (born in 1952), so, I have a great appreciation for the accomplishments of the Allies, primarily the Brits and Americans working together, to ultimately defeat the Nazis and Imperial Japan in the greatest and most consequential war (so far) in history. Never was a war so clearly a good versus evil proposition. It's unusual for young people of your generation to have an appreciation for both the horror and eventual glory of this period in history. Most young people simply have no idea, let alone an appreciation. Good for you, Beesleys! Keep up the good work.

My friends grandfather was on wake , he spent four and a half years as a POW

I watched a video, 10 pleasant realities about the USA. One of the things was that all Americans aren’t patriotic. How is that pleasant! I am proud of how patriotic that my country is! Even with a dementia stricken president, we are still the greatest country on earth! Not because of our government, but in spite of it! It’s the people that make America great, and the support that we give our troops they deserve. It’s a shame that every country on earth doesn’t give the same respect to their troops!

1 UNDERstrength battalion, and a Squadron of 12 fighters...

My uncle, was a marine stationed at Pearl Harbor, on Dec.7 1941 when the Japanese attacked. I didn't know until recently that he was on a troop transport to reinforce the Marine garrison at Wake Island. The task force turned back to Pearl after learning that Wake Island had been taken by the Japanese. RIP uncle Roland 🙏

One thing y’all need to know the women and men alive during WW2 were cut from a different cloth and are considered the greatest generation they were a bunch tough people cause they went through a lot

The Makin island raid helped to boost morale at home when it was sorely needed. It also had a unfortunate side effect. It caused the Japanese to fortify their island's more heavily, against future raid's, and caused more casualties against invading Marine's.

Wake was the Marine Corps at it's best.

Wake Island is known as the Alamo of the Pacific.

By letting the Japanese ships close to 4,000 yards, Not ONLy could the 152 mm [ 5 inch] guns be employed, but the 3 inch, 76.2 mm AA guns could be lowered level, and take on the Destroyers near the beach. It gave Cmdr. Deveraux MORE guns to work with. 5.21

He’s the best story teller on RU-vid

My great grandad was one of those construction workers on wake island!

Regarding Japanese war crimes to surrendered soldiers, look up "The Bataan Death March". That, along with Unit 731 were truly horrible.

After WWI the US military was reduced to hardly any personnel at all. At this stage in the war we were not ready with personnel or equipment. That is one reason todays military is so strong.

Wake Island is 1,991 miles from Tokyo, and much, much closer territory already controlled by the Japanese navy and Japanese bases. Wake Island is 2,298 miles west of Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii and Wake Island is 1,170 miles southwest of Midway Island. There were no close U.S. military bases to launch attacks against the Japanese forces and the U.S. Navy was so short of ships, mainly Capital ships, that the risk of losing any plus their crews, sadly, outweighed the loss of the Marines and construction workers on Wake Island. At times the tough call, the hard choice, has to be made in war.

In the scheme, of things. We might still be the young country, of the world. But we'll never give up easily! Military, or civilian. We'll fight for what's ours if needed!!

Is anyone else somewhat alarmed that the Beasleys clearly have no idea who Mao was? SMH

You should look at his first videos, you could do about 5 of them at a time since they are really short tiktok style videos, but they are interesting. Mostly going over general military ranks.

side note: That marine rifle company surrendered under orders but as punishment for their surrender they are permanently banned from ever returning home. To this day their company headquarters is in Okinawa and anyone returning to the US must forst transfer to another unit because their unit badge and insignia isn't allowed to return home. there is also an empty space on the wall of insignias at all marine ceremonies where all the ensigns are flown because theirs can not be seen on US soil. They surrendered on the orders of an Army General

Break your habit of stopping early. Whether it were the MCU or TFE, wait for after-credit content.

Japan technically didn't consider that they committed war crimes because they never signed the Articles of War. But they thought anyone who surrendered were cowards and deserved to die because of their Bushido code.

The quote about the sleeping dragon and resolve is entirely apocryphal. There's no evidence it was ever spoken or written by Yamamoto or anyone else.

BB's are not plastic. That is Air Soft pellets.

6:15 not really true, in Hawaii they lost their mini subs

You stopped the video too soon ;) should have played it to the end showing an interview with some of the Marines that served on Wake Island.

Yay , More Fat Electrition stories!!❤❤😂🎉🎉❤❤

the decision to not to go rescue / reinforce them is a tough one to hear. Easy to sit here and question it, but I am sure it was not an easy decision. But Japan had a very significant force there, I am sure that had to play into it, especially so soon after all the losses at Pearl Harbor. At this point, we had to rally and give them some decisive blows. Little battles here and there that did not progress us strategically would ultimately decimate us. That is why Midway was so important. It was a real blow. If Wake Island happened after Midway, I think we would have mounted a rescue.

This was at the beginning of the war. Midway was nearer the end of the war.

Mentioned this in another reaction but not sending help while unpopular was the right move. We didn't have the ships after pearl to protect Hawaii, the west coast of america and send help. A huge chunk of the fleet was in the Atlantic and we had given a bunch of ships to the brits to help protect convoys and even if we wanted to move ships to the Pacific it would take to long to be helpful. Secondly if we did show up risking what was left of the pacific fleet for what in reality is a fairly pointless island compared to hawaii and midway is just a huge risk for no reason. Lastly japan had no chance in a protracted war so risking everything right at the beginning played into theit hands so waiting for our production juggernaut to get up and rolling and just swamp them with so many ships and planes they couldn't even fathom stopping it is the much better strategy.

Every Clime and Place. You will always find us on the job. The World's Finest US Marines. Semper Fi

Please react to Americas Warhorse Marine by him!

When that patriotic switch gets flipped the devil runs and hides

There's stories like this throughout USMC history. 2 kinds of people know who the Marines are. The Marines and the enemy. Everyone else isa second-hand opinion. As the saying goes.

A BB gun and Airsoft are similar bit different. A Airsoft gun is at least semi automatic or full automatic. Meaning at least one plastic pellet is fired per pull of the trigger. A BB gun shoots 1 metal pellet or ball at a time. Often they are spring or air powered. Reloading speed is often minimum 5 seconds.

Millie is always pretty but today she looks the epitome of the Happy Mum.

Do reaction to The Navajo CodeTalkers of ww2

Mao Zedong didn’t technically kill that many through violence (although some people were most definitely “disappeared” and executed) but he had championed killing sparrows because of problems with them eating seeds (allegedly). So they disrupted the balance and insects destroyed the crops causing mass starvation.

Just look up what the Japanese did during the Bataan Death March, or any time they committed a war crime against civilians in China or Korea.

BBs are not plastic, but a metal like copper or steel.

Wendigoon has a great video on the atrocities of unit 731, although he doesn't show anything graphic, the subject matter is so horrendous that it will make you so disgusted with the evils humans can commit

This is going to sound callous, and it kind of was, but also it was the result of facing reality: Wake Island was sacrificed for valid strategic reasons. Specifically, the upper command structure had a reasonably good idea of what shipyards were available to do what work on what ships and approximately how fast they could do it, which gave them a timetable for how long they had to make the existing fleet (and whatever of the Pearl Harbor casualties could be repaired) last, so that the west coast would not be left defenseless until the next wave of ships could be deployed. For the first few months of (our participation in) the war, then, they had to be careful how they used those ships, engaging smaller detachments of the enemy when possible so as to outnumber them, and otherwise committing to only the most critical battles until the shipyards had time to do their thing. This is also why MacArthur had to abandon the Philippines. The situation in the Pacific started turning around *somewhat* after about six months but didn't really look good (from a strategic standpoint) until the first of the Essex class came online, a full year after Pearl Harbor. (The Essex was the first of the fleet carriers that had been ordered in 1940, and they were built in parallel, so once they started to roll off the line, the US Navy was getting about one new fleet carrier a month for the best part of a year, a production rate that Imperial Japan could not hope to match. At this point, strategically speaking, Japan *should* have sued for peace, because things were not going to be going their way any more. The Japanese navy brass had warned Tojo about this before Pearl Harbor, but he decided to go forward with it anyway, because the army needed oil. This was "kick the can down the road" thinking, but now the can was getting heavier and it was going to be increasingly difficult to keep kicking it. By the middle of 1944, the can weighed several tons, had large barbed spikes sticking out of it in all directions, and it was growling.)

He must have a Texan, don't fire to you see the white of their eyes.

Actually, the USS Saratoga, a Ranger class aircraft carrier and her escorts were on the way to Wake to reinforce the island by dropping off air wings and supplies. They were ordered to turn around, because at that time the US only had 3 operating carriers in the Pacific, the Saratoga, the Lexington (a Lexington class carrier) and the Enterprise )a Yorktown class carrier). These ships and their escorts were all that was left to stop the Japanese at that time and were not to be risked unless absolutely necessary to defend Hawaii or the west coast of the US. This decision was the correct one. You should watch Kings & Generals, Pacific War on youtube, excellent full Pacific War timeliness, battle by battle, India, Burma, the New Guinnea and Solomons campaign, the central Pacific drive. From start to finish, British, Gussied, New, Zealand, Chinese, all the naval and sea battles, in chronological order, are there.

BB guns in the US don’t shoot plastic they shoot steel shot.

7:37 Well BB guns are metal BB’s

The civilians that were left on the island were shot later on.

This was right after Pearl Harbor, Midway was over a year away

When it comes to crayons, I prefer the red ones! Semper Fi!

Is stuff that we did and things that he said narrating doesn't make the hair stand up on the back of your neck I don't know what does. That's what makes a patriot

George Bush was shot down and successfully ejected out of his plane after all of his crew ejected to make sure he gave them time to get out. He landed in the ocean far from an island held by a small unit of Japanese. His friends ejected within swimming distance of the island and were all captured soon after they made it to the beach. The commander of the Japanese soldiers was super pissed off about Wake Island and had some severe personal problems. He thought if he ate parts of his enemy, he would gain their strength, so they picked one of the prisoners out and he ordered his medic to remove body parts from the American prisoner and had his men eat parts of it. That happened every day. When the fate of his men came out, Bush was horrified. It is thought that's why he vomited at a state dinner during a visit to Japan, he had a PTSD flashback after eating some roast. Mao Sai Tung (sp?) became Chairman Mao, trying to lead the Chinese into a modern age of enlightenment using Communism and tore the social structure of China down from top to bottom. If you were a teacher, priest, or preacher, you were executed or sent to hard labor in a concentration camp. They ordered everyone to live in communal housing and farms to grow their own food, even if they were from the city or had other jobs and no idea how to do it. You just can't learn how to farm in one season, so people starved to death left and right. He got it in his head that it was the fault of sparrows eating the seeds, so he ordered the mass extermination of sparrows. Problem was, sparrows eat bugs like ticks and mosquitoes which carry diseases and if you're living in one building with everyone else in a weakened state from starvation, you catch diseases easily, so more people died from disease. It's amazing there is a China today with so many people dying from his bright ideas.