As USS Saratoga approached San Diego Harbor on December 7, 1941, to embark her air group, the Japanese launched an attack on Pearl Harbor. By the next morning, Saratoga had become the flagship of Carrier Division One, immediately departing for the Hawaiian port.
The Japanese had also launched a series of assaults throughout the Pacific, taking the United States forces by storm. Still, the handful of men stranded on the tiny atoll known as Wake Island miraculously repelled the initial strike, but they were now waiting for a final blow.
Saratoga and her fleet soon steamed towards Wake Island to relieve the few military elements and civilian workers there, needing to travel about half the immense ocean to get there on time.
However, the weather conditions, the need to refuel, and the intense enemy activities in the region kept delaying their advance, leaving the brave men on the island to fend off on their own…
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It's been a while since I last watched a "Random Video" episode. Never disappointing.
Those people left behind were executed by the Japanese, not too many people know this. More history please, it's nice to know someone cares.
These men were particularly why I joined the Corps. I was fortunate enough to be able to visit this historic island in the 1980’s.
I was on Wake In 1986. Those same guns that your grandfather fired some were still there. Crazy that I touched the guns and walked the beaches that your brave grandfather along with so many actual heroes (both civilians and Marines) had ferociously defended in 1941. Semper Fi
didnt the Japanese execute the pow's left on wake?
5 Inch guns are certainly mounted on Battleships… But they're considered Destroyer calibre guns xD
The Navy abandoned the Marine corps is why Major general Merritt Austin Edson 1897-1955 USMC resigned his commission August 1. 1947 to testify before congress August 15. 1947 to keep their own air wing.
You're not supposed to leave men behind abandoning that Garrison was cowardice by the naval commanders they should have tried
They should have bought until they ran out of bullets then fixed bayonets better than to be captured by The Savage
They should have dropped the first atomic bomb on Wake Island instead of dropping it on Tokyo maybe then the Japanese were the surrendered and they would have been able to spare the civilian populations of Nagasaki and Hiroshima
LOL calling 5 inch guns "Battleship Guns" in the title sounds better than calling them what they were: "Destroyer guns" Battleships of the time were armed with main battery of 14 inch or 16 inch guns. Yes, Battleships did indeed have 5 in guns as secondary and AA guns, but by no means were they ever fitted as the main armament of a Battleship ever. So at one point in your narrative, the 5 inch guns are referred to as "old Shore Batteries" so that leaves the question, which guns were from the old Battleship Texas? Maybe only the 3 inch AA guns came from the old battleship Texas, (by the way, was this the BB35 Texas? or the older pre-dreadnaught 1895 era Texas?) and not the 5inch guns since they were old shore battery guns? To me, the courage of the Wake Island Defenders using little pea shooter 5 inch and 3 inch guns to hold off the invasion fleet of Japan is impressive enough and needs no exaggeration. Still overall a good video you manage to tell the story very well.
The Japanese should have been worried about how this first battle against prepared Americans went, knowing how outnumbered the Marines were, but also how much economic might and weaponry the US would eventually be able to produce……..on Guadalcanal, several months later, the Marines cleaned up.
Lots of unrelated images used here and in other videos from this channel
Those 5 inch guns were not typical "battleship guns". They would have been used as anti aircraft guns on a battleshp, but not as heavy artillery. So your headline is misleading.
You left out the little unimportant bit about the Japanese massacring said 100 forced laborers during they occupation.
Did I hear that right? They used naval guns from the USS Texas? Wasn't that the ship that saw action in all 5 theaters of WW2?
Did he just say "Greedy empire"? Lost all respect for this channel.
They went thru all that effort to capture a few small islands. Lost several ships and over a thousand men. A when september 1945 came by. They surrendered the islands with out so much as firing a single shot. The war over.
It was Admiral Pye who ordered the withdrawl of the American rescue force. Because of his cowardice Pye never held another command again during the war.
A minor point: "battleship guns" are normally 12 in or larger. Yes, smaller guns, can be on a battleship, as secondary or tertiary battery, but they're not called "battleship guns", usually not… Good video otherwise.
I never knew the Royal Artillery served on Wake