American Civilians murdered on Wake Island
5th October 1943: The arrival of a US Navy Task Force to bombard the Japanese forces occupying Wake Island results in a massacre of civilian detainees
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The day following its strike against German shipping in Arctic waters, the US Navy demonstrated its global reach and the tremendous growth in its power with another carrier-based attack on the other side of the world.
Wake Island, a remote mid-Pacific atoll that served as a staging post for the US military before the war, had fallen to the Japanese in February 1942. From that time until the end of the war, a series of US air and sea raids bombarded the occupiers. The largest raid by far was a two-day attack by the largest US Navy carrier force yet assembled on the 5th-6th October 1943.
Over two days Task Force 14’s carrier-based aircraft flew 510 sorties, dropping 340 tons of bombs, while fleet units bombarded the island with 3198 rounds of 5" and 8" projectiles.
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