This film was commenced before the battle finished. It tells how that small force of marines and civilian workers defended remote Wake Island for two weeks against the Japanese blitzkrieg early in the Pacific War.
Fictional names were used for characters, many of whom had real life counterparts especially Brian Donlevy as Major Caton (in reality, Major James Devereux). Other characters were inventions such as the bickering buddies played by Robert Preston and William Bendix.
Of course the filmmakers didn't know how the battle really ended because communication was cut, and the Japanese weren't working as technical advisors.
The scenes of the battle on the island were well staged although the film is a mixture of bathtub model effects, documentary footage of varying quality and every cliché Hollywood ever invented for military life.
Director John Farrow, Mia's father, was an Australian who joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1939 on the outbreak of the war in Europe. He actually directed "Wake Island" while convalescing from illness. The film was released in August 1942 when he must have known that the fate of Australia hung in the balance.
The film exudes an iron-jawed heroic tone that 80 years later seems like typical Hollywood exaggeration. However those marines on Wake were as uncomplicatedly brave as the film depicts.
After Pearl Harbour, the Marine Corps expanded with the influx of thousands of highly motivated citizens, but the Wake Island garrison was made up of pre-war marines, professionals; being marines was their stock in trade. The defence of Wake (actually three islands: Wilkes, Peale and Wake) was remarkable, but if anything exemplifies the calibre of those men, it was what happened on Wilkes.
There is a line in 'Full Metal Jacket" when Gunnery Sergeant Hartman tells the recruits "The deadliest weapon in the world is a marine and his rifle".
The one hundred Japanese who landed on Wilkes may have agreed. Attacked by about half that number of marines led by Captain Wesley Platt, all the Japanese were killed through a combination of superb marksmanship and aggressive tactics. When Major Devereaux went around ordering his men to lay down their arms, Platt refused at first, exclaiming, "Marines don't surrender. Let us die right here". But he did obey the order; he was a marine after all.
The defenders didn't all die and most faced long years of harsh captivity. A brilliant documentary, "Wake Island: Alamo of the Pacific", told the true story through the eyes of veterans who returned to the island, a remarkable group of elderly men revealing the qualities of the marines who defended Wake.
In 1942 the film served a purpose. Today its importance could be that it will inspire people to find out what really happened, because history has a disturbing habit of repeating itself.
