Sources
The author consulted primary materials in the Marine Corps Historical Center Archives Section (including the source material gathered for Col Robert D. Heinl, Jr.’s 1947 monograph The Defense of Wake); Reference Section (November/December 1941 muster rolls); biographical material on many of the individuals involved in the defense of Wake, and Subject Files on Wake; Personal Papers Collection (Claude A. Larkin, Henry T. Elrod, and John F. Kinney Collections), and Oral History Collection (James P. S. Devereux and Omar T. Pfeiffer Interviews) as well as in the Naval Historical Center Operational Archives Branch.
Charles L. Updegraph, Jr.’s U.S. Marine Corps Special Units of World War II (Washington: HQMC, 1972) proved useful for background on defense battalions, while Woodrow M. Kessler, To Wake and Beyond: Reminiscences (Washington: MCHC, 1988) and James B. Darden III, Guests of the Emperor: The Story of Dick Darden (Clinton, North Carolina: The Greenhouse Press, 1990) provided illuminating insights.
Older, but still useful, general works concerning Wake Island include Winfield S. Cunningham (with Lydel Sims), Wake Island Command (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1961), James P. S. Devereux, The Story of Wake Island (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1947) (by the author’s own admission, a ghost-written “romance”); and Robert D. Heinl, Jr., The Defense of Wake. On general Pacific strategy (including the attempt at relief of Wake), see John B. Lundstrom, The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway (Annapolis: Naval Institute, 1984).
Articles and periodicals consulted: from the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings: Ross A. Dierdorff, “Pioneer Party—Wake Island” (April 1943) and Homer C. Votaw, “Wake Island” (January 1941). See also John R. Burroughs, “The Siege of Wake Island: An Eyewitness Account,” American Heritage (June 1959) and Robert D. Heinl, Jr., “We’re Headed for Wake,” Marine Corps Gazette (June 1946).
About the Author
Robert J. Cressman, currently a member of the Naval Historical Center’s Contemporary History Branch, earned both a bachelor of arts in history, in 1972, and a masters of arts in history, in 1978, at the University of Maryland. Formerly also a historian in the Marine Corps Historical Center’s Reference Section, from 1979–1981, he has published articles in such publications as the Naval Institute Proceedings, Marine Corps Gazette, and The Hook. He is the author of That Gallant Ship: USS Yorktown (CV-5) (1985), and editor and principal contributor of A Glorious Page in Our History: The Battle of Midway, 4–6 June 1942 (1990). With J. Michael Wenger, he has co-authored Steady Nerves and Stout Hearts: The USS Enterprise (CV-6) Air Group and Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941 (1990) and Infamous Day: Marines at Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941 (1992), another title in this World War II commemorative series of publications.