Wake Island ★★★ 1942

After Pearl Harbor, a small group of Marines face the onslaught of the Japanese fleet on a small Pacific Island. Although doomed, they hold their ground for 16 days. Exciting, realistic, and moving. The first film to capitalize on early “last stands” of WWII; also among the most popular war movies. Shown to soldiers in training camps with great morale-raising success. 88m/B VHS, DVD . Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, William Bendix, MacDonald Carey, Albert Dekker, Walter Abel, Rod Cameron, Barbara Britton, Mikhail Rasumny, Bill Goodwin, Damian O'Flynn, Frank Albertson, Hugh Beaumont, Hillary Brooke, James Brown, Don Castle, Frank Faylen, Mary Field, William Forrest, Alan Hale Jr., Charles Trow-bridge, Philip Van Zandt, Phillip Terry; D: John Farrow; W: W.R. Burnett, Frank Butler; C: William Mellor, Theodor Sparkuhl; M: David Buttolph. N.Y. Film Critics ‘42: Director (Farrow).

Wake Island Largest of three small coral islands, known collectively as Wake Island, enclosing a lagoon in the w Pacific Ocean. The Spanish discovered the island in 1568, and the British named it in 1796. Annexed by the USA in 1898, Wake Island became a US naval base. It was captured by the Japanese in 1941, and recaptured by the USA in 1945.