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Pacific Alamo: The Battle for Wake Island. By John Wukovits. New York: New American Library, 2003. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xi, 308. $24.95.
"How the 'Devil Dogs of Wake Island' battled long odds is one of the great stories in the annals of military lore," historian John Wukovits declares in his introduction to Pacific Alamo. However, how Wake's beleaguered understrength U.S. Marine defense battalion, augmented by a small aviation component, navy sailors, army communicators, and varying numbers of civilian construction workers, withstood almost daily bombings, gallantly withstood one landing attempt, and, in the end, reluctantly surrendered, is a tale that has indeed been told within the last decade. The knowledgeable reader will find no revelations in Pacific Alamo but may, in fact, be annoyed by the errors that appear not only in the main story but in its...