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Wake Island atttacked in 1943...
Wake Island atttacked in 1943...
Item # 628905
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October 07, 1943
THE SPRINGFIELD UNION, Massachusetts, October 7, 1943
* Wake Island attack - WW2
* MLB baseball World Series
The front page has the 3 line, 4 column heading: "JAPANESE ON WAKE ISLAND ARE HEAVILY ATTACKED BY U.S. NAVY VESSELS, PLANES", with subhead: "Pacific Fleet Force Shells, Bombs Enemy." Considerable supporting text on both the front and an inside page. Other news of the day throughout with much more on WWII and MLB World Series reporting between the St. Louis cardinals and the New York Yankees.
Light browning with minor margin wear, otherwise in very good condition.
wikipedia notes: On October 5, 1943, American naval aircraft from USS Yorktown raided Wake. Two days later, fearing an imminent invasion, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of the 98 captured American civilian workers remaining on the island, kept to perform forced labor. They were taken to the northern end of the island, blindfolded and executed with a machine gun. One of the prisoners (whose name has never been discovered) escaped the massacre, apparently returning to the site to carve the message 98 US PW 5-10-43 on a large coral rock near where the victims had been hastily buried in a mass grave. The unknown American was recaptured, and Sakaibara personally beheaded him with a katana. The inscription on the rock can still be seen and is a Wake Island landmark.
Category: The 20th Century
No Longer Available
