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Originally Wake's Island; named after Captain William Wake[1][2] of the Prince William Henry (a British trading schooner) between the 1790s[3][4] and 1803.[5] Alternatively said to be named for a Captain Samuel Wake.[3][6]
An island of the United States, among the islands of Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean, administered by the Office of Insular Affairs of the United States Department of the Interior and used solely by the United States Air Force.
1866 August 18, “LAST NEWS OF ANNA BISHOP”, in The Musical World, volume 44, number 33, London, →OCLC, page 521:
Intelligence has been received at Hong Kong of the total loss of the ship Libelle while on a voyage to that port from San Francisco, having on board a valuable cargo and specie to the extent of £76,000 in dollars, and a number of passengers, among whom were Madame Anna Bishop, Miss Phelan, Mr. M. Schrutz, and Mr. Charles Lascelles, of the English Opera Company, who, with other artists, were on a musical tour. The ship was cast away on the night of the 4th of March, on an uninhabited and dangerous reef called Wake Island, in the China Seas.
There were only some four hundred United States marines who in the heroic and historic defense of Wake Island inflicted such great losses on the enemy. Some of those men were killed in action; and others are now prisoners of war.
"I went out to Wake Island to see General MacArthur because I did not want to take him far away from Korea, where he is conducting very important operations with great success.[...] "At the same time I believed my trip to Wake Island would give emphasis to the historic action taken by the United Nations on Korea.[...] "At Wake Island we talked over the Far Eastern situation and its relationship to the problem of world peace.[...] "Now I want Wake Island to be a symbol of our unity of purpose for world peace. I want to see world peace from Wake Island west all the way around back again. I want to see world peace from Wake Island all the way east and back again — and we are going to get it!
It takes only a brief glimpse at a 1941 map of the Pacific to see why Wake Island was considered to be of such strategic value to the United States and why it was such an early target in Japan's program of conquest. As the war planners on both sides saw the situation in the late 1930s, possession of Wake was vital to the defense of their territory.
↑ 3.03.1Central Intelligence Agency (2022 April 19) “Wake Island”, in The World Factbook, retrieved April 22, 2022: “etymology: although first discovered by British Captain William WAKE in 1792, the island is named after British Captain Samuel WAKE, who rediscovered the island in 1796”
^ “Wake Island”, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019 March 1, retrieved April 22, 2022: “The atoll was visited by the British mariner William Wake (1796)”
^ Norie, John William (1803) “XX. Islands, Rocks, and Shoals in the NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN.”, in A Complete Set of Nautical Tables, Containing All that are Requisite, London: Author & William Heather, →OCLC, page 237
^ Urwin, Gregory J. W. (2002) Facing Fearful Odds: The Siege of Wake Island, →ISBN, page 22
