Portrayal in Popular Culture
The Paramount studio began work on a movie even before the real life Battle for Wake Island was over. The resulting 1942 film, directed by John Farrow, tacks unrelated romantic subplots onto a straightforward re-telling of the battle. The film contains numerous factual errors, leaving viewers with the impression that the island's defenders fought to the last man; that the island's naval commander was killed in a bombing raid (he survived); and that the Island defense was in the hands of USMC officers. However, the film succeeded in its primary propaganda purpose of creating a stirring patriotic film. Wake Island was nominated for four Academy Awards, including best picture. Farrow won the 1942 New York Film Critics Circle Award for best director.
A 2003 television documentary, Wake Island: Alamo of the Pacific, included interviews with both U.S. Marines and Japanese sailors who took part in the fighting. The film received a 2004 Emmy nomination for music and sound.
In the 2002 Computer Game Battlefield 1942 players can replay on the map Wake Island (a fair copy of the island) the second attack of the Japanese.
In the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, Christopher Walken's character, Major Koons, references the battle when recounting the somewhat painful journey of the young Butch Coolidge's father's pocket watch.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Wake Island
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