In the end, the Japanese decided to leave 98 Americans behind on Wake Island to help complete work on the base facilities. The POWs slated to leave the island were rounded up on January 12, 1942 ...

In the aftermath, the Wake Island defenders suffered as POWs in the brutal hands of their captors.

More than 76 years after Thomas “Tommy” Pechacek was captured after the bombing of Wake Island, he has finally received his Purple Heart.

The only prisoners left on Wake Island were 98 American civilian workers, forced to work on various projects.

On POW-MIA Day in 1988, the surviving Wake Island defenders from Guam were officially awarded their prisoner of war medals.

Melbourne World War II prisoner of war Tom Pechacek, who was wounded during the December 1941 bombing of Wake Island and waited 76 years to receive his Purple Heart, has died at age 98. American ...

The Navy announced it has awarded an $8 billion mega contract to 11 companies — including both local and mainland contractors — for a series of construction, maintenance and renovation projects to ...

A memorial to prisoners of war is seen Jan. 12 on Wake Island. The "98 Rock" is a memorial for the 98 U.S. civilian contract POWs who were forced by their Japanese captors to rebuild the airstrip as ...

Wake Island was devilish, a horseshoe-shaped piece of land that had to be defended both from air attacks and from Japanese landing craft arriving from the ships in the distance.

Marine veteran John Dale and other hostages who were captured on Wake Island in December 1941 were surrounded by a group of Japanese soldiers who were armed with machine guns, ...

It took decades for the military to formally recognize the role of the civilian POWs in the defense of Wake Island. Mace said he received his discharge papers from the Navy in 1981.