The Naval Commander's version of the SAGA!
In this 1961 telling of the Wake Island saga, the Naval Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham gives his accounting of the events that took place during the first days of WWII.
Cunningham, it appears, has been slighted by history's fickle memory. His command and subsequent surrender of the garrison has been overshadowed by early media accounts and the U.S. Navy's indifference to his place or lack thereof in history. Also working against Cunningham is Marine Major Devereux's preceding 1947 and equally self glorifying book.
Having read both, as well as several other books on Wake, I'm inclined to believe that somewhere between both accounts lies the truth of waht happened on that remote Pacific atoll.
Read both, but with a grain of salt. The relationship between these two characters was tainted amidst the wartime press's hype of the battle and the legends that lingered after the war.
An interesting first-hand account of the events nonetheless.
