When the Japanese attacked Wake Island in December 1941—the same day as Pearl Harbor—Marine pilot Henry Elrod took to the skies in his F4F Wildcat fighter to defend the American military base on the tiny Pacific atoll, battling swarms of enemy planes and ships with rare courage and skill for the next two weeks. A graduate of Yale who had spent his freshman year playing football at the University of Georgia, Captain Elrod had arrived mere days before to join a fighter squadron of twelve pilots. On December 12, Elrod had one of the most remarkable days of the war for any pilot in any theater, when he took on a group of twenty-two Japanese planes—shooting down two—and then bombed and strafed the destroyer Kisaragi, sinking the vessel with all hands and becoming the first American pilot to sink a warship in World War II. Then, once American aircraft were too badly damaged to fly, the pilots joined the ground defense against Japanese invasion forces. Elrod assumed command of one sector of the beach and led the repulse of repeated enemy assaults until he was killed on the last day of the battle, just before the American surrender.

Even though unsuccessful, the against-the-odds battle for Wake buoyed American morale during a dark period of World War II. Elrod, who became known as “Hammerin’ Hank,” was the linchpin of the defense. For his gallantry, he was posthumously promoted to major and awarded the Medal of Honor; a U.S. Navy frigate and a street at Marine Base Quantico were named for him; and a piece of his plane is on display at the National Air & Space Museum. Drawing on research in military archives and on materials from Elrod’s family, William Ramsey tells this story—which is not only the story of the battle for Wake Island, but also the story of a Marine fighter pilot at war—with drama and verve.