Painting by artist Albin Henning shows Marines firing a .30-caliber Browning machine gun as Japanese landing force sailors splash ashore. While inaccurate in details (barbed wire, for example, is an artist's invention because no such obstruction existed at Wake Island, since the coral reef surrounding the atoll was bare of any holding ground for the stakes or anchors necessary to keep them in place), it does capture the desperate nature of the Marines' final day's fighting. by George Shulsky Four days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Captain Henry T. Elrod, Marine Corps pilot, was standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier Hornet, awaiting orders for take-off, with great anticipation. They were to take off for Wake Island. But it was not until the carrier was out at sea for some days that the Marine Air Group 211 learned of their destination. This tiny atoll in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean some 2,600 miles from Honolulu, and approximately 2,200 miles to To...