YankeeAirRat -> RE: Wallis & Futuna Island: Why Axis in 1941? (2/17/2015 5:35:17 AM)
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From the Hyperwar article on USMC Defense Battalions quote:
On 21 January, the 2d Marine Brigade (the 8th Marines and the 2d Battalion, 10th Marines, the latter recently returned from Iceland) arrived in Samoa, along with Lieutenant Colonel Raymond E. Knapp's 2d Defense Battalion. The newcomers built on the foundation supplied by the 7th Defense Battalion and were themselves reinforced by the newly activated 8th Defense Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Augustus W Cockrell. The Marines in Samoa anchored a line of bases and airfields that protected the exposed sea routes to Australia and New Zealand, which were judged likely objectives for the advancing Japanese. On 27 May 1942, the 8th Defense Battalion moved southwest from Samoa to the Wallis Islands, a French possession. Tanks, field artillery, motor transport, and infantry reinforced the defense battalion, which remained there through 1943. The stay proved uneventful except for a visit from Eleanor Roosevelt, the President's wife, who was touring the Pacific theater of war.
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