Though shades of propaganda tint the waters of "Wake Island" (1942), it is nonetheless the first gritty action film to come out of World War II, and the first to aim at presenting a realistic depiction of warfare. The four-time Academy Award-nominated film stars Brian Donlevy, MacDonald Carey, Robert Preston and William Bendix, in the astonishing true story of a small group of marines who held their own against an overwhelming Japanese assault from air, land and sea.
