"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie onOctober 26, 1942 with Brian Donlevy and Robert Preston reprising their film roles.
Robert Sklar in his book 'Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies' states that this movie was the " . . . first of many to dramatize American war heroics for the home front."
In a "History Channel" special called "Wake Island: The Alamo of the Pacific", the survivors of the conflict called this movie one of the greatest works of fiction ever produced by Hollywood, especially because the movie portrays that there were no survivors.
One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.
Paramount began work on this movie before the real life battle for Wake Island was over.
The end of the movie shows the soldiers fighting to the bitter end but in real life the soldiers surrendered after surviving the first wave of the Japanese attack.
The film shows the death of the naval commander due to battle wounds with the defense being commanded by marine officers but the factual real life scenario was that Commander Winfield S. Cunningham survived the battle and the war.