n 5 October 1943 American naval aircraft from Yorktown raided Wake. Two days later fearing an imminent invasion the Japanese Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of the 98 captured American civilian workers who had initially been kept to perform forced labor. The 98 were taken to the northern end of the island blindfolded and executed with a machine gun. One of the prisoners (whose name has never been discovered) escaped the massacre apparently returning to the site to carve the message 98 US PW 5-10-43 on a large coral rock near where the victims had been hastily buried in a mass grave. The unknown American was recaptured and Sakaibara personally beheaded him with a katana. The inscription on the rock can still be seen and is a Wake Island landmark.