George Harris, of Redwood City, California, was one of the 98 captured American civilian workers who were held captive by the Japanese invaders in Wake Island in 1941. They had initially been kept to perform forced labor. On 5 October 1943, an 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. 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 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. George is now buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu, Honolulu County, Hawaii, USA.