Roosevelt faced formidable opponents in the isolationist movement, including some of the most revered, powerful people in American political and industrial history. Henry Ford lent his name to the cause, as did Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, actress Lillian Gish, and aviation icon Charles Lindbergh.
Hamstrung politically, Roosevelt resorted to subterfuge to insert at least a semblance of an American presence on Pacific isles. One move came on December 29, 1934, when he issued Executive Order 6935, which designated Wake as a bird sanctuary under the Navy’s control. This action alerted the Japanese that the United States considered Wake an integral part of its territory, yet it did so without alarming the isolationists. At this time Roosevelt could go no further than this simple step, but he intended to militarily fortify the island as soon as conditions warranted.
The following spring, Roosevelt received welcome assistance from the commercial sector when Pan American Airways announced the introduction of its new transpacific route. In one journey taking less than a week, travelers could fly from the West Coast to the Philippines by way of flying boats dubbed China Clippers. The aircraft hopped across the Pacific along a string of stations located on Pacific islands held by the United States, including Guam and Wake.
Roosevelt jumped at the chance to help Pan Am develop the needed fuel and rest stops. He ordered his then Secretary of the Navy, Claude A. Swanson, to issue permission for Pan Am to construct a facility at Wake that would service its clippers; then he had his director of war plans, Rear Adm. William S. Pye, work closely with the company in designing facilities that could easily be switched from commercial to military use. Roosevelt diverted whatever funds he could to helping Pan Am erect a seaplane base and housing quarters.
Instead of openly announcing the importance of Wake as a military base and building adequate facilities, Roosevelt had to proceed at a snail’s pace and in the shadows, where his moves would not be subjected to scrutiny. This tactic prevailed for much of the decade, which frustrated Roosevelt and his military advisers, who wanted to place men and weapons on the atoll.
Japan, which considered the Pacific its personal realm, nervously noted Roosevelt’s feeble moves. Wake might not have posed a threat in 1935, but the location lay astride Japanese possessions in the Marshall and Caroline Islands. Any American military presence on Wake could hinder future Japanese operations on and from those two spots. American bombers operating out of Wake could hit Japanese targets in her island possessions or could attack Japanese forces advancing toward Wake long before the Japanese ships reached their destinations. American aircraft could support a Navy drive against Japanese islands, and they could conduct surveillance hundreds of miles out to sea. In Japan’s hands, Wake not only sheltered Japanese possessions to the west, but it also turned into a dangerous staging area for an assault on Hawaii. Wake’s importance to both the United States and Japan grew as the tension mounted, transforming the tiny atoll from a lonely outpost into a likely scene of combat.
Relations between the United States and Japan worsened in December 1937, when Japanese aircraft attacked the U.S. gunboat, Panay, in Chinese waters. Two American sailors and one Italian journalist were killed in the attack, which was filmed by a news reporter.
Politicians and citizens in the United States reacted angrily, and for a moment the two nations appeared on the verge of warfare. Hamstrung by the isolationist sentiments, Franklin Roosevelt knew that he could do little to assert American power in China. The Japanese government, already embroiled in military action in China, wanted to avoid conflict with the United States, from which it received valuable shipments of scrap iron and oil. With neither side eager for fighting, a peaceful solution emerged. Roosevelt demanded that Japan offer a public apology and pay more than two million dollars in damages. Tokyo agreed, and Roosevelt accepted the explanation that the Japanese pilots had incorrectly identified the Panay as a Chinese boat. Though both sides avoided war at this time, the affair soured relations between Japan and the United States.
The Panay incident handed Roosevelt justification for increasing his military efforts, though. One month after the gunboat sank, Roosevelt asked for and received from Congress a 20 percent increase in funds for the Navy so it could build enough ships to station a fleet in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. At the same time, he requested that American munitions and aircraft manufacturers stop bargaining with Japan, and he reduced the amount of important products sent to Japan from the United States, such as scrap iron, oil, and cotton.
In May 1938, Roosevelt directed the Navy to conduct an investigation of possible naval bases in the Pacific. Led by Rear Adm. Arthur J. Hepburn, the committee ranked the top three bases as Pearl Harbor, Midway, and Wake, and urged that defense facilities on Wake, such as a patrol plane base, should be constructed as quickly as possible.
The United States Navy wanted Wake and its other Pacific possessions, including Johnston Island, Palmyra Atoll, Samoa, and Midway, to be the nation’s early-warning system should the Japanese adopt aggressive moves. Patrol craft sent from Wake and other places would detect Japanese moves hundreds if not thousands of miles before they reached their intended targets. In that manner, they would guard the approaches to Pearl Harbor and the West Coast. Wake thus took its place among the storied Western frontier bastions, such as Fort Apache, except that its field of operations extended over water instead of land.
“They were intended to form a screen against Japan much as blockhouses strung across the western plains formed a screen against hostile tribes in the days of our Indian wars,”21 wrote a man who would gain fame at Wake, Marine Maj. James P. S. Devereux. When in October 1939, Roosevelt changed the Pacific Fleet’s home base from San Diego, California, to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in an effort to send a message to the Japanese that the United States opposed their actions in Asia and would react even more strongly in the future, Wake took on more importance.
Wake could serve another purpose. Naval strategists studied different ways in which they could draw the Japanese Navy into a decisive battle should war erupt. To do so, they needed a lure with which to entice the Japanese. A strengthened Wake might be the answer. Could the Japanese allow an American military presence so close to their bases in the Marshalls without responding?
Completely unaware of the looming dangers, Goicoechea, Hanna, and the men bound for Wake headed directly toward a fight. Making matters more precarious was that their destination rested barely 650 miles from Japanese bases, less than a third of the distance Wake stood from possible American assistance at Pearl Harbor.
“Suckers! Suckers!”
Joe Goicoechea, Murray Kidd, and George Rosandick knew little and cared even less about the distant Pacific war rumblings. The only sound they heard was the wind past their windows as their Greyhound bus bounded about the countryside toward California. They were having too much fun to be bothered by anything happening thousands of miles away. Along with seventy other construction workers, the three had boarded two Greyhound buses chartered by Morrison-Knudsen to take the workers to San Francisco. Goicoechea, realizing that the buses would drive directly though some of Nevada’s gambling towns, had his hickeys ready.
“I had a whole sack full of those slugs, and they worked in the slot machines,” Goicochea explained. “Then when we saw the slugs started coming up on the machines, we took off! We didn’t have to spend any of our money for anything for a while.”22
Goicoechea and his buddies lived it up in San Francisco, as well, even though they were there only a few days. They made so much noise on one of the city’s famed trolley cars that the conductor halted the vehicle and booted them off.
So far, the trip to Wake resembled a fraternity vacation more than a bus ride to work, and this was only the beginning. Morrison-Knudsen, possibly feeling guilty over sending the men to such an isolated outpost, landed berths on luxury liners bound for Hawaii for most of the workers. The men ate food they had rarely tasted, slept in soft beds in
suites, and mingled with wealthy patrons also along for the voyage. When they arrived in Honolulu, the Royal Hawaiian Band serenaded them with native music while beautiful girls in grass skirts placed leis around their necks.
Five days of sight-seeing greeted the construction workers. “This is the life!” said twenty-one-year-old Hans Whitney of Minnesota, eager to apply the money earned at Wake to that dream home for his family. When he and the other workers heard that Wake’s hot, rainy climate taxed the endurance of most men, Whitney dismissed the negative chatter. “I figured I could stand nine months of it. Then, a little business of my own and maybe get filthy rich.”23
Though none of the men recognized them as such, hints appeared during the two thousand mile journey from Hawaii to Wake that what some considered a golden opportunity might be otherwise. The ship itself, the Navy vessel William Ward Burrows, had none of the allure offered by one of the luxury liners that rushed the men across the Pacific to Hawaii. Instead of superb cuisine and relaxation, the men ate beans for breakfast, then according to naval tradition labored at any one of the numerous tasks that awaited them, such as washing dishes or swabbing the decks. Without air-conditioning, the workers sweated belowdecks and slept in cramped quarters.
Up to now, the CPNAB men had dismissed the possibility of war with Japan as a remote likelihood, but the eleven-day trip to Wake reminded them that every mile they traveled west placed them farther outside the control of the United States. Some of the men participated in gun drills aboard the ship, and Goicoechea noticed that the Burrows zigzagged its way to Wake as a precaution against torpedo attacks.
The end of the weary journey offered both relief and surprise. The men were delighted to be free from the tedious routine aboard the Burrows, but when they took their first look at Wake—the spot of land containing their dreams of excitement and fortune—their eyes widened in astonishment. The dismal-looking island featured little of the enchantment provided by Pacific isles of lore, with their sandy beaches, enticing palm trees, and exotic birds. Wake offered beaches—stretches of gritty coral sand—but instead of exotic birds the island resounded to the movement of thousands of land crabs, gooney birds, and rats. Instead of majestic palm trees, scrawny scrub trees rose no more than twenty feet high. Suffocating heat and thick humidity greeted the men with an oppressive stickiness.
As many as sixty of the construction workers—already demoralized by the unexpectedly harsh voyage from Hawaii to Wake and affected by homesickness—took one look at Wake and decided to remain aboard ship, return to Hawaii, and head for home. They preferred to renege on their contract and forgo the attractive wages rather than endure nine months at such a desolate location. Twenty-three-year-old James Allen of Missouri stayed, but recalled that in the group that landed on shore, “There’s plenty of the fellows that wish they never seen this place.”24
Their initial footsteps on Wake did not offer any solace, either. Hans Whitney’s group landed to hear the jeers of “Suckers! Suckers! Suckers!” shouted by workers who had arrived before them, and every man paused briefly when he read a huge sign shaped like a wheel warning, “War is imminent…keep the wheel turning.”25 Despite the suggestions that paradise may have eluded them, enough workers stuck it out so that by November 1941, 1,145 men inhabited the atoll, constructing barracks and roads, runways and sheds.
There they joined the other men led by forty-year-old Nathaniel Daniel “Dan” Teters, who fashioned a reputation as one of the most organized, demanding foremen for Morrison-Knudsen. Born in Ohio in 1900, Teters joined the Army in World War I and helped build airstrips. After the war, he earned an engineering degree from Washington State College in 1922, then embarked upon a career that lasted until 1960. Among the projects in which he participated were the construction of the Boulder and Grand Coulee Dams in the 1930s.
The man was accustomed to giant challenges in out-of-the-way places, and Wake qualified on both counts. Using a combination of firmness and common sense, Teters quickly had the 1,145-man civilian force on Wake humming with efficiency. The workers knew he could be tough—“His word was law,” said one—but they also saw instances where Teters took extraordinary measures to make their lives on Wake more bearable. He could be a stern taskmaster, but he cared enough to know every man by name. He demanded accountability, but made sure that everyone received overtime bonuses, even the cooks and mess attendants. Teters so impressed the Marines that one officer claimed Teters was “a tough, hard man who would be good to have along in a fight.”26
They needed a tough guy, for the task before them was immense. The government contract called for Morrison-Knudsen to dredge a channel for small boats and seaplanes and create a five-thousand-foot runway for Marine aircraft on Wake Island, a submarine base off Wilkes Island, and a seaplane base on Peale Island. The contractors were to construct streets, build barracks, dig water and sewage systems, and connect the three islands with bridges. To complete the work, Teters placed the men on an exhausting schedule—they labored ten hours a day, seven days a week, with one day off every other week.
“We Flipped a Coin, and the Loser Got Wake”
Until August 1941, Teters and his men had Wake to themselves. In that month, however, the first in a series of Marine, Navy, and Army personnel arrived. Goicoechea, Kidd, Rosandick, and the other civilians signed on with the CPNAB to complete new projects, while Lieutenant Hanna, Corp. Holewinski, and Corp. Johnson stepped on Wake with the thought of defending and fighting for what was there.
Like the civilians, each Marine stopped first in Hawaii. While Hanna and his family enjoyed the relatively tame pastimes of sightseeing and strolling on the beaches, most Marines indulged in more raucous endeavors. Pvt. Ewing Laporte compared the scene in Hawaii to the typical image conveyed by Hollywood—bars, women, and fights. Officers or those who could afford it visited the Royal Hawaiian Hotel or the Moana for drinks and conversation, while most Marine privates and corporals headed to the dives that catered to the military, such as the Black Cat on Hotel Street or the Pantheon on Nuuanu Street. Whorehouses, like the Anchor, the Ritz, and the New Senator on River Street, sported long lines of military men waiting to get in, while tattoo parlors, shooting galleries where men could take aim at stationary targets, and souvenir stands enjoyed record business.
“That’s about the way it was! It was even worse,” said Laporte. “There were miles upon miles of sailors in white off battleship row, and we had a good time. There were lots of fights between Navy and the Marines. The YMCA lawn in Honolulu had nothin’ but sailors and Marines fighting.”27
Cpl. John S. Johnson used to patronize a bar run by Japanese where he ordered rum and Cokes for twenty cents apiece. When off duty, he and his buddies loved to jump in an old Model T Ford with a few cases of beer, then drive to the leeward side of the island for an afternoon of diving and drinking. “Most of us were young, single, and we had a lot of fun in Hawaii,”28 said Johnson.
Wake and its position in the Pacific Ocean relative to other major locations.
Those brief days provided the Marines with their last moments of gaiety for a long time. Like their civilian counterparts, most Marines noticed the difference with their first sight of Wake. First Lieutenant Woodrow M. Kessler figured the atoll would not compare to Hawaii’s beauties, but he at least expected a decent spot. As he wrote in his memoirs, he erred in this assumption. “It was somewhat as it must have been for a replacement troop of cavalry after having traveled across plains and desert of the Southwest to finally come upon the isolated fort set up in Apache country.”29
While still in Hawaii, Corporal Gross and another Marine flipped a coin to determine their eventual posting. “The Marines had an opening on Palmyra Island, and I wanted it and so did the other guy. No one knew anything about Wake, but guys had already been on Palmyra and I thought it would be the better place. We flipped a coin, and the loser got Wake. That was me.”30 Gross’s wish to see more of the world materialized, but not in quite the manner he hoped.
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When Laporte took his first look at the flat, uninviting place, he muttered, “Oh, God!” He recalled, “It didn’t strike our eyes as being very nice. The worst thing was the first sergeant who greeted us told us, ‘We’ve been working seven days a week, and you will, too!’”31
The initial group of military arrived on August 18, 1941, when five officers and 170 men under Maj. Lewis A. Hohn and his executive, Capt. Wesley M. Platt, disembarked. Marines immediately began building their living quarters in Camp 1—rows of pyramid-shaped tents with wooden floors located on the southern arm of Wake Island. As they worked, they looked across the lagoon toward the civilian area, Camp 2, at the extreme northern tip of Wake.
Once the tents had been erected, Hohn and Platt turned to the primary task—fortifying Wake’s defenses. Wearing shorts and T-shirts in the blazing sun, the men had to dig gun emplacements and foxholes, string communications wire, and fill sandbags to protect machine gun and artillery positions.
Other groups of military poured into Wake through the next few months, including eleven naval personnel charged with establishing the naval air station to be situated on Wake and six Army personnel sent to man a communications station for the Army’s B-17 bombers. Gradually, the First Defense Battalion’s numbers increased until, by November, they stood at 378 Marines, fewer than half the full complement of 859 men allotted for such a unit.
“It Would Be Nice to Have Six Months More”
“We Were Sure Happy”
Despite Wake’s forlorn appearance, life ranged from the relatively decent to the outstanding. No one lacked food or medical supplies, and thoughts of war hardly entered the men’s minds. The difference in living conditions depended upon which group you belonged to. Civilians and military lived within a few miles of each other, but they may as well have occupied different planets.
Pacific Alamo Page 4
