Pacific Alamo

by John Wukovits

  Nothing indicated that Wake would be one of Japan’s first targets, but Cunningham and Devereux still wished they had more time to prepare. When an Englishman and his wife stopped at Wake with the Clipper, Devereux drove them around the island. He pointed to his Marines working at the guns and said they were moving as fast as they could. The wife replied, “Yes, it would be nice to have six months more, wouldn’t it?”38

  “The Marines Will Show Them a Thing or Two”

  “This Is No Drill! Pass the Word!”

  Wake Island civilians and military awoke on Monday, December 8 (Sunday, December 7, in Pearl Harbor), refreshed from the break of the past twenty-four hours. For the first time in many weeks, they had the opportunity to forget their responsibilities and concentrate on having fun. The respite made going to work this morning easier than normal.

  Except for those who had been on overnight duty, the sounds of men awakening for their daily chores interrupted the camps’ quiet at around 6:30 A.M. The hustle and bustle soon had a life of its own, with men washing up or bounding to the mess hall. Another lovely day, complete with the brilliant sunrise that bathed the atoll in its luscious beauty, had dawned.

  In his quarters, Major Devereux applied shaving cream to his face. Commander Cunningham, a bit speedier than his Marine counterpart, had already plunged into his breakfast of bacon, eggs, and coffee. Dan Teters, hard-pressed by superiors to meet work deadlines, thought of the different projects that begged for attention. All three looked forward to another fruitful day’s labor from their men—which meant that they would be one day closer to the time when Wake properly housed a fully manned and equipped defense battalion, ready to protect the atoll’s shores from any aggressor. Cunningham also intended to check the results of VMF-211’s gunnery practice. He knew the aviators badly needed the exercise to develop the skill and confidence required to perform at top levels, as well as to create an esprit among the unit.

  A signal picked up at 6:40 by Army Sgt. Ernest Rogers in the communications center shattered the day’s serenity. Sitting at his post inside the Army trailer, where he monitored radio traffic, Rogers was about to leave for breakfast when the receiver vibrated with a message he found hard to believe, sos…sos—the international distress signal alone grabbed his attention, but what followed transfixed the Army veteran. ISLAND OF OAHU ATTACKED BY JAPANESE DIVE BOMBERS, continued the message. As if the sender could read everyone’s minds who picked up the broadcast, he added, THIS IS THE REAL THING.1

  Rogers alerted his superior, Army Capt. Henry Wilson, who sprinted to Devereux’s quarters to inform him of the development. Without bothering to remove the shaving cream on his face, Devereux rang Cunningham’s office, but the naval commander had not yet left the mess hall. Devereux then ordered his bugler, FM1c. Alvin J. Waronker, to sound the call to arms. In the heat of the moment Waronker, a horrid bugler who rarely sounded any Marine call correctly, forgot the proper tune. Figuring any music was better than no music, he started playing tunes as they tumbled into his mind until he remembered general quarters.

  Devereux might have laughed if the situation had not been so grim. When he spotted men casually strolling around and joking over Waronker’s erratic concert, he yelled, “This is no drill! Pass the word!”2

  The news shot to every part of Wake like a bolt of lightning. At 7:00, Cunningham learned of the attack when a messenger located him as he left the mess hall. Cunningham quickly issued orders for all Marines to man their posts and for Major Putnam to launch all aircraft to prevent their being destroyed on the ground.

  Marines, trained for just such a moment, reacted quickly to the alarm. Lt. Woodrow Kessler had eaten four of his six pancakes when the news arrived. Instead of leaving the last two, he gulped down the final hotcakes as he sprinted outside. Officers rushed into the mess hall, where Cpl. Kenneth Marvin and some buddies were eating and ordered them to get to their positions. “Everybody’s running around,” said Marvin. “In each tent we had a case of ammunition and two cases of hand grenades, and we had to take those and put them on a truck. We then drove out to our position, Battery D on Peale Island.”3

  A warrant officer told Pfc. Martin A. Gatewood and his group to return to their tents, grab the ammunition that had been placed there, and report back to the mess hall, where trucks would transport them to their posts. Gatewood asked why, then reacted with the same incredulity exhibited by most men when told that the Japanese had just hit Pearl Harbor. “He said that we were at war and that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Of course, nobody believed that. We were preached to all the time when we were in Hawaii that no one could bomb it because it was too well defended.”4

  It took longer for the civilian sector to realize that their peacetime days had ended. Workers noticed the increased activity near the Marine camp, but they dismissed it as a drill or some other military procedure. James Allen climbed into the flatbed truck taking him and others to their workstations when a jeep packed with Marines sped by. Young wondered why the men wore their combat helmets—the old World War I flat-brimmed style—and why they appeared so serious, but figured he would learn something during his midday break or after dinner.

  A civilian crew had already applied a coat of paint to an unfinished barracks when they heard a yell. “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”5 shouted Marvin’s group of Marines as they headed out to Toki Point and Battery D.

  A foreman broke the news to Hans Whitney, working on the top level of a four-story building. “The Japs are bombing Pearl Harbor, right now. They have sunk many of our ships and killed lots of service men. They may be here any minute.”

  Whitney thought about it for a few seconds, then reacted with derisive laughter. “Let them come,” he boasted to his foreman. “The Marines will show them a thing or two.”6

  “Sir, Can You Use Me?”

  No one knew what the Japanese might do next or when they might do it, but most military personnel assumed that one way or another, they would soon be in action. After all, the Japanese boldly struck the strongest American base in the Pacific, inflicting what early reports stated was heavy damage, and that base stood two thousand miles to the east of Wake. If the Japanese could mount a powerful attack against Pearl Harbor at such an extreme distance from their home waters, their arsenal could certainly handle tiny Wake.

  One of the first items Cunningham and Devereux decided was the location for their command posts. As commander of the entire atoll, Cunningham had to be centrally located for speedier access, not just with Army, Navy, and Marine personnel, but with Teters and the civilians. Cunningham stopped by Devereux’s office to inform him he would be situated north of the airstrip, along the road winding up Wake toward Peale Island. Devereux replied that as soon as a switchboard had been hooked up for him, he would operate out of a post in the brush on the lagoon side, near the Marine tents of Camp 1.

  Cunningham then telephoned the manager of the Pan Am station, John B. Cooke, to urge him to recall the Philippine Clipper that had taken off less than an hour previously. Cooke sent out a prearranged coded signal to the airplane, informing the pilot that war had broken out and that he should immediately return to Wake.

  Cunningham hurriedly conferred with Dan Teters and Lt. Comdr. Elmer B. Greey, the officer in charge of construction. The three agreed to allow the civilian work parties to proceed as scheduled, but that the civilian volunteers such as Joe Goicoechea should report to Devereux for further assignments.

  Lt. Clarence A. Barninger and his tentmate, Lt. William W. Lewis, who had earlier seen Wilson speeding to Devereux’s tent as they walked to breakfast and wondered what the problem was, attended a meeting Devereux hurriedly called for his officers. He informed them of the latest developments at Oahu and warned them that Wake could soon expect the same thing. He told his officers to man their positions and adopt war status.

  All over the atoll, Marines arrived at their battle stations and prepared for battle. Gunnery sergeants, the iron men of the Marine defenses, checked
that phone lines worked and ordered each man to inspect his ammunition supplies and rifle. Crews on the larger guns placed thirty rounds of ammunition in ready boxes for each of the 5-inch guns to be used against naval targets and fifty rounds for each 3-inch antiaircraft gun. By 7:35, less than one hour after the initial report of hostilities, every Marine position reported manned and ready to Major Devereux.

  That included even the injured. Sgt. Walter Bowsher of Battery D had been in the dispensary with a swollen left leg due to a blood clot. The surgeon, Navy Lt. (jg) G. Mason Kahn, planned to operate on the leg in a few hours, but Bowsher refused to be separated from his men at such a crucial moment. Grabbing a pair of crutches, the injured Bowsher hobbled out to join his mates on Peale Island.

  Devereux figured that if the Japanese were going to strike, they would first hit with an air attack. Since Wake’s pounding surf would drown out the noise of incoming aircraft until they were almost directly overhead, he had to turn to some other expedient. Unfortunately, Wake’s radar languished on Pearl Harbor’s docks, so he had to improvise. He selected the highest point on Wake, the fifty-foot water tower in Camp 1 near his command post, and ordered two Marines to climb up and remain as lookouts. Wake’s early-warning system thus consisted of two apprehensive Marines standing on the atoll’s most visible installation, wondering if they made juicy targets for enemy aircraft.

  Lieutenant Hanna ran through a mental list of items to consider in the war’s opening moments. With only enough Marines to man half of the eighteen .50-caliber antiaircraft machine guns, and with no defensive position completely dug in and sandbagged, he fought with one arm tied behind his back. In addition, he supervised young men who had never seen battle, yet he could not show any traces of fear or indecision, even though he had never experienced combat either. Hanna reminded himself that the men looked to him for leadership; he had to show the men, many not yet out of their teens, that they could function despite any fears they had.

  Once the Marines had spread throughout the atoll, Cunningham freed the handful of excess rifles, gas masks, and helmets for use by the Army and Navy personnel. He then scattered them around to help bolster the Marine defense or placed them in a reserve unit to be used wherever the fighting might be the hottest.

  An anxious waiting game now started. Eyes scanned the skies for traces of approaching aircraft and scrutinized the sea for telltale signs of a naval armada. Some men dug deeper into the coral sand for more protection, while others stared straight ahead, alone with their thoughts.

  At 10:00 A.M., after more than two hours of calm, Devereux placed the men on a partial alert. At every position, half the men were to continue watching for an invasion while the other half grabbed shovels to deepen bunkers, widen foxholes, and prepare for the inevitable assault.

  At the airstrip, Major Putnam dealt with his own dilemma. Due to lack of space at the cramped airfield, his twelve new fighters stood closely together on the airstrip, which made them inviting targets to an opposing pilot. This may have been the most economical use of limited facilities, but it also created an invitation to disaster. One well-placed bomb by an enemy pilot could destroy multiple aircraft, and even machine gun bursts fired at random would be likely to hit something.

  This is where Putnam faced his quandary. Military doctrine called for him to disperse the fighters to reduce the amount of destruction one hit could achieve, but he could not move the fighters without risk of damaging them on the rough coral surface that fringed the airstrip. On the other hand, construction crews would have protective revetments for his aircraft completed within a few hours. He could either disperse the unprotected fighters and hope that none were damaged, or leave them packed together on the airstrip and wait for the revetments to be finished.

  He gambled that the construction workers could complete the revetments before a Japanese attack occurred, so he kept the fighters on the airstrip. At the same time, he ordered that four fighters should constantly be in the air, conducting searches. In that way, should the enemy hit sooner than expected, at least his entire air force would not be caught on the ground.

  In this instance, the isolationist tendencies of the 1930s, combined with the economically depressed state of the nation, joined hands to deny the military the tools needed to conduct warfare. Putnam would not have agonized over such a decision had Wake’s defenses been adequately prepared.

  Cunningham faced another handicap by being limited to what the men in the tower could see and what his four aircraft might spot, and the chances of those few men locating or intercepting the enemy in the vast ocean or sky were slight. When Capt. J. H. Hamilton, captain of the Philippine Clipper, volunteered to fly a reconnaissance mission with his airplane, Cunningham at first agreed. He thought the Clipper could search to the south of Wake, a portion of the ocean that his fighters could not cover because of pressing duties, but after more thought he rejected the offer. It would be better to refuel the Clipper and get her out of Wake before any harm befell her.

  Many of the civilians wished they could have boarded the aircraft and put Wake behind them, but they had to wait for another day. Most of the 1,145 civilian workers headed to the brush, some out of fear, some out of confusion, and some because no one told them otherwise. Before the war, Cunningham and Devereux avoided organizing all the civilians into military support parties. Another 1,000 men, even as ill-prepared for fighting as many of these might have been, could have considerably eased the crisis, but Cunningham and Devereux had to take care of military matters first. Developing Wake’s defenses and shifting men and ammunition to the proper locations took precedence over training neophyte warriors.

  Legalities also intervened. The civilians were not under military control, so issuing orders to them might have been nothing more than an exercise in futility. Cunningham and Devereux also feared that in combat conditions, any civilian who took up arms or aided the military might be considered by the Japanese to be a guerrilla fighter instead of a member of the regular military, an offense punishable by death.

  Civilian supervisors, lacking any clear directive from Cunningham and Devereux, told the men to seek shelter in the brush covering Wake’s interior and to wait for further instructions. Some men ignored the advice and immediately offered their help to the military. Most eagerly shuffled into the brush, as that would place them at least temporarily out of harm’s way.

  Already, some of the civilians had gathered near the Marine camp or come in to offer their assistance. A handful had previous military experience, like the man who walked up to Devereux and said, “Sir, Adams, former seaman United States Navy, reporting for duty. Sir, can you use me?”7 A group of about fifty civilians reported to Gunner Hamas, the Marine with whom they had received their training on Wake, and asked for weapons. On his own authority, Hamas forced open a storeroom and handed out rifles and ammunition.

  Joe Goicoechea headed out to Battery D on Peale Island, ready to do whatever he could to help the Marines. The minimal training he had received under Corporal Gross gave him some knowledge, but the civilian knew that he, like the other civilian volunteers, was part of desperation moves by an undermanned defense contingent.

  “Get Those Guns Firing”

  Whether military or civilian, most men on Wake reacted similarly when they first spotted aircraft bearing toward them—they assumed they were American. Hans Whitney was working atop a four-story building on Peale Island not far from the Pan Am Hotel when he noticed twin-engine bombers approaching low over the airfield. “Look!” he shouted to his fellow workers. “Let the Japs come! We even have bombers now!”8

  Standing near the airstrip, Cpl. Ralph Holewinski believed they were a new type of Army aircraft. Major Devereux was chatting on the telephone with Lieutenant Lewis at Peacock Point on Wake Island when Lewis said, “Major, there’s a squadron of planes coming in from the south. Are they friendly?” Before Devereux could answer, a civilian ran in and yelled, “Look! Their wheels are falling off!”9 Perched at his lookout s
pot at the water tower, Sgt. Donald R. Malleck wondered why these aircraft seemed to be headed straight toward him when they should be veering toward the airfield. At Peacock Point, Lieutenant Barninger saw the planes drop low and fast out of a rain squall around 11:50.

  At the canteen, J. O. Young had just sat down with a milk shake, as he had so often done with Pearl Ann, when he heard planes shortly before noon. He thought they were U.S. aircraft and ran outside for a look. Suddenly, machine gun bullets kicked up dust around him. As bullets smacked into the ground and machine guns resounded with rat-a-tat-tats, he and others dashed toward the lagoon and hid behind a coral outcropping.

  Young’s uncle, Forrest Read, sat in a truck taking him to lunch when the planes appeared. When one man said, “It certainly didn’t take good old Uncle Sam long to get help to us,” Read nodded his head in agreement. Then dirt spit up from the ground and explosions shook the truck. “Run for the beach and stay low in the rocks,”10 someone shouted.

  John Rogge heard the clickety-click of machine gun bullets on his barracks roof and tried to rush outside, but a wooden splinter hurled from a shattered plywood door pierced him in the back. Though fearing the projectile had mortally wounded him, Rogge scampered to a nearby drainpipe and waited out the attack.

  To Johnson’s north, Pfc. Martin Gatewood joined other Marines in filling sandbags in front of his 3-inch antiaircraft gun. “All of a sudden I heard bombs falling on the airfield, which was east of us. The next thing I saw was these planes coming over. All of us were dumbfounded. Godwin, the gun captain, was hollering, ‘Get those guns firing!’” One of the Marines responsible for loading the shells into the gun was so engrossed with the sight of the bombers that he forgot to do his job. After the attack, Godwin elevated Gatewood to first loader, and “From then on we got our share of ’em.”11