Pacific Alamo

by John Wukovits

  Headlines over the next few days claimed that WAKE AND MIDWAY HOLD OUT, JAPS AGAIN RAIN BOMBS ON ISLAND, and U.S. MARINES STILL FIGHTING TO SAVE WAKE. The Detroit Free Press praised what it called “The valiant back-to-the-wall Marine Devil Dogs on Wake Island” for their spirited defense.34

  Morale and pride soared every time that Americans opened their newspapers or listened to the radio as reporters described another setback for the Japanese attempt to take Wake. Each additional day the stand lasted, each hour the men on Wake held on, nudged the home front further from the shock of Pearl Harbor and closer to optimism.

  For instance, in a December 16 article under the banner, MARINES ARE STILL THERE, the New York Times remarked that the stand at Wake “cheered the capital and perplexed military strategists” who had earlier abandoned hope for the atoll. “It had been contended that the outposts could not be successfully defended, but the Marines are still there. What price they are paying has not been revealed.”35

  From the home front vantage, the outlook improved over the next few days. On December 17 came news of Devereux’s reported answer, “Send us some more Japs.” Two days later the Marine newspaper at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia, the Quantico Sentry, boasted that IN THE PACIFIC “OUR FLAG IS STILL THERE.”36

  “What the Hell Did You Expect the Marines to Do?”

  Citizens in the United States, energized by the boost in morale, exploded in extraordinary displays of patriotism and national fervor. Wake became a symbol of defiance for all. The slogan “Remember Wake!” influenced young men to enlist, and posters bearing the image of a Marine and that slogan blanketed the United States.

  “America remembers Wake Island and is proud. The enemy remembers Wake Island and is uneasy,” wrote Marine Comdt. Maj. Gen. Thomas Holcomb.37 People wrote letters to the editors of newspapers urging everyone to “Wake! America!” and begging for increased production of tanks, airplanes, guns, and ammunition. They pointed to Wake as an example of how Americans fight when under pressure.

  Political cartoonists included Wake in their drawings. One pictured three sinking ships off the coast of a small island bearing a sign, WAKE ISLAND—U.S. MARINES ONLY! Others showed a Marine standing amidst smoking ruins on the island and raising a defiant fist toward the heavens, or a hand writing the name “Wake Island” to a lengthy list of previous Marine glories. Another pictured a Marine writing a letter to Santa Claus in which he asked for more Japs.

  A Chicago police officer helped resolve a labor dispute at a defense plant when he remarked to picketing machinists that if the men on Wake Island could fight so courageously, the least they could do was settle their differences with management. Dr. Walter Snyder of the University of Richmond in Virginia compared the heroism at Wake to that shown by the Spartans at Thermopylae, when three hundred Greeks gave their lives to save their country.

  Amateur poets used Wake to inspire the nation. Harry H. Scarritt penned the poem “David Crockett’s Spirit,” in which the spirit of the famed battler of the Alamo looked down from heaven as the Japanese assaulted Wake on December 11. In the poem, Davey Crockett admired the Americans’ fighting spirit and accurate shooting, then promised to shake the hand of each defender who perished on the island. Other poets compared Wake to soul-stirring battles in American history, such as Lexington, Saratoga, and San Juan Hill.

  Recruiting centers enjoyed a bonanza, in part because of Wake. In Los Angeles, former world heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney swore 385 men, supposedly equal to the number of Marines and Navy on Wake, into the Navy. The men first formed a huge W for Wake, then repeated the oath in unison. Time reported that in Waterloo, Iowa, five Sullivan brothers enlisted in the Naval Reserve together. (Sadly, on November 13, 1942, all five died when a Japanese torpedo sank their ship, the cruiser USS Juneau, off Guadalcanal in the South Pacific.)

  Hollywood chipped in by starting work on the first of what would become the major wartime movies. On December 17, the same day that the American public learned of the “Send us more Japs” quotation, Paramount Pictures announced plans for a motion picture about Wake. To be based on a screenplay by W. R. Burnett and Frank Butler and tentatively starring Brian Donlevy, Robert Preston, and William Bendix, Paramount hoped to have the film in theaters by the summer of 1942.

  In the publicity that surrounded Wake, the Marines received the lion’s share of accolades, while the nation’s media ignored Navy, Army, and civilian personnel in their reporting of the Wake story. Why? That occurred, in part, because the defense of the atoll, the portion of the story containing the most gripping drama and thus the feature that received the heaviest publicity, had been assigned to the Marines. The Navy, on the other hand, staffed the seaplane base, and the six Army personnel maintained the radio communications for the Army Air Forces bombers. The Marines served in combat roles, the “glamorous” assignments as far as reporters were concerned, and were mentioned more frequently.

  Second, the public associated the Navy with the disaster at Pearl Harbor, where the military had been caught off guard and where the nation had absorbed a hard blow. A few days later they learned that Wake, manned largely by Marines, had scored a triumph. While the Navy bore the stigma of disaster at Pearl Harbor, the Marines hoisted the banner of victory.

  An astute Marine public relations department quickly jumped on the national enthusiasm for the leathernecks. The department issued daily bulletins apprising the country of Wake’s progress and worked with the news media to publicize the feats of Captain Elrod, Lieutenant Kliewer, and the rest. Bombastic statements by top Marine officers cast the Devil Dogs in heroic terms. “What the hell did you expect the Marines to do? Take it lying down?”38 said Marine Comdt. Maj. Gen. Thomas Holcomb in Time.

  A proud heritage also contributed to the Marines’ overshadowing their compatriots on Wake. The Corps enjoyed a reputation as being the nation’s elite combat force, established by triumphs on battlefields far and wide. The atmosphere in the nation that the Marines represented what was best in the military made it easier for people to accept that Wake, too, was a Marine domain.

  “Surely, Help Would Come from Pearl Harbor”

  Stirring battle cries and exultation back home did little to aid the men on Wake, though. Ammunition, weapons, and aircraft meant more. Some were available, but how could a Navy weakened by December 7 ship the needed reinforcements and supplies to Wake while protecting Hawaii and the West Coast from Japanese aggression? Much of the fleet lay on Pearl Harbor’s bottom, and the main weapons remaining—three aircraft carriers—could not be carelessly expended. Navy officials knew, however, that the American public demanded a victory to avenge Pearl Harbor, and they could hardly stand by and do nothing while America’s first heroes succumbed.

  Wake’s military expected the Navy to come to their aid. After all, that is what fellow servicemen do. They had battled the Japanese on behalf of their nation, so it was only logical to assume their nation would do everything possible to save them. As long as the defenders believed help would come, they were never totally cut off from the outside world, and they could more easily accept the severe conditions. Each day that unfolded without help arriving, the sense of isolation gripped Wake more tightly.

  In fact, at Pearl Harbor, Pacific Fleet Comdr. Husband E. Kimmel had already prepared a daring plan to relieve Wake centering on the aircraft carrier Saratoga. Even before the war, Kimmel had foreseen that Wake could present an opportunity to engage the Japanese fleet, and he now seized his chance. He issued orders forming Task Force 14, commanded by Rear Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher. Besides the Saratoga, three heavy cruisers, nine destroyers, one seaplane tender, and one oiler would rush additional supplies to Wake. Kimmel understood the risks involved should a stronger enemy naval force appear, but he felt the impact on morale for both the military and the public back home outweighed the negatives. Help was coming to Wake.

  On December 12, two hundred Marines of the Fourth Defense Battalion began boarding the seaplane tender Tang
ier for shipment to the atoll. In addition to the Marines, Navy crews loaded onto the ship nine thousand rounds of 5-inch shells, twelve thousand rounds of 3-inch shells, over three million rounds of belted machine gun ammunition, boxes of hand grenades, barbed wire, mines, and pistols, and replacement parts for Wake’s damaged guns. Excited Navy personnel on shore yelled “Good-bye and give ’em hell!”39 as the ships pulled away on December 15, bursting with men and war matériel.

  Back on Wake, Marines impatiently watched and waited. “Why the hell doesn’t somebody come out and help us fight?”40 Captain Elrod asked Major Devereux. His answer seemed to be steaming its way west.

  “They Don’t Guarantee You’re Coming Back”

  “Foggy Blur of Days and Nights”

  If the Japanese were the main enemy for the men on Wake, fatigue came in a close second. Rested men fight better and think more clearly, but as the siege wound into its second week, the demands made on the men left no time for sleep. A succession of mentally and physically exhausting days sapped their energy—they stood guard, ate cold food, hoped to avoid Japanese bombs, stood guard some more, stole a few moments of sleep, then awoke to repeat the process all over again.

  Men already weakened from poor diet and battling to contain their fears still had work to do. They had to constantly search the sky for signs of approaching aircraft. The strain caused men to imagine things—flocks of birds became a squadron of Japanese bombers, for instance. False alarms frequently interrupted the defenders’ routine and cut into badly needed rest.

  The bombing raids became more difficult to endure. Since Japanese aircraft could suddenly appear at any time, the men could never relax. In a diary he kept on Wake, Private First Class John R. Himelrick mentioned bombing raids on ten of the eleven days from December 12 to December 22. “At 0515 this morning a jap [sic] ‘P’ Boat came over very high and dropped a few bombs,” he wrote on December 12. Two days later, he added that aircraft attacked the beach near his position by the airfield and that “Some came too Darn Close for comfort.” On December 17, he admitted “They are sure getting regular” and that when the Marines expected a raid “everythings quiet as hell just before a raid & the Boys stay pretty close to their dugouts.”1

  The men stared from gun positions, foxholes, and dugouts with blank expressions. Their bodies and muscles yearned for rest, but that was an unaffordable luxury. Sleep would come at a later date, when the outcome had been settled.

  Major Devereux called this time the “foggy blur of days and nights when time stood still,” a period when men pined for sleep, yet willingly went without. “The days blurred together in a dreary sameness of bombing and endless work and always that aching need for sleep,” wrote Major Devereux. “I have seen men standing with their eyes open, staring at nothing, and they did not hear me when I spoke to them. They were out on their feet. They became so punch-drunk from weariness that frequently a man would forget an order almost as soon as he turned away. He would have to come back later and ask what you wanted him to do, and sometimes it was hard for you to remember.”2

  The longest period of uninterrupted sleep Devereux enjoyed during the siege was two hours, and the men and officers under his command had little more. Devereux once issued an order to his executive officer, Maj. George H. Potter, and then left for Commander Cunningham’s command post in the concrete bunker adjoining his. By the time he arrived, Potter was on the telephone, asking the major to repeat what he had just told him. Lack of sleep impaired Potter’s power of concentration.

  Lieutenant Hanna managed an hour here and there in between his duties overseeing the atoll’s machine guns. As was true with every man, he rarely left his post, meaning he could never allow his concentration to slip. “You didn’t dare relax at any time. I actually slept on my feet sometimes. I might be standing there talking to somebody, and the next thing you knew you drifted off, then you snapped your eyes open and left off where you were.”3

  Corporal Johnson always took the 8:00 P.M. to midnight and the 4:00 A.M. to 8:00 A.M. watches instead of giving them to the civilian volunteers because he feared they might fall asleep. He considered those times the most likely periods for a landing attempt, and he wanted to be sure someone dependable stood guard and was ready to respond. To make sure he did not nod off, Johnson periodically pressed his bayonet against his thigh or leg hard enough to produce a sensation of pain but without drawing blood.

  Drowsiness overcame nearly every man at one time or another. During one nighttime outing to locate food, Joe Goicoechea, exhausted from his duties, slumped to the harsh coral surface and dozed off for an hour on the uncomfortable terrain. Pfc. Jacob R. Sanders dived under a truck after being caught in the open by a bombing raid, then quickly fell into a deep slumber, oblivious of the exploding bombs.

  The effects of fear and a sense of isolation compounded the problems caused by exhaustion. The defenders faced an array of unspoken fears—fear of death, fear of capture, fear of failing their fellow Americans when the fighting began, fear of losing what they now had. On top of that, each day the men’s world seemed to shrink more and more until it became the few feet around their foxhole or gun; each day home and help seemed more distant. Trapped in the middle of an ever-increasingly Japanese ocean, it was as if a noose slowly tightened around their necks, and only help from Hawaii could save them. But would relief puncture through the enemy and arrive in time?

  Under the stressful conditions, men could not control their emotions as they would in normal circumstances. Tempers flared and men argued. In Dan Teters’s presence, Major Putnam and Commander Cunningham engaged in a heated exchange.

  But it was fear with which they most grappled. Experienced soldiers like Johnalson Wright and Major Putnam, who had fought in Nicaragua and seen men die, could more easily handle fear, but many Americans on Wake, like Joe Goicoechea and Corporal Holewinski, had come straight out of high school. Before December 8, the worst crisis they confronted concerned girls or alcohol. Now they faced an enemy who wanted to kill them.

  “It was fear for everybody, including myself,” claimed Corporal Johnson. “You were especially afraid after dark. You had to control yourself because you kept seeing things in the bushes. You had to tell yourself the Japanese couldn’t get on here.”4 One time Johnson and another Marine heard scratching noises along the shoreline. When they carefully inched away from their machine guns to investigate, they discovered the noise had been caused by a bunch of hermit crabs.

  Standing guard at night proved particularly hard for the men, both civilian and military. Civilian Earl Row called his time walking the beach on Peale Island on night patrol one of the worst experiences of his life, because imagination transformed every shadow into a Japanese soldier.

  Corporal Marvin was nearing the end of his watch one night when he heard something move in the darkness. As the noise grew louder, Marvin tightened his hold on his rifle, then ordered the man to halt and repeat the password. “He threw up that Springfield rifle and he said, ‘You tell me first.’ I said, ‘Christ, put that thing down.’” Both men were so frightened they had forgotten the password and had no idea how to respond. “This was after we had the December 11 battle with the ships, and we figured maybe some of the Japs had washed ashore.”5

  To make sure his men did not become paralyzed by fear, Lieutenant Hanna kept them busy filling sandbags and doing other tasks. Corporal Holewinski maintained a constant chatter about any topic that came to mind, such as how long the war might last or when the Navy would arrive, and Corporal Johnson diverted attention by casually chatting with his men about items he knew would take their minds off their predicament: “I tried to keep their minds on activities, on what we were gonna do when we arrived home, other diversionary talks. Some were going to a baseball game. I said I was going to the Ozarks to hunt squirrels. I felt it was my duty to do this to calm them down and take their minds off the situation as much as possible. I guess every person in war thinks every bullet and bomb is coming right at
him, but you have to realize how minute you as an individual are compared to all the space around you. We tried to get that.”6

  One night after finishing work at a 5-inch gun at Peacock Point, a sergeant told Joe Goicoechea that some food had been stored near the airfield and he could head over there if he liked. Goicoechea lost no time and, in the darkness, cautiously crept through some brush near the road separating the gun position from the airfield. Suddenly a pair of Marines, rifles in hand, rose and asked Goicoechea where he was going. When he explained his reason for being out at night, they eased their guard and Goicoechea proceeded to the airfield. “God, were they scared. So was I,” said Goicoechea later. “They called me every damn name you can think of. You talk about nervous? They were nervous, too. Everybody was scared, and anyone who says he wasn’t hasn’t been to the confessional for a while.”7

  Physical maladies compounded the mental torments. Almost every man on the atoll, civilian and military alike, suffered from diarrhea brought on by improper sanitation practices. The military knew to dig trenches for field sanitation, but many of the civilians in the brush urinated and defecated in the open. That attracted flies, which quickly spread disease to every point.

  The inability to thoroughly wash themselves increased both the discomfort and the chances for illness. In most cases wearing the same clothes they donned on December 8 and showing the stubble from eight or ten days’ growth on their chins, the disheveled men adapted, but not much helped. Private First Class Gatewood used a five-gallon can of water and his helmet to clean up whenever he could. Goicoechea claimed that the men were so busy being scared that washing was not a priority, which in turn created an offensive odor in the cramped spaces of shelters. He and the others with him solved the problem by spreading oakum, a pleasant-smelling compound used by plumbers, all around their dugout.

  “An Ever-Increasing Apprehension”