Pacific Alamo

by John Wukovits

  A Deadly Form of Chess

  Across the lagoon, Major Putnam tried to mount some form of aviation response out of the shambles the Japanese handed him. Now with only four aircraft from VMF-211 left, he could not launch round-the-clock patrols, but he also could not hand the enemy a chance to strike while his Wildcats rested on the airstrip. Since he only had fifteen seconds’ warning once the enemy was sighted, he had to play a guessing game as to when to send his men aloft and when to order them back to Wake for rest and refueling. He told his pilots that they would mount one scouting mission at dawn, one at dusk, and a combat patrol for noon, the most likely time for the Japanese to attack. He warned the aviators that once they spotted the enemy, they were to use their own discretion on attacking. In the meantime, he hoped that Lieutenant Kinney could work some miracles and rebuild an airplane or two out of what was left from the eight damaged Wildcats.

  Lieutenant Kinney, aided by Sergeant Hamilton, worked nonstop to add another fighter to Putnam’s arsenal. They stripped a cooling system here and an engine mount there, but without instruction manuals, the pair had to use all their ingenuity in creating a workable aircraft out of bits and pieces.

  Fortunately, the fighters destroyed at the airstrip had been hit by the Japanese in uniform fashion—the bombs exploded in the middle of each aircraft. The impact flattened the middle into the ground while forcing the nose into the air. As a result, the subsequent fires failed to severely damage the engines. That left seven spare engines from which Kinney and his helpers could scavenge spare parts.

  Elsewhere, Devereux engaged in a deadly form of military chess by trying to choose a safe spot to move his 3-inch guns. He started by ordering Lieutenant Lewis to shift Battery E from Peacock Point to a location just below the airstrip. He figured the Japanese pilots had accurately fixed Lewis’s location and that the next wave of attacks would pinpoint the spot. All night long, a group of civilians and Marines, some wounded, others in a state of shock over recent events, all weary, labored to move the cumbersome 3-inch guns and their accompanying sandbags. After that arduous task, they had to install decoy guns made from steel pipes and cardboard in the old position to lure the Japanese pilots into thinking the former emplacement still existed.

  This established one of the patterns that emerged at Wake—endure air attacks by day and move the guns at night in a constant game of outwitting the opposition. Devereux made educated guesses where the next day’s attack would occur, then placed the guns somewhere else.

  This was no simple task, for men had to be found to switch the guns to new positions, install the large weapons, and reinforce the locations with sandbags. Cunningham and Teters met each night to decide which batteries required help from civilians; then Teters took the responsibility of rounding up enough men. If Teters had a hard time meeting his quota, as he sometimes did, he shamed the men into working by calling them cowards or claiming they were abandoning fellow Americans.

  For some reason, Cunningham excluded Devereux from these meetings. As island commander he had that authority, but it made sense for him to at least consult with his top defensive coordinator about what his men needed. Devereux did not appreciate what he considered a slight from Cunningham. Teters informed Cunningham later that Devereux “complained to me rather bitterly that you had not called him in to those meetings…”6 This omission later led to hard feelings between the two commanders.

  Across the atoll, details of men searched for wounded and retrieved the dead, which frequently meant picking up body parts. Dr. Shank and Lieutenant Kahn handled so many wounded and dying men that the supplies of morphine and anesthesia dipped dangerously low. At Camp 2, Theodore Abraham discovered the body of a construction worker who had apparently squatted down and clung to a vertical pipe for protection. A bomb explosion had remarkably ripped off every article of clothing from the man, except for the shoes, and killed him without leaving a visible mark. As rigor mortis had already started, Abraham needed help prying the man from the pipe.

  While Kahn and Shank tended to the wounded, the military on Wilkes, Wake, and Peale prepared for the inevitable Japanese landing attempt. No one enjoyed more than a few moments of rest. Too much work had to be completed before Japanese warships steamed over the horizon, and for all anyone knew, that could occur within a few hours. As was true at other Marine guns, Laporte and Gross filled sandbags, then stacked them around and inside the positions. At the airfield, military and civilian personnel worked through the night to construct blastproof revetments to shelter the four remaining fighters, and Lieutenant Kinney borrowed tools from Pan Am to replace the ones that had been destroyed in the attack. Devereux parked heavy construction equipment at various intervals on the airstrip to prevent an enemy landing. Marines also filled a Navy lighter with concrete blocks and dynamite and anchored it in the middle of Wilkes Channel to prevent small enemy craft from entering the lagoon.

  Lieutenant Barninger’s Marines completed their foxholes that afternoon, intending to later ring them with sandbags and chunks of coral. While he had time, however, near dusk Barninger sent some men to the Marine camp to retrieve extra toilet gear and clothing. The veteran knew that from now on, opportunities to walk over to camp would be few and far between.

  Devereux faced a litany of problems, most revolving around lack of men, supplies, or ammunition. Without radar to alert Wake about incoming aircraft, every serviceman had to remain at his post in a constant state of readiness, half their attention focused on fortifying their positions while keeping watch on the skies, as well.

  Devereux did his best to spread out his men, but Wake’s twenty miles of shoreline were more than he could adequately cover with the limited resources available. All he could do was guess where the Japanese might land, and place men at those locations. The addition of eighteen naval personnel who reported for duty helped, but it was like placing another thumb in the proverbial dike. Devereux decided to post these men in a reserve force under the command of Lieutenant Poindexter—a group of about fifty cooks, clerks, and office personnel who in an attack would rush to the most severely threatened spots. Poindexter and other Marines administered a crash course in handling .30-caliber machine guns and in how to properly toss hand grenades to the men, then posted them to what was labeled the Mobile Reserve.

  Lieutenant Hanna, who commanded the gun position that would later see the most ferocious fighting of the battle—the stretch of shore running just below the airstrip and northwest toward Wilkes—moved his command post from the airstrip to the beach area south of the airfield. Afterwards, he dug a foxhole into which he could jump during raids, then ordered the fifty men under him to fill and stack sandbags and to keep watch for any movement in the sky.

  On Wilkes, Lieutenant McAlister rotated one-hour beach patrols among his Marines. Since he, like his fellow officers elsewhere on the atoll, lacked enough men, he filled in with civilian volunteers. He wisely paired a civilian with a Marine for each watch, so that every post always had at least one serviceman on guard.

  On December 10, Corporal Johnson received orders to take six civilians and establish a gun position on Wilkes at the mouth of the lagoon. Johnson settled in with the crew and found that one man in particular, Leo Nonn, proved valuable. Every morning Nonn asked Johnson questions on military tactics and how to handle a weapon, and if Johnson needed a volunteer, he knew he did not have to look further than Nonn. If every civilian contributed as enthusiastically as Nonn and acted as bravely, Johnson concluded that possibly the Wake defenders might make the Japanese suffer when they arrived off the atoll. Maybe he and the other Marines, bolstered by the Army and Navy personnel and a handful of civilian volunteers, could hold them off after all.

  “I Thought I Was the Only Person Left Alive on the Island”

  The Japanese shifted the focus of the next attack to the Marine quarters at Camp 1 and to Wilkes Island. To seasoned military, the enemy’s strategy seemed obvious—first eliminate Wake’s air arm, then reduce the atoll’s fort
ifications and guns in preparation for a landing attempt.

  Since most Marines stood at their guns and positions, few casualties resulted from the strike on their camp, but most lost their personal possessions, including letters from parents and wives. Lieutenant Hanna lost the photographs of Vera and his daugher, Erlyne, and Corporal Richardson saw all the work he put into his 25,000-word manuscript literally go up in smoke.

  Devereux’s prediction that the Japanese would strike Battery E’s former location proved correct, as the bombers destroyed two of the dummy guns and targeted the beaches directly above Peacock Point. When the Japanese also bombed Battery E’s new location at the airfield, Devereux ordered a second shift, this time to a more camouflaged position on Wake’s lagoon side above the airfield.

  Wilkes Island bore the brunt of the day’s bombing, which produced a tremendous explosion when bombs struck a shed packed with 125 tons of dynamite. The eruption defoliated much of Wilkes’s interior and knocked men off their feet. Corporal Johnson crawled under a vertical limb of a tree about five inches in diamter for protection, but the explosion “bounced me around and shoved my face in the coral and I came out with a bloody face and a sore back. The shed was about two hundred yards from me. I could see it go way up in the air, even though I was horizontal on the ground. I thought I was the only person left alive on the island.”7 Ironically, Marines in foxholes closer to the center of impact felt little concussion because the waves went up and out toward Johnson and those near him.

  Another Marine on Wilkes found two Guamanian workers buried to their waists in sand by the explosion. Rattled and in tears, the pair asked for help from their predicament. As the Marine freed them, one of the men exclaimed, “Boy, this don’t happen on Guam.”8

  The Americans landed a few blows of their own during this raid. Captain Elrod plunged into the middle of the enemy formation, braved 3-inch shells fired from Wake by fellow Marines that could just as easily hit him as they could a Japanese, and splashed two bombers. American servicemen, heartened by the sight of enemy aircraft falling to the sea, christened the aviator “Hammering Hank” and muttered quiet thanks that Wake still had an air arm with which to greet the enemy. Elrod’s two tallies should have made the Japanese approach the atoll with more caution, but the enemy disregarded the events. That casual attitude would soon cost them dearly.

  The civilians at Wright’s gun registered their own triumphs. After earning the Marine’s wrath for a poor display on December 8, they performed much more smoothly in this raid. The crusty Marine admitted as much with a simple nod and an absence of cuss words.

  “A Piece of Shrapnel Does Strange Things”

  The citizen soldier army, so heralded by historians for contributing to victory in Europe and the Pacific, made its first appearance at Wake as volunteers dropped their shovels or stepped down from bulldozers to stand side by side with the four hundred Marines. They had traveled to Wake for money and adventure, not to fire weapons, but when the chips were down, they answered the call of duty like their military compatriots. Most were immediately sent to undermanned batteries and given speedy instruction on how to fire the weapons. Others filled sandbags and stood guard. All served the same purpose—to battle those who threatened the country’s security.

  Those construction workers who had received training from the Marines before the war started, like Joe Goicoechea, had already reported to their positions. Many of the rest gathered at the civilian mess hall to listen to Dan Teters explain what would occur and to answer questions. He told anyone who wanted to help the military to report to Major Devereux, who would then assign them a duty.

  A steady flow of civilians headed over to the Marine side of Wake. James Allen had left the meeting and started walking to Devereux’s command post when the Marines from Battery E at Peacock Point stopped him and asked him to work with them. He and eight other workers veered over to the battery, where Lieutenant Lewis welcomed them. They immediately started building the defenses and learning how to handle ammunition for the 3-inch guns.

  Civilians showed up in groups as small as two and as large as ninety to offer help. John Rogge learned how to operate searchlights along Wake’s eastern shore, then helped to carve out a dugout with five other men. A few needed minimal training because of previous military experience, such as Robert G. Hardy, a veteran of the World War I battles of Saint-Mihiel and the Argonne Forest, and Harold E. Lochridge, who fought on the Western Front in 1918. When fourteen civilians showed up at Toki Point, Sgt. Walter A. Bowsher placed them on his unmanned 3-inch antiaircraft gun and hurriedly instructed them on the fundamentals of using the weapon.

  Putnam’s depleted ranks received a boost when civilian John Sorenson led a group of fourteen volunteers, including Fred S. Gibbons and his son, George, to the airstrip and asked what they could do. Since the civilians were skilled repairmen, Putnam eagerly put them to work with Lieutenant Kinney.

  Assuming the Japanese would reappear, Kessler started to train his nine civilians. He had no rifles to distribute, so he cracked open a case of hand grenades and handed three to each man. He showed George Harris, Arne E. Astad, and the others how to properly throw the grenade, then supervised the strengthening of their position.

  At Battery D nearby, Sergeant Bowsher carefully explained the rudiments of gunnery to the civilians working with him. Seventy-two-year-old George Lawback, whose son also worked on Wake, listened intently, but he could not keep up with the physical demands of hoisting and moving the shells. When Bowsher asked if he wanted to leave, Lawback angrily declined. He wanted to remain with the crew, even if he could not contribute in the same fashion as his younger cohorts. Touched by this example of camaraderie, Bowsher let him stay and perform housekeeping chores.

  The Morrison-Knudsen workers handled an array of tasks—they constructed dugouts and foxholes, filled sandbags, delivered ammunition to Marines, and bulldozed coral sand into protective mounds. Some performed so well that Major Putnam later stated in his official report that he would have been proud to have claimed them as his own Marines.

  Putnam’s flattering words for these civilians, however, masked his and other Marines’ disappointment that so many other workers chose not to help. The military appreciated the assistance they received, but they quietly asked why close to half the construction workers, all in good health, remained in the bush and away from the fighting.

  This arose in part because of Devereux and Cunningham, who refused to enlist the civilians in the military on the grounds that they, as commanders, lacked the legal authority. Aside from the fear that they might be summarily executed as guerrilla fighters if captured, many men chose what they thought would be the safer and wiser course of hiding out in the bush and hoping for relief from Pearl Harbor or a victory by the Marines.

  The civilians also lacked a clear directive about what to do. During his meeting, Teters told the men that if they decided not to volunteer, they were to head to the bush, dig a foxhole, and wait for instructions. Those instructions never made it to some fellows. One man, Pop Curtis of Idaho, explained to Goicoechea, “They told us to go into the brush and if they needed us they’d call us. Nobody ever called us.”9

  Joe Goicoechea wondered why Teters simply did not follow the same organization he had already formed. “Teters was a good man, but the only gripe I have was when the bombs fell, he should have kept every civilian in his own crew, with the crew boss, and that would have worked better. You can’t blame the civilians who didn’t come out of the brush.”10 As a result, some of the men who would have helped, did not. At the same time, this confusion handed a convenient excuse to those who had no desire to contribute.

  Finally, some men simply refused to fight, whether out of fear or principle. At Teters’s evening meeting, workers angrily demanded an explanation for why Morrison-Knudsen failed to evacuate them before hostilities flared and stated that they had not come to Wake to fight. That, they contested, was why the Marines, Navy, and Army personnel were there.<
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  Most Morrison-Knudsen workers avoided combat—barely one sixth of the 1,145 actually fought with the Marines during the subsequent invasion—but at least half contributed their labors in some fashion. However, the presence of a large group of healthy men hiding in the brush while others fought and died did not sit well with many Marines.

  The men played another game, lonelier and more excruciating than the one unfolding on Wake, for this contest occurred inside, where emotions dwell. Each American, military and civilian, fought to control his fears. They all had them—every person in the military will tell you only a fool or a liar will boast he has no fears in combat—but unlike the fighting for the atoll, where men stood side by side and shared the burdens, this one had to be resolved alone.

  Those civilians who walked solitary nightly guard duty along one of Wake’s beaches typified what every man experienced. Holding on to a rifle he probably had just learned how to operate, the civilian paced up and down the lonely stretch of beach, straining his eyes to detect unusual movement and listening intently for any sound out of the ordinary. Shapes that posed no threat by day—a large coral rock, for instance—at night suddenly took on the appearance of an enemy soldier sneaking onto the island. The thousands of tiny crabs that infested Wake’s sand amused the men in daylight, but in the cover of darkness they sounded like humans approaching.

  “I was frightened; you never get over it,” admitted Goicoechea. “The first night was the worst night of my life. I was shaking and didn’t know what the heck was happening. You could see that the older men were just as scared as you were. I used to hear a lot of guys pray. I was never backward in praying. These other guys would say they didn’t know how to pray, but they’d sure beat me when times were tough.”11