Kajioka, already in shock over the fierce resistance fashioned by Wake’s defenders, had had enough. He had lost not one, but two ships to a foe his compatriots dismissed as weak and lacking spirit. Somehow, he had to prepare an answer for his superiors in the Marshalls, who were sure to demand an explanation of why he could not seize an atoll they considered a pushover. Humiliated, still rattled by his near-death encounter with American machine-gun bullets, Kajioka headed for the Marshalls, where he intended to “make another attempt when conditions were more favorable.”23
Later that day, Lt. David D. Kliewer put the finishing touches to December 11. As he patrolled twenty-five miles southwest of Wake around 4:00 P.M., he spotted a submarine, most likely the RO-66 commanded by Lt. Comdr. Hideyuki Kurokawa. Kliewer dipped low to ensure better results before dropping his two 100-pound bombs, but he plunged so far that bomb fragments from the explosion pierced his aircraft. He gained altitude and then turned back for a second sweep with his machine guns. Kliewer strafed the submarine until he ran out of ammunition, and as he changed course to head back to Wake, he thought he saw the submarine disappear. When he landed and reported the outcome, Major Putnam hopped into an aircraft and flew out to check the location. He spotted an oil spill where Kliewer encountered the submarine, so he assumed the boat had been destroyed.
Doubt remains whether Kliewer destroyed the submarine on December 11, or whether he damaged its communications equipment so severely that it later sank in a December 17 collision with a second Japanese submarine of which RO-66 was unaware. In either event, Kliewer deserves the credit, for his actions led to the boat’s demise.
“It’s Been Quite a Day, Major”
Wake’s defenders recorded an impressive tally on December 11. The atoll’s three 5-inch batteries, the aviators of VMF-211, and Lieutenant Kliewer sank two surface ships and one submarine, damaged at least seven others, and downed two aircraft. At a cost of two Wildcat fighters and five wounded Marines, Wake inflicted a punishing human toll on their enemy—340 Japanese sailors died.
The military registered three “firsts” on Wake that day. For the first and only time in the war, shore batteries repulsed a Japanese invasion. Wake sank the first Japanese warship of the Pacific conflict. Most important, for the first time since the war started, an American force had prevented the Japanese from seizing an objective.
Morale on Wake skyrocketed. For three days the men had suffered through bombing raids and seen companions die, lost personal possessions and friends, yet they had little opportunity to fight back. When given the chance on December 11, they proved their mettle against a force that should have handily swept them away. Kajioka commanded such a powerful conglomerate that all he had to do was stay outside Wake’s range, reduce the defenses with his larger guns, and then send in his landing force to sweep up the few surviving Americans. Instead, he fell to Devereux’s strategy and lost.
In an interview after the war, Devereux maintained they should never have defeated Kajioka, whose force “should’ve wiped us out with ease.”24 The Japanese admiral certainly helped by steaming in close to Wake, but from then on, the courage and determination of Devereux’s men took over. Each Marine, each sailor, and each soldier drew on that performance to help sustain them in the days to come.
On Peale Island, Private Laporte shouted and cheered with others over what he called a big morale booster, and elsewhere around the atoll military and civilians celebrated. “The tension, & concern over our ability to match the Japs[’] superior guns, numbers etc. was gone,” wrote Sergeant Donald R. Malleck. “We suddenly were invincible. I am very certain every man on that Island grew a good two inches—at least.”25
Private First Class King sensed a surge of confidence swell in the men around him. They were certain that the United States would soon dispatch a naval relief force to their aid, and with that assistance the Japanese could never take the atoll. “The attitude of the men after the December 11 attack was that we could handle pretty much anything,” said King. “There was no doubt that help was coming at this stage. We were all optimistic and never dreamed the Japanese would take the island.”26
After joining delighted aviators and mechanics at the airfield, Cunningham walked to Devereux’s command post to congratulate the officer and his Marines for the marvelous defense. He then dashed over to the Marine Officers’ Club for a hasty celebration. “It was like a fraternity picnic,” Cunningham wrote. “War whoops of joy split the air; warm beer was sprayed on late arrivals without regard to rank; already the memories that would last a lifetime—a tragically short lifetime for some—were being recalled, relived, and even embroidered.”27
Beer in hand, big John Hamas joined Cunningham for a drink, then left to collect a group of civilians and deliver ammunition to Wilkes. Cunningham departed shortly after Hamas to complete what he called one of the proudest tasks of his career—inform Pearl Harbor of the victory. Admiral Kimmel, busy trying to regroup the shattered forces at the Hawaiian base, still found time to praise Cunningham and every man on Wake for performing their duties “in accordance with the highest traditions of the Naval Service.”28 Cunningham read the notice to Devereux and Putnam at his first opportunity.
“We felt good, almost cocky,” Cunningham wrote. “Surely help would come from Pearl Harbor any day now, and meanwhile we could wait it out.”29
Back at Devereux’s command post, Corporal Brown turned to the major and said, in understated terms, “It’s been quite a day, Major, hasn’t it?”30
Devereux could not spare much time for celebrating, for he and every other man on Wake knew that the Japanese, though embarrassed and licking their wounds, would inevitably return in greater numbers. Devereux had to prepare his men for what would be a more violent, bloody clash.
Fortunately, he could count on Dan Teters for aid. Close to 450 civilians joined Marine batteries to handle ammunition and stand night watches, deliever food and build shelters. The civilians, highly technical tradesmen and skilled workers, had little training in handling weapons or dealing with the type of fear they faced during the bombardment, yet they came through when the military most needed them and collaborated with the military to inflict a shocking defeat on Japan. In a report, Lieutenant Barninger of Battery A wrote that he could never have enjoyed the success he achieved on December 11 without the help of the civilian volunteers at his battery, who not only handled ammunition, but also helped construct shelters for the men. The citizen soldiers had rolled up their sleeves, braved enemy fire, and stood side by side with their military counterparts.
Other Marines, however, cursed the fact that so many civilian construction workers declined to help the undermanned Marines. Lieutenant McAlister of Battery L had to halt the firing of his 5-inch guns when he could not coax any civilians to help bring up ammunition. Instead, his Marines had to leave the guns to carry ammunition up from the magazine. Eventually a few civilians emerged from hiding and assisted McAlister, but the thorny issue of civilian assistance would plague Cunningham and Devereux all through the battle.
“One of the Most Humiliating Defeats”
Out at sea, Admiral Kajioka led the dejected task force back to Kwajalein in the Marshalls. Along the way, the Japanese buried the dead in traditional style by wrapping the bodies in white cloth and dropping them overboard. The somber ceremony did nothing to improve the men’s mood.
To cover their embarrassment to the people back home, the Japanese Navy explained that Kajioka returned because of poor weather. One Japanese newspaper reported, in words that now seem comical, that “The Imperial Navy shelled Wake Island on December 11, and dealt heavy losses to the remaining military establishments of the enemy. Our side suffered some damage, too.”31
The Japanese military knew the truth. Yubari’s action report admitted that Wake’s batteries and aircraft proved more effective than they assumed, and in the process disrupted the Japanese timetable for the Pacific. Instead of holding Wake as planned and freeing ships and men for o
ther operations, Japan now had to commit more forces in a second assault they never thought would be necessary.
One officer accurately concluded that “Considering the power accumulated for the invasion of Wake Island, and the meager forces of the defenders, it was one of the most humiliating defeats our navy had ever suffered.”32
They would be back, however. Sub-Lieutenant Ozeki noticed that every man aboard Yubari spoke of nothing but revenge. December 11 had been an abberation, an accident no one could have foreseen. They would make amends the next time they saw Wake.
“Old Glory Still Waves over the Island”
Nowhere did the heroics at Wake have more impact and create a more emotional reaction than back home. American citizens, reeling from continuous bad news from the Pacific, almost hesitated to read the next day’s headlines. The Japanese moved in the Pacific with impunity, and American military forces had given little reason to hope they would soon reverse the trend. The nation’s most popular news magazine, Time, included in its first wartime issue that early information from the Pacific indicated that Japanese bombers “‘smashed’ Wake in no-time flat.”33
An unsettled country even feared invasion of the continental United States. School authorities in New York City sent the district’s children home when air raid sirens blasted a warning, and frightened children ran crying through East Providence, Rhode Island, streets. Press reports from Topeka, Kansas, referred to growing pessimism in the area, and Boston officials placed guards around power plants and reservoirs when enemy aircraft were reported flying only two hundred miles away. Patrolmen in the state of Washington stamped out brush fires they claimed created an arrow pointing toward the huge Bremerton Navy Yard.
What turned out to be imaginary raids by Japanese aircraft caused panic in both San Francisco on December 9 and Southern California on December 10. Japanese ships supposedly prowled the coast of California near Catalina Island. The U.S. Army convinced organizers to move the famed Rose Bowl football game on New Year’s Day from Pasadena, California, to Duke Stadium in Durham, North Carolina.
Then news arrived on December 10 that Japanese aircraft had sunk Great Britain’s two powerful ships, the battle cruiser Repulse and the majestic battleship Prince of Wales, off the coast of Malaya. Considered the pride of the British Navy, the ships disappeared after a brief encounter, leaving not only Great Britain, but also the United States without a battleship in the Pacific. A distraught British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the revered leader whose stirring optimism pulled his country through the darkest hours of the war against Hitler, claimed that “In all the war I never received a more direct shock…. As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me…. Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere [were] weak and naked.”34
Then, like a beacon suddenly illuminating the path home, the men at Wake breathed hope and optimism into a depressed nation with their December 11 rejection of the Japanese. Maj. Gen. Thomas Holcomb, the Marine commandant, informed Secretary Knox that same day that “A cheery note comes from Wake and the news is particularly pleasing at a time like this.” In Nampa, Pearl Ann read headlines in the the Idaho Daily Statesman that Wake was STILL UNDER AMERICAN FLAG,35 meaning her fiancé, J. O. Young, might be all right.
President Roosevelt, fresh from meeting the dynamic Churchill, brightened even more at learning what his military had done at Wake. When asked by a reporter at a press conference on December 12 to express his thoughts of Wake, a heartened president replied, “So far as we know, Wake Island is holding out—has done a perfectly magnificent job. We are all very proud of that very small group of Marines who are holding the Island.”36
Headlines and articles in the nation’s newspapers and magazines trumpeted the news as if the nation had found a savior. MARINES KEEP WAKE proclaimed the New York Times. The Washington Post called Wake an “epic in American history, one of those gallant stands” that stir the soul. Time concluded that “At Wake a tiny band of Marines made more of the Corps’s imperishable history that had its beginnings in the fighting tops of John Paul Jones’s Ranger and Bonhomme Richard. They had been there since the first day of war, beating off attack after attack by the Jap, shooting down his planes, sinking his surface ships, probably knocking the spots out of his landing parties.”37
The Honolulu Advertiser’s headline read, TINY GARRISON HOLDS OUT AGAINST ATTACKS. The Detroit Evening Times boasted MARINES HOLD OFF WAKE ASSAULT, credited the defense of Wake with raising the American fighting spirit, and bragged that the Wake defenders “are standing firm in the midst of flying steel….” The article added with pride, “Old Glory still waves over the island possession.”38
“Out there a couple of thousand of miles west of us,” wrote reporter Robert J. Casey from Hawaii, “the Marines were still holding Wake…. And as Americans we got a bit of thrill and plenty of consolation out of that. In a few outposts the United States of Valley Forge and The Wilderness and the Argonne was surviving and our ancient swaggering faith in ourselves and our Destiny didn’t seem quite so ludicrous.”39
Newsweek stated that “out in the middle of the Pacific, on tiny Wake Island, a Marine Corps garrison gave the Japs the surprise of their lives” by repelling the December attack. The magazine added that “all America was watching to see what the next move of the heroic leathernecks would be.”40 Instead of opening the newspaper with trepidation over what tragedy the Japanese had next inflicted, as the country had done since Pearl Harbor, people now eagerly looked forward to more news.
The nation swiftly reacted. A new war slogan, “Wake Up!” swept across the country, and thousands of young men swamped military recruiting centers. In Hartford, Connecticut, a woman walked into the Connecticut Employment Service and asked for work making ammunition. When asked why she wanted such a job, she replied, “My husband’s in the Marine Corps. He’s at Wake Island.”41 She got the job.
Americans could once again hold their heads high. People compared Wake to Davy Crockett and the Texans fighting Santa Anna at the Alamo, the Spartans holding off the Persians at Thermopylae, and other names associated with extraordinary military feats. Like an irritating pebble stuck in Japan’s shoe, Wake tenaciously held on when other places had succumbed or absorbed catastrophic losses. The Japanese steamroller had been halted just as it appeared to gain momentum, stopped not by an immense naval task force or a fleet of bombers or an entire army, but by a handful of military personnel and their civilian volunteers. The event harked to those days in 1776, when farmers dropped their plows, picked up their muskets, and headed to do battle with the British. The men of Wake resurrected optimism when the nation most needed it.
“We Had Done It Today”
Festivities on Wake quieted later that night when a group of men gathered near the civilian camp to bury the bodies of eighty military and civilian personnel killed since December 8. With so many events unfolding at rapid speed in the war’s opening days, there had been no time to bury the bodies, which had instead been placed in a refrigeration unit. Commander Cunningham now arranged a ceremony to honor the slain men. With Devereux and Teters at his side and an honor guard of four Marines, Cunningham enlisted the help of a civilian preacher, a carpenter from Wyoming named John H. O’Neal.
Other Morrison-Knudsen workers used construction equipment to dig a long trench about one hundred yards from the east end of the airfield, then carefully placed each of the eighty bodies into the common grave. After the Marine honor guard fired three volleys, O’Neal recited prayers for the fallen Americans, including Conderman and Graves from the airfield. Since most men had to remain at their posts, only a small crowd could gather. Among them was a construction worker whose son had accompanied him to Wake because of the excellent wages. Instead of compiling a financial nest egg for his future, the boy, killed in Wake’s early action, now shared a resting spot with other fallen men.
That night, hoping to confuse the Japanese bombers, Devereux ordered
Capt. Bryght D. Godbold to move the four 3-inch guns from Battery D on Peak’s western edge across to the island’s eastern corner. Teters arranged for a large group of construction workers to help, and by the next morning the men had the guns emplaced in their new location.
Elsewhere on Wake, men tried to catch a few moments of sleep in between assignments or watches, for no one knew when they would again enjoy a full night’s sleep. At least they could doze off or stand duty with a fresh optimism born of the day’s events. December 11 had been a good day.
“Well, we had done it today,” wrote Commander Cunningham. “Surface ships, bombers, and now a submarine. If they’d just give us enough time, we’d lick the whole Japanese Navy by ourselves.
“I went back to my cottage thinking the hell with the dangers of a night raid, threw open the window to the soft breezes and the soothing sound of the surf, and slept like a baby.”42
It would be Cunningham’s last deep slumber in almost four years, but he had a right to be elated. His men notified the Japanese that the Pacific Ocean was not their private domain. They may have scored impressive victories at Pearl Harbor, Guam, and other places in the war’s opening days, but Wake reminded the Japanese that the United States had not disappeared. The nation only needed time to regroup. When ready, it would strike back with the ferocity exhibited by Lieutenant Hanna, Captain Elrod, Joe Goicoechea, and the other military and civilian personnel on Wake.
The men of Wake answered the Japanese, not only for themselves, but for their nation, as well. In those heady December 11 moments, they gained a small measure of revenge for Pearl Harbor and vengeance for slain comrades, and in the process gave hope to the people back home.
They could not celebrate too much, however. With limited resources, a battalion at half-strength, and an air force of only a few usable fighters, they had to hold on against an angry enemy until help came.
Pacific Alamo Page 14