Pacific Alamo

by John Wukovits

  “Some Deserve Credit and Some Don’t”

  Unique to Wake is how the civilian and military worlds merged in time of need to help one another battle a common foe. Marines, Navy, and Army units stationed at the atoll entered the service knowing that one day they might have to fight for their country. The workers who signed on with Morrison-Knudsen had no such understanding.

  From the conflict’s initial moments on December 8 until the final battle on Wake, civilians contributed in numerous ways, including fighting. John O’Neal continued to perform the religious functions that he started with the December 11 burial service. He frequently shuffled from foxhole to foxhole, inquiring how each man was and if he needed anything. He could not provide anything material, but the moral boost and spiritual contributions benefited many of the men.

  To free the military for defense purposes, Cunningham asked Dan Teters to handle the food for all 1,600 men. Teters not only opened his supplies of rations, candy, and clothing to the military, but “Dan Teters’s Catering Service” picked up food cooked in the civilian mess and trucked meals out to the soldiers and civilian volunteers manning the guns. Twice each day, before the sun rose and after it set so a Japanese scout plane could not follow a truck and detect one of the hidden gun positions, civilians brought welcome provisions to the men. They dropped off the food at determined locations, then one man from each gun headed out to retrieve it.

  The system worked fairly well, although deficiencies existed. Some of the food was barely edible, especially the chocolate bars, which became worm-infested in the humid conditions. Military and civilian volunteers manning the guns believed they deserved the food more than the men who willingly chose to hide in the brush. On Wilkes, for instance, Captain Platt ordered that if any civilian wanted to eat, he had to work at one of the guns. When he needed more workers on Peale Island to construct defenses, Captain Godbold collected all the food and threatened to give it only to those who volunteered. Seventy-five men soon arrived and helped build a dugout.

  Men supplemented their diets in different ways. Out on Peacock Point, where the men were a bit farther removed from the road, Corporal Gross’s crew often went hungry when the men sent to retrieve the food arrived at the drop-off point and found most of it gone. Fortunately, a civilian named Sonny Kaiser headed out each day, in complete disregard for his safety, scrounged around the buildings, and returned with beans, fish, candy, or other items.

  “He was a godsend to us,” explained Gross. “We were at the end of the chow line, and they all but forgot about us, so he’d go out and come back with canned goods, cigarettes, and candy while we were on position those days.”18

  Joe Goicoechea, never one to remain still when something can be done, took an abandoned truck out one day to load up on food. While two men stood on each side of the cab, ready to bang on the doors if a Japanese bomber appeared, Goicoechea dodged bomb craters along a tortuous route to a warehouse, where the men piled boxes of canned juice, milk, and cigarettes into the vehicle.

  More civilians contributed to the defense of Wake than is often assumed. Murray Kidd claimed that everyone he knew worked at something, whether it was actually manning a gun or helping fortify a position. Each evening the civilians gathered at some location, such as the airfield, where they received their jobs for the night. Usually it entailed strengthening defenses or moving guns. “Someone would come get us to do the work,” said Kidd. “Every night we sandbagged, moved guns, or whatever the military needed. I never got on any gun. Very few men did get on the guns. We just did what they told us to do. All the guys I knew helped out. A lot of the others didn’t.”19

  Just under 200 civilians manned various military posts around the atoll. Another 250 helped dig shelters, sandbag gun positions, or complete other construction work that aided the military. Altogether, 450 out of 1,100 civilians, or just over 40 percent, participated in some fashion.

  Most, however, did not. Some Marines claimed they could already point to examples of where the civilians abandoned them. Marines stationed closer to the points of the heaviest bombings, such as those near the airfield or at Barninger’s Battery A at Peacock Point, received fewer food deliveries than those in relatively calm sectors. Major Putnam badly needed work done at the airstrip, but saw the numbers of civilian helpers dwindle as the bombings intensified, particularly following night raids. Each time the Japanese executed such an attack, the civilians headed for the brush and refused to come back out until dawn, costing Putnam a full night’s labor. He even asked permission from Commander Cunningham to let him organize armed groups of Marines who could head into the brush and force the civilians to come out and help. “Dammit, they’ve got to hold up their end!”20 he shouted.

  Cunningham knew that many of the civilians appeared only at food time, but he wisely denied the request. He sympathized with their feelings that they had been cheated by not being evacuated in time and that their futures had been affected by a war they had not expected, and he wondered what Putnam’s Marines would do if they met with resistance from the civilians. Eventually, Dan Teters promised to deliver more men by personally appealing to their sense of duty, a promise he fulfilled.

  On Wilkes, Corporal Johnson supervised four civilians manning machine guns. Three men cooperated and followed Johnson’s orders, especially Leo Nonn, who always seemed to ask questions and volunteer to do things, but the fourth, Johnson said, “irritated the hell out of me. Every morning he would get out his contract [with Morrison-Knudsen] and show me where it stated that in case of hostilities, the civilians would be removed. I finally stopped it one morning by telling him two of the things you need that first disappear in battle are soap and toilet tissue. I told him, ‘Hold on to that contract and all you got to worry about is soap.’ After that he didn’t show it to me too often.”21

  The feelings toward the civilians ranged from the outright harsh to the sympathetic. Most Marines recognized that the civilians had not bargained for a battle, but also wished they had received more help. Pfc. Jesse Nowlin castigated the civilians as a “thieving, stealing, disruptive, unruly, disorganized mob that came out like a pack of rats at night and ripped and raided and caused an inordinate amount of trouble that we at that time were not in a position to deal with.”22 The situation created a dilemma for the military. When the real fighting occurred—the expected second landing attempt—who could the military count on, and how many would be there? The lack of participation by so many civilians is a point that irritates some Marines to this day, who wonder whether the civilians who headed to the brush had “chickened” out when the military most needed them.

  On the other hand, Lieutenant Hanna typified how the majority seemed to feel at the time. Hanna stated three of the four men who served near him were superb fighters, but he sure could have used more help. “I could understand some of them, with the fact they weren’t trained and knew nothing about what was going on. The bombing they received wasn’t conducive to good morale. I wished more had fought, but I understand why they didn’t. Some of the men deserve credit and some don’t. The ones that stayed in the brush don’t deserve more credit, but some helped quite a bit.”23

  Private First Class Gatewood agreed that most civilians remained in the brush instead of helping. “We were kind of mad about it, but hey, they wasn’t in the service to protect, so it was up to them if they wanted to do something.”24

  Marines lavished praise on those who volunteered, however. An officer walked over to a machine gun manned by civilian John M. Valov and a few other Morrison-Knudsen workers, slapped them on the back, and called them true Americans. Lieutenant Kessler complimented the bravery of the civilians who showed up at his guns. They asked for rifles, but when none were available, they were given three boxes of hand grenades and taught how to use them. However, Kessler had choice words for the others. “After the bombs started to fall, many of the summer soldiers disappeared into the brush, not to be seen again during the fight.”25

  Even Major
Devereux stated similar thoughts. He sorely needed additional men, but he understood why many chose to avoid the battle. Instead of criticizing, he diplomatically claimed that the arduous days on Wake only made the contributions of those civilians who helped all the more admirable. In light of the heavy fighting and the possibility of worse to come, it is not surprising that many men remained hidden.

  “Send Us More Japs”

  For the twelve days of the siege, contact with families back home came to a standstill. With near-daily bombings and a second invasion attempt expected at any time, no mail could be flown in or out. As a result, families had no way of knowing about their loved ones on Wake, and the defenders could only guess how their families fared. Lieutenant Hanna yearned to let Vera know he was fine, but he had to settle for hoping she coped with the situation and assumed her husband lived. People like Vera and Pearl Ann existed on the morsels of information about the atoll they read in newspapers, which was not much, and clung to the belief that Lieutenant Hanna and J. O. Young would return to them.

  For information back home, the men on Wake listened to radio broadcasts, a very unreliable source. The Army communications unit filtered some news to the men, while a handful of Marines listened to programs over their own receivers. They did not always appreciate what they heard. One radio commentator drew derisive laughter when he likened the Wake defenders to the biblical David challenging Goliath. Lieutenant Kinney listened in astonishment as a reporter stated that while no one knew how many Americans fought at Wake, the number had to be small. The United States military had never released details of the size of the military contingent on Wake, but now Kinney listened as a fellow American openly divulged material that could help the enemy and adversely affect his future.

  In one of the first days of the siege, Private First Class Gatewood learned that excited Americans had given the Wake Islanders a nickname, an appellation acknowledging their heroic defense and the inspiration they breathed into United States society. “The first word we got was when that crew from the radio trailer told us we were known as the Alamo of the Pacific.”26 Gatewood enjoyed the comparison but hoped he experienced a happier outcome than the fighters in 1836.

  Radio also brought good news, however, and let the defenders know they had not been forgotten. Hans Whitney heard a news announcer say, “That faraway little garrison of Wake Island is still holding out, with her handful of Marines, even after raid upon raid of Jap bombers.”27 Members of the Army and Navy units stationed on Wake, as well as the many civilians who helped, chafed at the lack of mention of their presence while the Marines received the accolades, but at least they realized the home front cared for the events taking place.

  On December 13, the famous band leader, Kay Kyser, dedicated a song to the men at Wake. Pfc. Max J. Dana, on duty at his machine gun on Wilkes Island, surreptitiously listened over the open communications line as Major Devereux and Captain Platt discussed the issue. “Hey, Captain, we had a song dedicated to us on the radio,” said Major Devereux. “Kay Kyser on his program dedicated a song to the Wake Island Marines.”

  Captain Platt, who impressed everyone with his dry wit, replied in his slow Southern drawl, “What did they play, taps?”28 His reference to the traditional military tune played at burial ceremonies cast a realistic bent on the event, while at least producing smiles on Devereux’s and Dana’s faces.

  Each day the men of Wake held on, they more firmly embedded themselves in the nation’s consciousness, especially after one of the greatest propaganda stunts, however unintentional, of World War II. Shortly after the December 11 attack, Cunningham transmitted a message to Pearl Harbor. As was common in those days, the men operating the radio transmitter, in this case Ens. George H. Henshaw and Ens. Bernard J. Lauff, added what was called padding, or nonsense words, to the front and back of the message, to confuse the Japanese and to make it more difficult to successfully translate the information. On one of their messages, the pair added the words SEND us to the front and the words MORE JAPS to the end. Someone at Pearl Harbor lifted the four words, combined them into one phrase, and instantly created a new national rallying cry. Americans did not learn until after the war that Devereux had never uttered the phrase, but by that time the slogan’s impact had long had its effect.

  The American media transformed the slogan into one of the war’s most famous retorts. According to most major radio programs, newspapers, and magazines, when Pearl Harbor asked Major Devereux if he needed anything, he replied, “Send us more Japs.” The slogan raced across the United States, with citizens reveling in the defiant nature of the response. Newspapers splashed the phrase across their front pages and magazines devoted articles to its supposed origin. Tiny Wake, already renowned for producing the war’s first victory, now had given the nation a slogan. Outnumbered and outsupplied, the gritty little Major Devereux and his battlers had an answer for the arrogant Japanese, who had enjoyed nothing but victory until now: Send us more, and we will destroy them. Americans adopted it as a national retort to the enemy. It typified the manner in which the nation wanted to believe its soldiers would fight—determined, aggressive, insolent—not the way the war had begun at Pearl Harbor. “Send us more Japs” quickly took its place alongside “I have not yet begun to fight,” “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” and other heralded slogans from American military history.

  “From the little band of professionals on Wake Island came an impudently defiant message phrased for history,” boasted Time magazine. “Wake’s Marines were asked by radio what they needed. The answer made old Marines’ chests grow under their campaign bars: ‘Send us more Japs.’”29

  While Americans celebrated the phrase, the men on Wake reacted incredulously to the news that their nation had rallied behind what they considered an absurd phrase. Tired, hungry, dirty, and facing a second round with a brutal foe, the last thing any servicemen or construction workers wanted was more Japanese. Major Devereux claimed they already had enough, and Commander Cunningham stated that only a person with a death wish would send such a message.

  The men understood the importance of propaganda, but this involved their own skins. Would the rallying cry prod the enemy to greater effort? “When we heard that slogan we said, ‘Who in the crap said that! He’s out of his gourd!’” explained Corporal Marvin. “We figured it was the newspapers that did that. They were trying to get the United States all worked up, get more people involved.”30

  “An Epic in American Military History”

  The slogan, while dominating the news of Wake for a time, was not the only item of information the home front received about Wake. For the duration of the fighting, Vera, Pearl Ann, and the entire nation bled with the men on Wake. They could not comprehend what their loved ones endured, for one has to be in combat to understand that, but as Lieutenant Hanna, Corporal Holewinski, Joe Goicoechea, and the other defenders shook off the dust from the daily Japanese bombings, citizens in the United States avidly followed developments.

  Since the U.S. government and its military could not divulge many details, both for security reasons and because they lacked specific information, family members of Wake defenders relied on radio, newspapers, and magazines for information. Daily newspapers yielded the bulk of the information, and as Vera or Pearl Ann read each day’s developments, their emotions fluctuated from despair to hope, fear to joy.

  Headlines on December 9, for instance, hardly reassured family members when they proclaimed, WAKE AND GUAM REPORTED TAKEN.31 At that time it appeared Wake had succumbed to the Japanese, as had other places, but worse, the articles provided no details on what had happened to specific individuals. Their loved ones fought on an island in an ocean that bordered the U.S. West Coast, but as far as family were concerned, the men might as well have been on Jupiter. They could do nothing but wait each day, latch on to anything that appeared positive, and hope that additional good news would arrive.

  The first specific information arrived on De
cember 11, when Capt. John H. Hamilton landed the Pan American Clipper on San Francisco Bay after his harrowing flight out of Wake. Newspapers, including Pearl Ann’s Idaho Daily Statesman in Boise, ran lengthy stories in which Hamilton described the December 8 attack and showed reporters the sixteen Japanese bullet holes that ornamented his aircraft. Pearl Ann could not have taken comfort in his remark that the Japanese opened by machine-gunning the civilian camp, but at least Hamilton added that morale was high on Wake.

  Newspaper reporting over the coming days offered a mixture of hope and doom. On December 12, the Detroit Free Press stated that Washington officials, including President Roosevelt, assumed the Wake defenders would die, but that their efforts would not be in vain, for “here in one of the Nation’s most remote possessions men have repelled the attack of the Nipponese.” Although the newspaper claimed “They must die,” the Free Press stated that “every American may well be proud of the Alamo of the Pacific—Wake Island.”32

  A headline in the New York Times read, MARINES KEEP WAKE, and mentioned in an article that “the American flag up to noon yesterday was still flying over Wake Island.” The reporter ended less optimistically by stating, “Wake may be captured; its capture, indeed, had long been anticipated, but if its ‘leathernecks’ add another glorious chapter to their history and inflict further losses on the enemy, they will not have died in vain.” The Washington Post labeled Wake “the stage for an epic in American military history, one of those gallant stands such as led Texans 105 years ago to cry, ‘Remember the Alamo!’” The paper added that when news of the December 11 victory arrived in the State Department press room in Washington, D.C., reporters turned their thumbs upward and created a new victory slogan, “Wake up!”33