Devereux made these judgments with the best available knowledge. Some information came from unusual sources, such as the civilian who screamed hysterically that the Japanese along the airfield were bayoneting every American who had been with Poindexter. “They’re killing ’em all!” he shrieked as he raced into Devereux’s command post. Corporal Brown called Devereux over to listen to an unidentified American who kept repeating in hushed tones over the communication lines, “There are Japanese in the bushes…. There are definitely Japanese in the bushes….”32 Devereux attempted to coax the man into letting him know who and where he was, but before the individual could respond, Devereux heard a burst of fire, followed by silence. These events seemed to indicate the Japanese held the upper hand everywhere.
Then daylight arrived and handed Devereux a glimpse of what surrounded the atoll—more than twenty sleek Japanese ships steaming not far off the coast. He and the Americans could continue to fight, even kill every Japanese then on the atoll, but those ships ringing Wake would either simply bombard Wake into submission or disgorge more forces to clean up the mess.
Devereux could no longer bring his batteries into the battle, for they had all run out of ammunition. Enemy pilots, emboldened by the lack of opposition from the once-potent weapons, humiliated Americans on the silent guns by waving to them as they made runs against the batteries, as if indicating they knew the Americans could not return fire.
All this followed the grim news that the relief expedition had been recalled to Pearl Harbor, information that made it difficult for Devereux and Cunningham to continue the battle. Major Potter recalled later that “I don’t believe the situation looked hopeless, or was so considered by anyone, until word was received, prior to the decision to surrender, that the relief force approaching Wake had turned back.”33
Devereux and Cunningham continued their conversation, each trying to avoid being the first to actually use the word surrender. As overall commander, the decision to yield the atoll rested with Cunningham, but he asked Devereux if he felt it was necessary. The Marine skirted the issue by reminding Cunningham the decision was his, then wondered if there was not something he and the military could do to affect the battle. After quick reflection, Devereux concluded that Cunningham also bore the responsibility for over one thousand unarmed civilian lives and that any action he as a Marine officer took would only delay the inevitable while costing the lives of more people.
“Well, I guess we’d better give it to them,” said Cunningham to a dejected Devereux. The word surrender is anathema to Marines who, according to Corps tradition, never yield to an enemy, so the major attempted once more to think of a different solution. “I tried to think of something—anything—we might do to keep going, but there wasn’t anything…. It was a numbing realization, bitter to take, but Commander Cunningham’s decision to surrender was inevitable, beyond argument. We could keep spending lives, but we could not buy anything with them.
“So I said, ‘I’ll pass the word.’”34
Just then Gunner Hamas returned to Devereux’s command post and asked for instructions concerning the fighting along Potter’s line. Devereux looked at him and, obviously moved, said with a touch of self-interest, “John, it’s too late; Commander Cunningham ordered me to surrender. Prepare a white flag of truce, go outside, and give the order to ‘cease firing.’”35 Hamas and Devereux stared at each other in silence for a few moments, each Marine doing the best he could to contain his emotions at such an awkward moment. Hamas, the warrior who fought in two wars for two different nations, then walked out the door to carry out his superior’s wishes.
“Remember Wake Island”
“Oh Brother, We’ve Had It Now”
Now that the decision to surrender had been made, Cunningham and Devereux had to spread word throughout the atoll. In some places, the fighting continued, especially Platt’s successful counterattack at Wilkes and around Hanna’s gun, so Devereux had to proceed cautiously as he moved from section to section. The men who fought closest to Devereux’s command post received the word first, and thus surrendered earlier than did Americans fighting farther away. As a result, combat raged on Wilkes while Americans had already laid down their weapons at certain parts of Wake.
Gunner Hamas left Devereux’s command post first, to begin what he later called “Our saddest chapter.” From inside, Devereux heard Hamas shout to those Marines nearby, “Major’s orders! We’re surrendering…. Major’s orders…” Devereux, with tears running down his face and sensitive to the issue of Marines surrendering, hurried to the entrance and yelled at Hamas, “It’s not my order, God damn it!”1
Seeing the anguish that his commander felt, P.Sgt. Bernard Ketner walked over to him and offered his hand for a handshake. “Don’t worry, Major. You fought a good fight and did all you could.”2
Cunningham grappled with his own misery. He glanced at the men in his command post, futilely trying to think of something he could say to ease their fears, but could find no words to express any comforting thoughts. He then walked out, dumped his .45 into a latrine, and drove away to his cottage, where he shaved, cleaned up, put on a clean blue uniform, and drove back to his command post to officially surrender the atoll to the Japanese.
As men learned of the surrender, they took precautions to prevent the enemy from using anything of value. They removed the bolts from their rifles, shattered the stocks against rocks, hurled pistols into the lagoon, and shoved sand or blankets down gun muzzles. Army Capt. Henry S. Wilson burned the codebooks, dismantled the cipher machines, and tossed the parts into the ocean to preserve the secret American codes.
At the hospital, civilian laborer Theodore Abraham noticed that a Japanese flag had replaced one of the American banners on Wake. The distasteful image seemed an omen of hard times ahead, a fact emphasized by his first encounter with Japanese soldiers. Working as a secretary in the hospital, Abraham tied a white sheet on a long stick and placed it outside the bunker’s entrance so the Japanese would not expect any opposition. Despite this precaution, a group of Japanese soldiers stuck their rifles inside and fired randomly, killing one American. Abraham then realized that he was in for a tough time. “This was the final feeling of defeat and the beginning of an uncertain future,”3 he later wrote.
Meanwhile Devereux, accompanied by volunteer Sgt. Donald Malleck, began his long walk to the various Marine emplacements. Finding nothing more suitable for a sign of surrender, Sergeant Malleck tied a white cloth to the end of a mop handle; then the pair headed over to order Potter’s men to cease firing.
“When Devereux came around with a white flag, I said, ‘Oh brother, we’ve had it now,’” explained Private First Class Gatewood, a member of Potter’s skirmish line. “Devereux came and said, ‘Men, it’s over with. We haven’t got anything else to work with. Strip your rifles and throw them into the bushes. Stand by and wait for the Japanese to come around.’ I think we were too scared to cry. I figured it wouldn’t be too long before we were killed, because the rumors were that the Japanese did not take prisoners.”4
Private Laporte tossed his rifle bolt away and waited. Soon, a group of Japanese slowly approached from the road, forced the Americans to remove their clothes, took rings or other valuables, then tied their hands behind their backs, and ran a cord around their necks. “The Japanese soldiers were small,” said Laporte, “but it don’t matter what size you are as long as you got a rifle. We hated this. Can you imagine! Our creed was supposed to be you don’t surrender. It was hard to take.”5
Devereux and Malleck started for the hospital a short distance away, but before they took many steps, a Japanese soldier motioned for them to empty their pockets and drop their helmets and pistol belts. The soldier led the officers toward Japanese lines, where another Japanese emerged from hiding. From somewhere, a rifle shot rent the air, and the second man dropped dead. Devereux immediately whirled toward the nearest group of Americans and shouted, “The order has been given to cease firing, and damn it, you�
�ll obey that order!”6 Devereux hoped to prevent a mass slaughter right there on the road with his quick action.
The first Japanese soldier rolled the body of his dead comrade over, then escorted Devereux and Malleck toward the hospital as if nothing had happened. At the hospital, a Japanese officer handed Devereux a cigarette and explained that he had visited San Francisco in 1939. As they chatted, Commander Cunningham drove up in his truck, stepped out, and walked over. The Japanese officer, a bit confused at seeing two top American officers, asked, “Who Number One?”7 Devereux pointed to Cunningham.
The Japanese searched Cunningham for jewelry or weapons, then placed him in the back of the truck and asked him to point out the location of land mines. Other than the mines set at the airfield, however, none existed, but the Japanese drove Cunningham away anyway.
A pair of odd circumstances occurred on Cunningham’s forced tour. He watched while some Japanese soldiers tried to coax a drunken, shoeless civilian into surrendering. When the man refused to yield until he found his shoes, Cunningham expected the enemy to lose patience and bayonet the man. He was surprised that the soldiers allowed the reeling man to find his boots.
When Cunningham drove past the ruined Pan American buildings, mail and other items from the Phillipine Clipper lay scattered about the spot from bomb explosions. Among the refuse fluttered hundreds of pieces of American paper money, enough for any man on the atoll to retire, but Cunningham could do nothing but watch the fortune drift in the wind.
The Japanese used the hospital bunkers to store the first group of American prisoners, which included Gunner Hamas. After being tied with wire and packed into the crowded hospital bunker with many other Marines, some of whom were badly wounded, Gunner Hamas tried to obtain help for the injured men. With the few words of Japanese he learned while stationed in the Far East, Hamas asked an elderly officer if at least Lt. Kahn’s hands could be untied so he could tend to the wounded. The Japanese officer looked around to see if any other officer noticed, loosened the wires around Kahn’s and Hamas’s hands, and gave Hamas some cigarettes. The same officer later permitted Hamas to walk outside and pick up clothing for the men.
Farther from the command post, Lieutenant Lewis’s Battery E, nestled along the lagoon less than ten minutes’ walking distance from Devereux, had already begun destroying their guns. After sabotaging the guns, Lewis rounded up his men, including Joe Goicoechea and other civilians, and marched them toward Devereux’s command post. The emotional moment almost immobilized some of the Marines, who felt sick that they had to be part of a surrender. “Some of the old-timers were damn near bawling and crying that the Marine Corps doesn’t surrender,”8 said Corporal Marvin about the trying march.
Aerial reconnaissance photo of Wake Island, May 1941. Wilkes Island is at the top center, Peale Island is to the top right, and Wake forms the “V.” Notice the surf pounding off the coral reef. (National Archives)
Maj. James P. S. Devereaux, commander of Wake’s Marines. (United States Marine Corps)
Lt. Winfield S. Cunningham, commander of the Wake garrison, in a 1928 photo. (National Archives)
Pan Am Hotel, Peale Island, 1940. (National Archives)
Pfc. Max Dana (left) during prewar training in San Diego. (From the personal collection of Max J. Dana)
Close friends Pfc. Max Dana and Pfc. Clifton Sanders pose in the typical World War 1 style uniforms the Marines wore on Wake. (From the personal collection of Max J. Dana)
Cpl. Kenneth Marvin in California shortly before shipping out to Wake. (From the personal collection of Kenneth L. Marvin)
Cpl. John Johnson. On December 23, 1941, his twentieth birthday, Johnson almost single-handedly wiped out a contingent of Japanese huddling under a truck on Wilkes Island. (From the personal collection of John S. Johnson)
J. O. Young and Pearl Ann on their wedding day in 1945. (From the personal collection of J. O. Young)
A 3-inch gun, similar to the one manned by Hanna and Holewinski on December 23. The protruding legs and gun platform offered little protection for the Marines and their civilian volunteers. (From the personal collection of Ralph J. Holewinski)
The Japanese light cruiser Yubari, which participated in both the December 11 and December 23 attacks. (National Archives)
This December 1941 newspaper cartoon made good propaganda but it was anything but what the Wake Island Marines wanted—for Santa to “Send more Japs.” (National Archives)
Marines board Tangier in Pearl Harbor on December 15, 1941, hoping to come to the relief of their comrades slugging it out with the Japanese on Wake. (National Archives)
Robert Preston (standing) and William Bendix hunker down in a camouflaged machine gun nest for the Paramount picture Wake Island, released in 1942 and garnering four Oscar nominations. (Photofest)
Capt. Henry Elrod was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his exploits, first in the air with VMF-211, then on the ground near Hanna’s gun. (United States Marine Corps)
The airstrip on Wake resembles a junkyard, the wrecked Grumman F4F-3 fighters now only good for spare parts. (National Archives)
Following their capture of the atoll, Japanese military personnel examine one of the protected revetments used to house Wake’s dwindling air force. (National Archives)
Japanese soldiers raise their flag following the December 23 battle. (National Archives)
A December 1941 newspaper cartoon showing holes in Japan’s Rising Sun flag blatantly indicates that the Imperial Japanese juggernaut hit at least two major snags on its way to domination in the Pacific. (National Archives)
Captured Morrison-Knudsen workers being led away following the climactic December 23 battle. (National Archives)
A painting by Japanese artist Matsuzaka Yasu shows the defeated Wake Americans being rounded up and put in trucks by their captors. (National Archives)
Rear Admiral Sakaibara was the Japanese commander on Wake. He was hanged in June 1947 for the execution of ninety-eight American civilians. (National Archives)
The Nitta Maru, the ocean liner that took most of the Wake military and civilian personnel from Wake to POW camps in China and Japan. (National Archives)
Commander Cunningham (seated right), Dan Teters (seated left), and a collection of captured Americans pose for a 1942 propaganda photo aboard the Nitta Maru when the ship arrives in Yokohama. (Freedom magazine, from the personal collection of James A. Allen)
Morrison-Knudsen worker Allan A. O’Guinn on the deck of a ship taking him back to the U.S. His emaciated state is typical of the Wake POWs, who spent three and a half years in prison camps, upon liberation. (From the Victor Lane/James A. Allen Collection)
A 1943 sketch on POW camp tissue paper by Pfc. Max Dana gives a rough idea of the typical living quarters in the prison camps. (From the personal collection of Max J. Dana)
A group of American POWs, including Major Devereaux (seated at far right), Lieutenant Hanna (standing, second from right), and Navy surgeon Lieutenant Kahn (standing, far left), gather around a radio provided by the Japanese. (Freedom magazine, from the personal collection of James A. Allen)
Joseph Astarita captured the essence of the most detested, sadistic Japanese guard—Isamu Ishihara—during Astarita’s captivity in China. Known as the “Beast of the East,” Ishihara frequently beat American POWs with his riding crop. “Mount Fuji” stands in the background. (Reprinted by permission of Joseph J. Astarita, from Sketches of POW Life, 1947)
American bomber crews frequently bombed Wake after it fell into Japanese hands. This photo, from June 24, 1945, shows plumes of smoke from exploding bombs. (National Archives)
American POWs celebrate the end of the war in the Omori Prison Camp near Tokyo. (From the personal collection of Joseph Goicoechea)
Col. Walter Bayler, the last man to leave Wake before its fall in 1941, is the first to return to Wake in 1945 as part of the party sent in to accept the Japanese surrender. Directly below him, wearing glasses, is Sgt. Ernie Harwell, covering
the surrender for Leatherneck magazine. Harwell later became the longtime radio voice of the Detroit Tigers and is a member of baseball’s Hall of Fame. (From the personal collection of Ernie Harwell)
Admiral Sakaibara (left) signs over Wake Island to the Americans. Colonel Bayler, holding a pipe, looks on. (National Archives)
Japanese and American soldiers salute the Stars and Stripes as it is raised on Wake Island, September 4, 1945. (National Archives)
Major Devereaux with his son, Paddy, being greeted back home after his return from prison camp in 1945. (National Archives)
Commander Cunningham sits with his wife, Louise, during a meeting with reporters after returning home. (National Archives)
Lt. Robert Hanna enjoying coffee and a doughnut after liberation from prison camp, 1945. (From the personal collection of Col. Robert M. Hanna)
Col. Robert Hanna at home in Florida, 2002. (From the author’s collection)
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