Cpl. Ralph Holewinski, before he left for Wake. He played a key role in the battle at Hanna’s gun. (From the personal collection of Ralph J. Holewinski)
Ralph Holewinski in Gaylord, Michigan, 2002. (From the author’s collection)
The three Idaho friends and Morrison-Knudsen workers pose for a photo in Hawaii, 1941, before leaving for Wake. From left to right —Murray Kidd, George Rosandick, and Joe Goicoechea. (From the personal collection of George Rosandick)
Murray Kidd and his wife, Lena, in Boise, Idaho, 2002, shortly before he passed away. (From the author’s collection)
Joe Goicoechea (left) and George Rosandick, still best friends after all these years, in Boise, Idaho, 2002. (From the author’s collection)
Joe Goicoechea feared he and the others would be bayoneted, especially when some Japanese soldiers shoved two of the Guamanian workers around and acted as if they were going to slit their throats. Goicoechea told himself that if the Japanese started slaughtering people, he was going to try to take one of the enemy with him. Fortunately, no violence erupted.
“Hell, This Can’t Be Happening”
Devereux next stopped at Hanna’s 3-inch gun, where the numerous signs of brutality attested to the viciousness of the fighting there. Both American and Japanese bodies littered the sand, and those who survived, including Hanna and Holewinski, hobbled around or lay on the ground with injuries. At the moment of surrender, the Japanese had drawn to within ten feet of Lieutenant Hanna, who faced them with only three bullets left in his .45. Before the Japanese closed in farther, Hanna threw his handgun in one direction and the clip another way. “Hell, this can’t be happening,” Hanna thought. “Marines don’t surrender. Then after I got thinking about it, of course Marines did surrender.” None of his men had much ammunition left, which meant that had they continued, they would have resorted to fighting with bayonets, knives, fists, and teeth.
Lieutenant Hanna and Corporal Holewinski, the two who had been at the scene ever since the initial shot had been fired, slowly extricated themselves from underneath the platform, happy about being alive, yet miserable over having to surrender to guarantee it. Holewinski welcomed the end to the fighting, for he could feel the blood pouring down his leg and needed it treated. An unbelievable thirst also gripped him.
“This was the lowest I felt during the battle,” said Lieutenant Hanna. “Up to the surrender, I had no hope of getting away alive from the island. I had already consigned my soul to hell and planned to do what I could until I died.”9
Hanna tried to stand, but his right leg caved in, and he collapsed to the surface. He at first thought his leg had fallen asleep from being confined underneath the gun platform, but then he realized that he had been hit in the right leg. He had no idea that he had been wounded there; he had concentrated on the battle so intensely during all those hours of fighting that he felt no pain from his right leg until the combat ended. When Holewinski arose, he, too, discovered that a bullet had struck him in the knee, the fourth wound sustained by the young Marine.
Hanna and Holewinski, bloody and bruised, stood on wobbly legs for a moment, two fatigued combatants surveying the gruesome scene around them, surprised that they had survived such a savage contest. Among the fallen rested the bodies of Captain Elrod, the game battler of the air and land, as well as the civilian duo that had so ably helped Hanna and Holewinski on the gun—Robert L. Bryan, an engineering clerk; and Paul J. Gay Jr., the man who served milk shakes at the canteen. The construction workers fought like seasoned veterans instead of the newcomers they were to combat, and in the process helped fashion the legend that became the battle for Wake.
Devereux walked over to the equally grimy Putnam, whose jaw had been partly shot away, thinking that his bloodied aviation officer looked like hell. Instead of complaining about his wounds, Putnam said, “Jimmy, I’m sorry, poor Hank [Elrod] is dead.”10
Devereux next headed for the western edge of the airfield, where Major Putnam had stationed Lieutenant Kliewer with orders to blow up the airfield. Around 10:15, Kliewer saw men carrying a white flag down the beach. Major Devereux and a group of Japanese officers halted about fifty feet away, from where Devereux gave the order to surrender. Kliewer’s men begged him to ignore the command, which they claimed Devereux gave under duress. “Don’t surrender, Lieutenant. The marines [sic] never surrender. It’s a hoax.”11 Kliewer briefly assessed the situation, then put down his weapon and raised his hands.
The final two locations Devereux contacted—Lieutenant Poindexter’s line and Wilkes Island—proved to be the most difficult of his walk, for at those places servicemen and civilians had not only held off the Japanese, but staged successful counterattacks, as well. They assumed the battle had gone in their favor, so when Devereux issued the order to surrender, the men at first did not know how to react.
Lieutenant Poindexter emerged from hiding to greet Devereux, at first expecting to learn the Japanese had been defeated. Within seconds he had to readjust his thinking and prepare his men for the capitulation.
A unit of Japanese soldiers, enraged with Poindexter’s successful counter-thrust, charged out of the brush with fixed bayonets, intent on killing the Americans. At the last moment, a Japanese officer stepped between the Japanese and the Americans, thereby preventing a slaughter. Poindexter and his men, still reeling from the unlikely course of events, headed along the road with Devereux to Camp 1.
Along the way, Poindexter, accompanied by a Japanese lieutenant, searched the brush for wounded Americans. In their hunt the pair came across a dead Japanese officer who had been shot in the face. The Japanese lieutenant gently placed a small flag over the man’s chest and tucked the ends under the belt and shoulder straps, then, with Poindexter’s help, carried the body to the road and placed it on a truck. Poindexter, who had seen a can of pears along the path, went back to retrieve the food. As he opened the can, the Japanese lieutenant sat next to him and offered Poindexter a handful of cigarettes. Poindexter accepted, and in return motioned for the Japanese to share some of the pears. There, along a road which wound through death and devastation, with the sounds of battle barely silenced, opposing officers quietly shared food and cigarettes.
As Devereux neared Camp 1, a Japanese soldier scaled the tower to yank down the Stars and Stripes. The image of their flag being so shabbily treated was more than combat-weary men could handle. A few started toward the tower, hatred burning in their eyes, but Devereux shouted, “Hold it! Keep your heads, all of you!”12 The Marines instantly obeyed and watched tight-lipped as a soldier from a foreign land grabbed the American flag, stuffed it into a camouflage net, and climbed back down with the prize.
A miscalculation almost produced a massacre. G.Sgt. John Cemeris, who had yet to learn of the surrender and still manned his .30-caliber machine gun, shot down an enemy dive-bomber while Devereux and Poindexter led their men through Camp 1. The officers rushed over to where the Marine squatted and ordered him to raise his hands above his head. The tactic worked, for the Japanese herded the Marines together for a march to the airfield without reprisal, while Devereux walked to the old channel for a quick boat ride across to Wilkes. He received the surprise of his life there.
“Who the Hell Gave That Order?”
All things considered, Captain Platt could label the day’s events on Wilkes a success. His men had eliminated enemy resistance on the island, and now they advanced toward the channel, fresh with optimism and eager to see what the white flag ahead meant.
The closer he moved toward the oncoming group, however, the more concerned Corporal Johnson became. He discerned Marines among the throng, but he also noticed a larger number of enemy soldiers. When the distance narrowed even more, the wide smiles that dominated the Japanese faces and the looks of dismay that enveloped the Marines indicated ill news.
“It’s me: Major Devereux,” shouted the commanding officer. “Lay down your arms! Lay down your arms! The island has been surrendered. Lay down your arms! The island ha
s been surrendered!”
Bewildered by the unexpected words, the Wilkes Marines looked at each other as if uncertain of what they heard. Captain Platt bellowed, “Who the hell gave that order?”13 Major Devereux identified himself, then walked closer to Platt.
“Trudy [a nickname for Platt], tell your men to lay their weapons down. It’s an honorable surrender.”
In his southern drawl and holding back tears, Platt replied, “Major, do you know what you’re asking us to do?”
“Yes, Trudy,” replied Devereux. “Tell your men to lay their weapons down.”14
Platt angrily slammed his .45 to the ground, then shouted to his men to do the same with their weapons. Japanese soldiers rushed to Corporal Johnson and smacked his hands with their bayonets to move him away from his machine gun. Johnson, who so was so thirsty he tried to lick his lips but couldn’t, remembered the two hand grenades he carried in his pockets, but when he pulled them out, the enemy soldiers ran back. Using arm gestures, Johnson indicated to a Japanese officer that he only wanted to throw them into the channel. The officer nodded his approval, then stepped over and took Johnson’s watch and ring.
“You talk about being startled, that [the surrender order] was the last thing in the world I had expected to see,”15 mentioned Corporal Johnson about the strange course of events his birthday had taken. He worried that when his captors came across the dead Japanese piled around the truck back at the battery, largely his doing, they would storm around searching for the perpetrators. If so, Johnson doubted he would live more than a few hours, but surprisingly the Japanese did nothing. Johnson concluded that the enemy spared their lives because the Marines gave first aid to the two Japanese prisoners they had seized during the fighting.
Now that the fighting had ended, Private First Class Buehler noticed how pretty the day had been. Blue skies and gentle white clouds framed a brilliant sun. Buehler studied nature for a few moments and tried to recall when he experienced a more lovely day. He could not. “My most vivid memory of December 23 is that it was such a beautiful day, and I thought, ‘This is a hell of a day to have to die; what a shame to die on such a beautiful day.’”16
As the group with the white flag neared J. O. Young, he discarded the Marine shirt with corporal’s stripes and the rifle he used in the battle. If the Japanese thought he was a civilian, maybe they would spare him, but if they found him with military paraphernalia and weapons, he feared they would execute him on the spot for being a guerrilla soldier.
Young was not the only man altering his appearance for safety purposes. Gunner McKinstry brandished his pocketknife and hurriedly cut off his thick red mustache. The Marine learned that the two Japanese they took prisoner had been alerting their unit about a huge American with a red mustache who had gone around the battlefield shooting Japanese on the ground. McKinstry figured if he wanted to live, he had better remove his telltale growth.
Corporal Richardson, the aspiring novelist, realized the irony of what had transpired. While Cunningham and Devereux had been arranging the surrender across the channel on Wake, he and the other men under Captain Platt fought and killed on Wilkes. Five of his buddies died after the battle had already ended near Devereux’s command post.
As Richardson dropped his rifle in a pile, another Marine asked him what was wrong. For the first time, Richardson noticed that he had been crying. “What a hell of a way for it to end!” he replied. “What the hell does it matter, we’re still alive.” Richardson, who like most men assumed during the battle that he would not survive, hoped that whatever the future held for him, he would face it “with a conscious courage I did not have as I faced death.”17
Civilian and military alike reacted in similar fashion to the surrender. An initial period of disbelief preceded gratitude over being spared. Forrest Read doubted he would ever see family and friends in Boise until Devereux with his white flag, which Read called “the most beautiful sight I ever beheld,” stepped on Wilkes to arrange the surrender. “All I can remember,” said Corporal Johnson, “is when Devereux told us to lay down our weapons, it was like a thousand pounds was lifted off my head. I knew I was going to die, but I didn’t want it to be a senseless death. I was hoping hand-to-hand combat or something like that. I thought well, he’s the major and he’s in charge. I was no longer responsible for the men around me or their lives.”18
Young and his uncle had not been the only relatives fighting on Wilkes. When Devereux and the surrendering party arrived at Platt’s command post, the Japanese freed the two prisoners taken in the fighting around the 3-inch guns. As soon as one of the soldiers was released, he rushed to a dead Japanese on the ground a short distance away and cried, “My brother…my brother…”19
At other pockets around the atoll, Marines prepared for the Japanese to arrive. Lieutenant Kessler at Battery B on Peale Island told his men to consume as much food as they could, since it might be a long time before they ate again. They broke out emergency rations and some candy bars, but under the circumstances, most did not feel like devouring much. Kessler coaxed them into eating until the supply disappeared. After their hasty “meal,” Kessler ordered the men to clean the area so the Japanese would not think they were living in a pigpen.
Due south of Kessler, Lieutenant Barninger destroyed all the weapons of Battery A, then waited at Peacock Point all afternoon for the enemy to arrive and take them prisoner. When no one appeared near dusk, Barninger marched the men to the airfield, where other prisoners from Wake had already been deposited. He thought the chances of yielding without mishap were far greater in the daylight than to remain at Peacock Point and risk surrendering to a nervous enemy after dark.
To civilian Rodney Kephart, the end came as a relief. He had no idea what lay ahead, but he could worry about that later. He had survived the battle, and that was all that counted to him. He wrote that “when the word came in to us that the island had been surrendered, and I wormed my way through the brush to the highway, I felt so relieved and free that I could almost whistle. I felt as though I had walked out from under a load of bricks. It certainly was a relief to be free from the suspense of it all, and to be through dodging hell in small places.”20
“I’m Going to See You Spit Your Fire”
Throughout the afternoon and evening of December 23, Japanese soldiers escorted every American on Wake to the airfield. The first groups came from near Devereux’s command post and from the hospital, followed by the men of Hanna’s gun, Poindexter’s ragtag army, and Platt’s unit from Wilkes. Some men walked to the airfield on their own strength, some hobbled on bare feet scratched by the coral, others leaned against friends or grasped a proffered hand. One group of prisoners, dirty, weary, and demoralized, walked with T.Sgt. Edwin F. Hassig, a muscular ox of a man, when Hassig spotted Major Devereux along the road. Not wanting his commanding officer to see his men in such sorry shape as they trundled by, and hoping to cheer an obviously depressed Devereux, Hassig barked at the exhausted men, “Snap outta this stuff! God damn it, you’re Marines!”21 Almost in unison the men’s heads rose and their backs stiffened as they marched by their commander. Devereux, touched by this display of pride, felt more like an officer than he had in a few hours.
As the Americans streamed toward the airfield from all corners of Wake, they passed by signs indicating their stay at the hands of the Japanese might not be pleasant. A civilian, his throat slashed from ear to ear and his body sliced by repeated bayonet thrusts, lay dead on the side of the road, while the headless corpses of two other civilians served warning that the Japanese expected ready compliance.
At the airfield some of the men, already suffering from the wires looped around their hands and necks, had to kneel for several hours on the coral surface. Lieutenant Hanna, Major Putnam, and Gunner Hamas scratched shallow trenches into the harsh terrain in an attempt to avoid the biting wind they knew would sweep across Wake after dark. Diarrhea and dysentery caused a revolting stench, and Joe Goicoechea stood in the middle of a large group
of men, naked, and afraid, listening to the moans of wounded men. Sunburned backs, heads, and shoulders afflicted more men as the long day wore down.
J. O. Young worried when some Japanese soldiers took out their swords and polished them with a cloth while glaring toward Young’s cluster. He later learned the Japanese were simply wiping salt water off their swords to prevent rust, but the episode caused a few moments of anxiety among the prisoners. Corporal Gross watched a different Japanese soldier, bleeding from a horrible hand wound, hack a stack of wood with his sword. He and other Americans feared that the man would next vent his rage on them. A Japanese guard even boasted to Private First Class Dana that he and the other Marines had less than one hour to live.
With well over one thousand Americans to care for, Japanese treatment depended on when and where the Americans were seized. Some men still wore shoes and undershorts; others lacked both items. Some could move around more than others; some were wire bound while some other men had no restraints.
In the section of the airfield where Major Putnam stood, a Japanese soldier lost control and attacked two of the wounded prisoners with his bayonet. He killed one man, but the second deflected several bayonet thrusts with his unwounded arm and fended off the soldier until a Japanese officer ran over and beat the Japanese with the flat of his sword.
Corporal Holewinski, who because of his wounds could not easily move on his own until the following May, was carried to the airfield, where Lt. Kahn, the naval surgeon, issued a stern warning to one of the men responsible for so many Japanese deaths. “The doctor told me, ‘Remember, you weren’t by the 3-inch guns.’ He repeated it a couple of times. We heard later that a Japanese interpreter had told him they had lost so many men at that gun that they were looking for the Americans who were on it.”22
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