A Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Battle for Wake Island
()
About this ebook
Devereux immediately orders a “Call to Arms.” He quickly assembles his officers, tells them that war has come, that the Japanese have attacked Oahu, and that Wake “could expect the same thing in a very short time.”
Meanwhile, the senior officer on the atoll, Commander Winfred S. Cunningham, Officer in Charge, Naval Activities, Wake, learned of the Japanese surprise attack as he was leaving the mess hall at the contractors’ cantonment (Camp 2) on the northern leg of Wake. He ordered the defense battalion to battle stations, but allowed the civilians to go on with their work, figuring that their duties at sites around the atoll provided good dispersion. He then contacted John B. Cooke, PanAm’s airport manager and requested that he recall the Philippine Clipper. Cooke sent the prearranged code telling John H. Hamilton, the captain of the Martin 130 flying boat, of the outbreak of war...
Read more from Robert J Cressman
The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Magnificent Fight: The Battle for Wake Island Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo One Avoided Danger: NAS Kaneohe Bay and the Japanese Attack of 7 December 1941 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to A Magnificent Fight
Related ebooks
Killing Yamamoto: The American Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPacific Counterblow - The 11th Bombardment Group And The 67th Fighter Squadron In The Battle For Guadalcanal: [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHit & Run: Daring Air Attacks in World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarines in the Marianas: Volume 2 - Tinian and Guam Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCondition Red; Destroyer Action In The South Pacific [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarines on Guadalcanal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHell in the Pacific: The Battle for Iwo Jima Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5USS Princeton Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDesperate Sunset: Japan’s kamikazes against Allied ships, 1944–45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marines In World War II - The Seizure Of Tinian [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSetting the Rising Sun: Halsey's Aviators Strike Japan, Summer 1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War Paint ! A Pictorial History of the 4th Marine Division at War in the Pacific. Volume I - The Marshall Islands (Roi & Namur) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar in the Wilderness: The Chindits in Burma 1943-1944 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Ship, Big War: The Saga of DE343 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZoomies, Subs, and Zeros (Annotated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistory Of The Third Infantry Division In World War II, Vol. I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe High Road To Tokyo Bay — The AAF In The Asiatic-Pacific Theater [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Brave Ship, Brave Men Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Official History of the Royal Air Force 1935-1945 — Vol. II —Fight Avails [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsD-Day General: How Dutch Cota Saved Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUtah Beach: The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-Day, June 6, 1944 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The U-Boat War in the Atlantic, 1944–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Midshipman's War: A Young Man in the Mediterranean Naval War 1941-1943 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Force Mulberry:: The Planning And Installation Of Artificial Harbor Off U.S. Normandy Beaches In World War II [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBloody Tarawa: A Pictorial Record, Expanded Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsU.S.S. Oregon and the Battle of Santiago Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLufthansa to Luftwaffe-Hitlers: Secret Air Force Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarines In World War II - The Campaign On New Britain [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Bugler: Experiences of a Private in the 79th Infantry Division, Europe, World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAirpower Employment Of The Fifth Air Force In The World War II Southwest Pacific Theater Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Wars & Military For You
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wager Disaster: Mayem, Mutiny and Murder in the South Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for A Magnificent Fight
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
A Magnificent Fight - Robert J Cressman
A MAGNIFICENT FIGHT: MARINES IN THE BATTLE FOR WAKE ISLAND
Robert J. Cressman
ENDYMION PRESS
Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2016 by Robert J. Cressman
Published by Endymion Press
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
ISBN: 9781531293000
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Battle for Wake Island
‘Humbled-by Sizeable Casualties’
‘Still No Help’
‘All Hands Have Behaved Splendidly’
‘This Is As Far As We Go’
‘A Difficult Thing To Do’
A MAGNIFICENT FIGHT: MARINES IN THE BATTLE FOR WAKE ISLAND
~
IT IS MONDAY, 8 DECEMBER 1941. On Wake Island, a tiny sprung paper-clip in the Pacific between Hawaii and Guam, Marines of the 1st Defense Battalion are starting another day of the backbreaking war preparations that have gone on for weeks. Out in the triangular lagoon formed by the islets of Peale, Wake, and Wilkes, the huge silver Pan American Airways Philippine Clipper flying boat roars off the water bound for Guam. The trans-Pacific flight will not be completed.
Word of war comes around 0700. Captain Henry S. Wilson, Army Signal Corps, on the island to support the flight ferry of B-17 Flying Fortresses from Hawaii to the Philippines, half runs, half walks toward the tent of Major James P. S. Devereux, commander of the battalion’s Wake Detachment. Captain Wilson reports that Hickam Field in Hawaii has been raided.
Devereux immediately orders a Call to Arms.
He quickly assembles his officers, tells them that war has come, that the Japanese have attacked Oahu, and that Wake could expect the same thing in a very short time.
Meanwhile, the senior officer on the atoll, Commander Winfred S. Cunningham, Officer in Charge, Naval Activities, Wake, learned of the Japanese surprise attack as he was leaving the mess hall at the contractors’ cantonment (Camp 2) on the northern leg of Wake. He ordered the defense battalion to battle stations, but allowed the civilians to go on with their work, figuring that their duties at sites around the atoll provided good dispersion. He then contacted John B. Cooke, PanAm’s airport manager and requested that he recall the Philippine Clipper. Cooke sent the prearranged code telling John H. Hamilton, the captain of the Martin 130 flying boat, of the outbreak of war.
Marines from Camp 1, on the southern leg of Wake, were soon embarked in trucks and moving to their stations on Wake, Wilkes, and Peale islets. Marine Gunner Harold C. Borth and Sergeant James W. Hall climbed to the top of the camp’s water tower and manned the observation post there. In those early days radar was new and not even set up on Wake, so early warning was dependent on keen eyesight. Hearing might have contributed elsewhere, but on the atoll the thunder of nearby surf masked the sound of aircraft engines until they were nearly overhead. Marine Gunner John Hamas, the Wake Detachment’s munitions officer, unpacked Browning automatic rifles, Springfield ’03 rifles, and ammunition for issue to the civilians who had volunteered for combat duty. That task completed, Hamas and a working party picked up 75 cases of hand grenades for delivery around the islets. Soon thereafter, other civilians attached themselves to Marine Fighting Squadron (VMF) 211, which had been on Wake since 4 December.
Offshore, neither Triton (SS 201) nor Tambor (SS 198), submarines that had been patrolling offshore since 25 November, knew of developments on Wake or Oahu. They both had been submerged when word was passed and thus out of radio communication with Pearl Harbor. The transport William Ward Burrows (AP 6), which had left Oahu bound for Wake on 27 November, learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl while she was still 425 miles from her destination. She was rerouted to Johnston Island.
Major Paul A. Putnam, VMF-211’s commanding officer, and Second Lieutenant Henry G. Webb had conducted the dawn aerial patrol and landed by the time the squadron’s radiomen, over at Wake’s airfield, had picked up word of an attack on Pearl Harbor. Putnam immediately sent a runner to tell his executive officer, Captain Henry T. Elrod, to disperse planes and men and keep all aircraft ready for flight.
Meanwhile, work began on dugout plane shelters. Putnam placed VMF-211 on a war footing immediately; two two-plane sections then took off on patrol. Captain Elrod and Second Lieutenant Carl R. Davidson flew north, Second Lieutenant John F. Kinney and Technical Sergeant William J. Hamilton flew to the south-southwest at 13,000 feet. Both sections were to remain in the immediate vicinity of the island.
The Philippine Clipper, meanwhile, had wheeled about upon receipt of word of war and returned to the lagoon it had departed 20 minutes earlier. Cunningham immediately requested Captain Hamilton to carry out a scouting flight. The Clipper was unloaded and refueled with sufficient gasoline in addition to the standard reserve for both the patrol flight and a flight to Midway. Cunningham, an experienced aviator, laid out a plan, giving the flying boat a two-plane escort. Hamilton then telephoned Putnam and concluded the arrangements for the search. Take-off time was 1300.
Shortly after receiving word of hostilities, Battery B’s First Lieutenant Woodrow W. Kessler and his men had loaded a truck with equipment and small arms ammunition and moved out to their 5-inch guns. At 0710, Kessler began distributing gear, and soon thereafter established