Chapter 6
Chapter 5, Part 1 of A Magnificent Fight, Marines in the Battle for Wake Island by Robert J. Cressman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. This is as far as we go. Shortly after midnight, First Lieutenant Barninger noted flashing lights way off the windy side of the island. Alerted to the odd display on the horizon in the darkness, Barninger telephoned Major Devereaux, who replied that he also had seen it. Devereaux directed Barninger
to keep a watch out and cautioned the Peacock Point strongpoint commander to be mindful that the lee shore posed the most possibilities for danger. Lookouts continued to note irregular flashes of light in the black, gusty, rainy predawn of 23 December 1941. It may have been the Tenryu, the Tatsuta, and the Yubari firing blindly at what their spotters thought was Wake Island but which was, instead, only empty ocean. At 0145, however, a report came into the
detachment commander's command post telling of an enemy landing in progress at Toki Point, at the tip of Peel. Devereaux alerted the battalion. Kessler, in the meantime, dispatched a patrol up the lagoon beach toward the Pan Am facility which met a patrol from Battery D. Neither had anything to report. On Wilkes, Captain Platt directed Battery L to move the men of the two 5-inch gun sections, equivalent to two rifle squads, to the shore of the lagoon, west of the
area of the new channel being dredged across the island. The rest of the men of the battery, fire controlmen and headquarters men under McAllister, who had established his command post near the searchlight section of the battery, moved into positions they had readied along the south shore of Wilkes between McInstry's Battery F and the new channel. Kessler, whom Devereaux had requested to confirm or deny the accuracy of the information regarding the landing,
reported that there was no landing in progress but that he had seen the lights offshore. Cunningham, at 0145, radioed the Commandant, 14th Naval District, reporting, gunfire between ships to northeast of island. Wake thus alerted 2nd Lt. Arthur A. Poindexter, at Camp 1 with the Mobile Reserve, predominantly supply and administration marines and 15 sailors under Boesens mate 1st Class James E. Barnes, believed Peale to be threatened. He exercised
initiative and entrucked eight marines with four .30 caliber machine guns. Reporting his intention to the detachment commander, Poindexter and that portion of his Mobile Reserve sped past the airfield toward Peale. It was nearing Devereaux's command post when he ordered it intercepted. The Major retained Poindexter's little force where it was, pending clarification of the situation. The bad weather that prevented the marines from
seeing their foes likewise hindered the Japanese. Shortly before 0200, special naval landing force troops clamored down into the medium landing craft designated to land on Wilkes and Wake. Four landing craft were launched some 3,000 to 4,000 meters offshore, but in the squalls and long swells they experienced difficulty keeping up with patrol boat number 32 and patrol boat number 33 as they churned on a northeasterly course, headed for the beach. The landing craft designated to
follow number 32 lost sight of her in the murky, gusty darkness. At about 0230, marines on Peacock Point detected the two patrol boats, which appeared to them only as dark shapes as they made for the reef by the airstrip. Then the two ships ground gently ashore on the coral. The Japanese naval infantrymen slipped over the side into the surf, struggled ashore, and sprinted across the coral for cover. On Wilkes, Gunner McKinstry called to Captain Platten and informed him that he thought
he heard the sound of engines over the boom of the surf, and at 0235 one of his 50 caliber guns, Gun Number 10, opened fire in the darkness. Ten minutes later, McKinstry, having sought permission to use illumination, caused a searchlight to be turned on. Although the light was shut off as suddenly as it had been turned on, its momentary beam revealed a landing boat aground on Wilkes' rocky shore and, beyond that, two destroyers beached on wake. McAllister ordered Platoon
Sergeant Henry A. Bedell to detail two men to hurl grenades into the enemy craft. The veteran non-commissioned officer, accompanied only by Private First Class William F. Bueller, gamely tackled the task, but Japanese gunfire killed Bedell and wounded Bueller before either had been able to work their way close enough to lob grenades into the boats. McKinstry's men, meanwhile, manned the three inches of Battery F, but the guns could not be
depressed enough to fire onto the beach. The Marines held their position until the men from the Takano unit of the Special Naval Landing Force approached closely enough to begin lobbing grenades. Marines and Japanese grappled in the darkness, hand to hand, before McKinstry's men, after removing the firing locks from the guns, pulled back to take up infantry positions. Their concentrated fires kept most of the Japanese at bay near the three-inch gun position.
Other Special Naval Landing Force troops, however, probed westward toward the five-inch guns that had so humbled Kajioka's force on the 11th. They ran into heavy fire from Gun Number 9, a well-camouflaged .50 caliber Browning, handled skillfully by 20-year-old Private First Class Samford K. Ray and situated some 75 yards west of where the Takano unit had first swarmed ashore. Ray's fire prevented the enemy from advancing closer than 40 or 50 yards from his
sandbag position, and his proximity to the beach allowed him not only to harass the enemy but also to report enemy movements. Although Japanese troops had severed most wire communication lines, Platt remained in touch with developments at the shoreline by reports from Ray. Reports from observers along the beach soon began to deluge Devereaux's command post, where he and his executive officer, Major Potter, attempted to keep abreast of events.
Gunner Hammes relayed the information to Cunningham at his command post. On the basis of those reports, the island commander, at 0250, radioed the commandant of the 14th Naval District, island under gunfire, enemy apparently landing. At that point, Devereaux directed Poindexter to move the mobile reserve into the area between Camp 1 and the west end of the airfield. Since the eight marines had remained in the truck with the
four machine guns, only 15 minutes elapsed before they set up both gun sections in a position commanding the road that ran along the south shore and also covering a critical section of beach. Within moments, Poindexter's brownings chattered and spat into the dim shape of the grounded patrol boat number 32, most of the bullets striking the after part of the ship. Special Naval Landing Force troops who disclosed their positions by igniting flares soon came under
fire. At Camp 1, just up the coast, men from Battery I and the sailors who had been serving as lookouts manned the four .30 caliber machine guns set up there. From Poindexter's vantage point, the enemy troops appeared confused and disoriented, shouting and discharging a number of flares, perhaps for control and coordination. Having received a report of Japanese destroyer standing toward Wake South Shore and well inside the range of the five-inch batteries that had so vexed the
enemy on 11 December, Second Lieutenant Robert M. Hanna, who commanded the machine guns in place at the airstrip, clearly perceived the threat. Accompanied by Corporal Ralph J. Holowinski and three civilians, Paul Gay, Eric LaTola, and Bob Bryan, Hanna set off at a dead run for the three-inch gun that had been emplaced on the landward side of the beach road, on a slight rise between the beach road and the oiled tie-down area at the airstrip. Up to that point, Major Putnam's grounded
airmen, their ground support unit, and the volunteer civilians had been awaiting further orders. As Hanna and his scratched three-inch crew sprinted to the then-unmanned gun, Devereaux ordered Putnam to support the lieutenant. Putnam assigned Second Lieutenant Clewer to a post on the west end of the airfield, along with Staff Sergeant John F. Blandy, Sergeant Robert E. Borquin Jr., and Corporal Carol E. Trego. They were to set off the mines
on the field if the enemy attempted to use it. Two .50 caliber guns situated just north of the airstrip covered Clewer's position. At the eastern end of the strip lay the guns manned by Corporal Winford J. McAnally, along with six marines and three civilians and supported by a small group of riflemen. The gunners enjoyed a perfect, unobstructed field of fire, the airstrip itself. About 0.300, just at a time when events began to develop with startling rapidity as the
Japanese pushed ashore on Wilkes and Wake, Major Devereaux lost touch with Camp One, Putnam's platoon, Hanna's command post near the airstrip, and Beringer's Battery A. Advancing Japanese troops probably had found the communication lines. The exigencies of war had prevented them from being buried and cut them. Devereaux's last situation reports from those units painted a bleak picture. If Cunningham received less than encouraging reports from the Defense Battalion
commander, he received equally grim news from Syncpac when, at 0319 Wake time, Pearl Harbor radioed to Wake that the Triton and Tambor were returning to Hawaiian waters. No friendly vessels should be in your vicinity today, the message stated. Keep me informed. Hanna and his men, meanwhile, reached the three-inch gun and set to work. Anxious hands fumbled in the darkness for ammunition while Hanna, since the gun lacked
sights, peered down the board to draw a bead on the beached and stationary patrol boat number 33 that lay less than 500 yards away. The first round tore into the ship's bridge, seriously wounding both the captain and the navigator, killing two seamen and wounding five. Hanna's gun hurled 14 more rounds on target. Some of his projectiles evidently touched off a magazine and the beached warship began to burn. The illumination provided by the burning ship revealed her sister ship,
which Hanna and his hard-working gunners bombarded as well. A short time later, three special naval landing force sailors attacked Hanna's exposed position. In the ensuing fight, Hanna coolly shot and killed all three enemy sailors with his pistol and resumed the operation of his three-incher. Reinforcing Hanna's canoneers became the next order of business. Devereaux felt compelled to keep Peel's battery B intact to deal with surface threats and battery E,
which by that point had a full complement of guns and crews along with the only heightfinder and director to deal with enemy planes. That left Godbold's battery D, which by that point possessed only two operational guns and no fire control gear. Devereaux directed Godbold to send one section, nine men, to the battalion command post to reinforce Hanna's crew. Under Corporal Leon A. Graves, the squad clamored on board a contractor's truck and reached the command post about 0315.
They were to proceed along the road that paralleled the shoreline to a junction some 600 yards south of the airfield, where they were to leave the truck and proceed through the brush to Hanna's position. Quickly, they set out into the night. The flames from the wrecked patrol boat number 33 disclosed Japanese troops advancing past the west end of the airstrip into the thick undergrowth in front of the mobile reserve's positions. Poindexter, after ordering one
machine gun section to keep up a fire into the brush to interdict that movement and protect his own flank, heard machine guns from Camp One behind him. Wanting to see for himself if more Japanese landing craft were coming ashore to his rear, the lieutenant, accompanied by his runner, left the front in charge of Sergeant Q.T. Wade and hurried back to the camp. There, unable to see at what his neophyte sailor gunners were expending their ammunition,
Poindexter asked each to point out his target. Two could not. They opened fire only because the other two had done so, but a third pointed to the dim outline of what appeared to be a large landing barge on the order of a self-propelled artillery lighter. When another craft of the same type seemed to materialize out of the murk, Poindexter ordered firing resumed at what proved to be two large landing craft that were attempting to ground themselves 1200 yards east of the entrance to
Wilkes Channel. The enemy coxswains, however, appeared to be having difficulty coaxing the unwieldy landing craft onto the beach, backing off and trying again and again to land the special naval landing force men crouched behind the gunnels, which seemed to be deflecting the .30 caliber bullets peppering them. Seizing the moment, Poindexter called for volunteers to pick their way down the rocky beach to the water's edge, there to lob grenades into the boats.
Poindexter organized two teams, Mess Sergeant Gerald Carr and a civilian, Raymond R. Cap Rutledge, who had served in the army in France in World War I. In one, Poindexter and Boesens mate first-class Barnes in the other. The grenadiers dashed to the water's edge while the machine guns momentarily held their fire. Barnes, taking cover behind coral heads, remained hidden until the barges ground ashore again. Then, exposing himself to enemy fire, he hurled several grenades
toward the Japanese craft and managed to land at least one inside, killing or wounding many of the troops on board. The valiant efforts of Poindexter and his men, however, stopped the Japanese just momentarily, for soon they began swarming ashore and moving inland. Shortly before the wire communications to Devereux's command post failed, Poindexter reported the result of his foray. Having seen flair streaking skyward in the murk, Captain Godbold on Peel, meanwhile, sent out two
patrols, one to move westward toward the naval air base and the other to go eastward along the lagoon shore. Neither patrol encountered any enemy troops. A half hour later, Godbold established an outpost at the bridge connecting Peel and Wake. End of chapter 5 part 1.
