America's Forlorn Hope

Surrender and Bibliography

by Mike Joslyn

Ironically, the situation on Wake island was turning in the Marine's favor when Cunningham and Devereaux surrendered. After fishing another twenty men -- an assortment of truck drivers, searchlight crewmen, and riflemen- out of a bomb shelter at Camp 1, Poindexter went onto the offensive. With a mere 65 men, he was rolling the Japanese back from the Camp, and calculated that, by sundown, he would reach the eastern shore of Wake island. As it turned out, he would be crouched on the airfield with hundreds of other Marines staring up the length of a Japanese bayonet.

"The Navy of the Great Japanese Empire will not try to punish you all with death."

    --Sec. 6, I.J.N. Prisoner Regulations, (English translation given to prisoners on Wake), January 12, 1942

Wake's enlisted men and civilians spent the next two days, without food or water, crowded together on the airstrip. The officers, who would receive slightly better treatment throughout their incarceration, got one of the last huts standing on Wake, but again, no food. A protest by commander Cunningham finally got better treatment for everyone, but not for long. After two weeks clearing the rubble and the dead, the Marines were loaded on the Nitta Maru (where they received the prisoner regulations quoted above) and headed for their first place of captivity: Shanghai, China.

The treatment the Marines got on board the Nitta Maru made the prisoner regimen on Wake look like paradise in comparison. Jammed into the holds of the ship and beaten at the slightest provocation, the Marines were forced to watch as five of them were chosen at random and beheaded: simply as revenge for the resistance shown at Wake. They were not the last dealt with in that way. A hundred civilians left behind to operate heavy equipment were machine gunned to death in 1943 -- again as revenge, this time for American air raids on Wake. (The garrison commander and eleven of his subordinates were hanged for this offense in 1945.)

Despite the inadequate food, the disease, the freezing cold, and the frequent beatings imposed by their captors, all but a handful of the Marines taken prisoner came back from the camps.

In the last of many ironies, while the Marines starved in China, the Japanese starved on Wake. The last supply ship reached the Japanese on New Year's Day, 1944. After that, only a trickle of supplies reached the atoll from the occasional submarine, and the garrison was reduced to eating leaves and grass. At the same time, they endured seemingly endless American bombardments from carriers and B-24s, and by the summer of 1945, the islands were bombed or shelled almost daily. Between the surrender of the atoll in 1941 and the final surrender in 1945, close to 2,000 Japanese lost their lives at Wake, and of these, 70% had simply starved to death.

To utter cliche about bravery in connection with the battle for Wake is a disservice to the fighting men of both sides. Without a doubt, they were far braver and more resourceful then anyone had any right to expect, considering the kind of support they received. If anything, Wake displays the effect of that peculiar kind of ignorance known as "the fog of war," and demonstrates that it shrouds, not just the enemy's plans, but also the intentions of one's own higher headquarters.

OFFICIAL HISTORIES

Crowl, Philip A. & Love, Edmund G. SEIZURE OF THE GILBERTS AND MARSHALLS. History Of The United States Army In World War II, The War In The Pacific, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center For Military History, 1985 [19561.
Heinl, R. D. Jr. THE DEFENSE OF WAKE. Washington D.C.: Historical Section, United States Marine Corps: 1947.
Hough, Frank 0.; Ludwig, Verle E.; and Shaw, Henry I., Jr., USMC Historical Section. PEARL HARBOR TO GUADALCANAL. History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations In World War II, vol. 1. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1958.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. THE RISING SUN IN THE PACIFIC, 1931 - April 1942. History of United States Naval Operations In World War II, vol. 3. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1963.
Morton, Louis. STRATEGY AND COMMAND: THE FIRST TWO YEARS. The United States Army In World War II The War In The Pacific. Washington, D.C.: Office Of The Chief Of Military History, Department Of The Army, 1962.
Stetson, Conn; Engleman, Rose C.; and Fairchild Byron. GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS. The United States Army In World War II, The War In The Pacific. Washington, D.C.: Office Of The Chief Of Military History, Department Of The Army, 1964.
Updegraph, Charles L. U.S. MARINE CORPS SPECIAL UNITS OF WORLD WAR II. Marine Corps Historical Reference Pamphlet. Washington, D.C.: Historical Section, United States Marine Corps, 1972.

FIRST HAND ACCOUNTS

Bayler, Walter L. J. LAST MAN OFF WAKE ISLAND. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1943.
Cunningham, Winfield Scott. WAKE ISLAND COMMAND. Boston: Little, Brown & Go., 1961.
Devereaux, James P.S. THE STORY OF WAKE ISLAND. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1947.
Fuchida, Mitsuo & Okumiya, Masataki. MIDWAY, THE BATTLE THAT DOOMED JAPAN; THE JAPANESE NAVY'S STORY. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1955.
Halsey, W.F & Bryan J. ADMIRAL HALSEY'S STORY. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947.
Heinl, R. D. Jr. "WE'RE HEADED FOR WAKE." Marine Corps Gazette, June 1946, pp. 35-38.

SECONDARY SOURCES


Cohen, Stan. ENEMY ON ISLAND. ISSUE IN DOUBT. THE CAPTURE OF WAKE ISLAND, DECEMBER 1941. Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing, 1990 [19831.
Dull, Paul S. A BATTLE HISTORY OF THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY (1941 - 1945). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1978.
Hata, Ikuhiko & Izawa, Yasuho (trans by Don Cyril Gorham). JAPANESE NAVAL ACES AND FIGHTER UNITS IN WORLD WAR II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989.
Institute For Tactical Education. "MARINE CORPS AMPHIBIOUS DEFENSE DOCTRINE, pt. 2, THE DEFENSE BATTALIONS, 1941 - 1942", Tactical Notebook, February 1993. Quantico, Virginia: Institute For Tactical Education.
Madej, W. Victor (ed.). JAPANESE ARMED FORCES ORDER OF BATTLE, 1937 - 1945, vol. 2. Allentown, Pennsylvania: GMC Press, 1981.
Okumiya, Masatake & Horikoshi, Jiro. ZERO! New York: Dutton, 1956.
Prange, Gordon W. AT DAWN WE SLEPT: THE UNTOLD STORY OF PEARL HARBOR. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
Rowher, J. & Hummelchen G. CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR AT SEA 1939 - 1945, vol. 1. New York: Arco Publishing, 1972.
Schultz, Duane P. WAKE ISLAND, THE HEROIC GALLANT FIGHT. New York : St. Martin's Press, 1978.
Stafford, Edward P. THE BIG E; THE STORY OF THE LISS ENTERPRISE. New York: Random House 19621
Tillman, Barret. WILDCAT: THE F4F IN WWII. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991.
Werstein, Irving. WAKE, THE STORY OF A BATTLE. New York: Crowell, 1964.

America's Forlorn Hope US Marines Defend Wake Island: Dec 8-23, 1941

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