America's Forlorn Hope

VMF-211

by Mike Joslyn

On the afternoon of November 27, 1941, twelve experienced pilots of Marine Fighter Squadron 211 readied their planes for a take off from Oahu's Ewa field. Their orders had arrived suddenly and quietly; and all they knew was their interim destination -- the aircraft carrier Enterprise. Wherever they were headed, it was assumed that it wouldn't be a long stay; none of the pilots carried more then a toothbrush and a change of clothes.

At sea, the U.S.S. Wright plowed its way towards Wake, carrying 2d Lieutenant Robert Conderman and forty-nine other Marines. Conderman's Marines were an odd lot thrown together from parts of VMF-211 and scout bomber squadrons 231 and 232. A purely provisional unit, they would care for Wake's detachment of F4Fs on the ground.

It was just another spur of the moment deployment -- the kind that professional Marines got used to in their careers. At Kimmel's headquarters, however, the vital nature of the transfer was being made clear to the commander of the Enterprise. The commander-in-chief Pacific Fleet pointedly instructed Admiral William "Bull" Halsey to do whatever it took to keep the Japanese from spotting the task force. If that meant sinking a Japanese ship, then so be it.

Each morning and evening, the Enterprise launched fully-armed squadron-sized patrols on long hunts to the front and sides of the task force. Coming and going, they passed an inner ring of constantly patrolling aircraft. In the meantime, the pilots of VMF-211 exercised Kimmel's carte blanche in getting whatever they needed for their planes. "I feel like a fatted calf being groomed for whatever happens to fatted calves," wrote the detachment's commander, Major Paul Putnam, "but it surely is nice while it lasts..."

The luxurious treatment ran out on December 4th. The Enterprise turned into the wind 200 miles from Wake, and Putnam's detachment took off for an airfield that was barely ready to accept them. Only one of three airstrips was operational, and since it was only 200 feet wide, only one plane at a time could take off from it. There was no protection for Wake's air contingent, either; not even roofless revetments were available to save them from near hits, and the area around the airfield was so rough, that the planes could not be dispersed. The Wildcats were crammed together on the completely exposed landing apron waiting for one well-placed bomb to knock them all out.

Like the rest of the Marines at Wake, the men of VMF-211 were plagued by technical problems and deficiencies. The Wildcat was brand new to both pilots and maintenance crew, and though most of the flyers had over 800 hours in the air, only thirty of those had been in the F4E While practice might alleviate the pilots' lack of experience, nothing could remedy the total lack of spare parts or technical manuals.

On top of everything else, the ample supply of 100 pound bombs on the island couldn't be used because the Army bombs didn't fit the Navy planes. The detachment armaments officer -- Captain Herbert Freuler -- managed to jury-rig theoretically workable bomb lugs, but nobody knew if they would work in practice. One bad release and a plane would have to risk landing with live bombs dangling from the wings.

The first priority was protecting the planes. Putnam didn't reckon, however, on the sedate pace of civilian construction crews. A few hours after requesting a couple of bulldozers to throw up revetments, he was infuriated to find a junior engineer methodically laying out survey stakes at the site. Putnam stormed off to roundly curse all the foremen he could pin down. He got his bulldozers, and by December 8th work on six revetments was well along.

With the revetments started, the detachment commander was left with a tough decision to make on the ground. He could keep the bulldozers at work on the revetments and his men at work on the planes and foxholes, or he could delay both and carve pathways from the landing aprons to the unfinished revetments. Without these paths, no plane could be moved without risk of damage; and any damage would effectively destroy the plane because there were no spare parts. Knowing that the revetments and foxholes would be ready by around 2 P.M. on December 8th, Putnam gambled on completing them. In the air, he drilled his men in aerial gunnery and navigation, and circled the atoll at a fifty mile radius in dawn and dusk patrols.

Given one more day, or even a few more hours, Putnaas bet would have paid off Unfortunately, 24th Air Flotilla emerged from a squall line at noon and destroyed Wildcats number one through eight, killing three pilots and twenty three of the ground crew in the process. Among the wounded were Putnam and Captain Henry Elrod's Wildcat number 9 -- victim of a collision with bomb debris.

With his maintenance officer dead, Putnam tapped former Pan Am engineer Captain John Kinney to take his place. For the next two weeks, Kinney, along with Technical Sergeant William Hamilton and machinist's mate James Hesson, used everything but bailing wire and string to keep the remnants of VMF-211 in the air.

In one epic effort, Kinney, Hesson and Hamilton sprinted for a burning plane and managed to remove the entire engine before the aircraft exploded. Though the airframe was gone, the engine soldiered on in another of Kinney's collection of flying jigsaw puzzles.

By the morning of the 9th, VMF-211 had eight aircraft revetments available. In addition, the runway was mined at 150 foot intervals with charges of dynamite. In the event of a Japanese airborne landing, the mines would be touched off from a generator on the southwest end of the airfield. The ground around the airfield, already broken, was chewed up further by the bulldozers, and any trucks or earth movers at hand were parked on the airfield between patrols to further discourage a main force landing from the air. Now that Putnam had arranged to keep the Japanese off the airfield, he turned his attention to keeping his planes in the air by having two of the revetments covered with wooden beams and canvas. The blacked-out work area created by this allowed repair of the planes to go forward 24 hours a day.

The next raid was met by Lt. David Kliewer and Sergeant Hamilton at 13,000 feet. After a hot duel with the top turret of a Nell, they managed to spin their target into the Pacific. Henry Elrod shot down two more in the clockwork raid of the 10th. The kills, though limited by VMF-211's small numbers, yielded direct benefits. When the Nells closed up to concentrate gunfire on the fighters, they became ideal targets for the anti-aircraft guns, who, in turn, inflicted the majority of the damage.

The shining moment for VMF-211, however, had to be the day of the first invasion. While Marine gunners pounded the Japanese from shore, Putnam and his three best pilotsFreuler, Elrod and Captain Frank Tharin- swept the compass at 12,000 feet looking for any other sign of the Japanese. Finding none, they caught up with Kajioka's fleet and began to attack.

Elrod and Tharin's attack on the cruisers turned out to be a draw; while they damaged the superstructure of both, Elrod was forced to crash on the south beach because of a cut fuel line. Freuler managed to set the transport Kongo Maru on fire, but once again, the cost was high. Hit in the oil cooler and fuel line, he returned to the field, his plane a write-off. Relieving Putnam and Tharin, Sergeant Hamilton and Lt. Kinney roared off to the most successful attack of the day. As Kinney nosed over and released a bomb on the Kisaragi, the destroyer went up in a huge fireball, reducing both men's planes to flying sieves but hitting nothing vital. Capping the day, VMF-211 shot down another two of the Nells in the noon raid.

VMF-211's technical problems were aggravated by the bombing. At this point, the most serious crimp in continuing operations was the dwindling supply of oxygen for the cockpits. The ever ingenious Freuler devised a way to siphon oxygen from welder's canisters into the aircraft, but he risked a spectacular explosion each time he did it. Technical difficulties, however, were not the exclusive province of the Marines.

Finding an object the size of Wake in several thousand square miles of ocean is no mean feat. The Marines marveled, not just at the Nells' consistency getting to the atoll, but their arrival on such an unwavering schedule. Obviously they were getting no help from Wake, but Marine radio men would occasionally pick up strange, indecipherable signals.

On December 12, Captain David Kliewer was delayed in joining the evening patrol because of troubles with his starter. As he raced southwest to catch up with the rest of the patrol, a dark mass on the surface of the ocean caught his attentiona surfaced Japanese submarine. Diving 10,000 feet, he bracketed the sub with two 100 pound bombs. Kliewer pulled out with his wings torn up from his own bombs, but the submarine submerged beneath a large oil slick. December 13th passed without an air raid.

On the 15th, Major Putnam spotted another submarine southwest of the atoll. Confused by the orange markings, Putnam misidentified it as a Dutch submarine from the East Indies, and held his attack. The submarine slipped underwater unmolested. Once again, however, the Japanese bombers left Wake alone. As far as the Marines were concerned, this was confirmation that the Nells were homing in on radio beams from the subs.

Between the 17th of December and the 21st, the number of planes Kinney and his assistants managed to breathe life into varied between two and four, but by the 21st -- the day of the first Japanese carrier raid -- the number had sunk permanently to two. Lack of warning prevented VMF211 from opposing the raid of the 21st, but the next day, both Freuter and Davidson were back in the air over Wake. Davidson was the first to see the thirty-three Val dive bombers and half-dozen Zeroes approaching from the north.

Freuler, however, was the first to engage. He dove on the fighters, shooting one down immediately while the rest scattered in confusion. Taking advantage of the chaos, Freuler pressed home the attack on a second Zero which promptly exploded, showering him with hot metal and puncturing his engine and controls with steel slivers. Freuler caught sight of Davidson chasing a bomber, and being chased in turn by a Zero, and then Freuler himself was caught from behind, bullets striking him in the back and shoulder. Pointing his nose straight at the water, Freuler prayed that his pursuer would break off before his Wildcat's wings did, a hope which was borne out, and made it back to Wake to crash on the field. Davidson was never seen again. With the destruction of Freuler's Wildcat and the loss of Davidson, VMF-211 had made its last stand in the air, but it was not out of the battle.

In addition to Putnam's struggle south of the airfield in which Henry Elrod earned a posthumous Medal of Honor, there was Lt. Kliewer's ordeal at the minefield generator. Aided by two Marines and a civilian, Kliewer managed to fend off multiple attacks by a Japanese platoon. The lieutenant was urged throughout the night to set off the mines, but he refused, arguing that the planes of the relief force would need some place to land. At dawn, with Japanese flags everywhere in sight, Miewer relented and pushed the trigger button. Nothing happened. Soaked by heavy rains, the detonator refused to operate, and Kliewer was still dividing his efforts between fighting for his life and trying to fix it when the word to surrender came.

Of the twelve pilots who left Hawaii with a change of clothes and a toothbrush, seven lived to make do with considerably less in Japanese prison camps. As a unit, VMF-211 had fought to the last plane, and then gave an excellent account of itself in the role of infantry. In this, it was symbolic of the defense as a whole, performing in magnitudes beyond even unreasonable expectations.

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

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