Four discrete phases marked the defensive battle for Wake. The battle was begun around noon on December 8 as a flight of 36 bombers from the mandates struck at Wake. Three days later an amphibious assault was attempted but was driven off.
The Japanese revised their estimate of Wake, deciding to soften her up for 11 days by air bombardment. The final attack, delivered by a greatly enhanced naval force, during the early morning hours of December 23rd, was anti-climactic.
The last message sent by Commander Cunningham, the overall island commander, was "The enemy is ashore. Issue in doubt." Given enough time to beat down the island's few defenders, that last message was obviously in error.
Let us briefly survey each phase of the battle and give special emphasis to the final hours when U.S. Marines met the Japanese SNLF in hand to hand battle.
Bombardment
The aerial bombardment on December 8th was to put the defense into a hole from which it could not be expected to emerge successfully. The 36 bombers which approached from the south completely missed the CAP of 4 Wildcats patrolling a quadrant of airspace to the north. The bombardment blasted the 8 Wildcats parked in the open near the runway. Seven were total write-offs while the eighth was seriously damaged. Repair facilities, aviation fuel, and almost half of VMF-211 personnel were destroyed or badly hurt. Civilian structures, the Pan Am clipper, the runway, and military facilities were all pounded. The plane loss was critical though and like in the Philippines, completely avoidable. Proper protection was never provided until too late. Then again, the radar sets which were never delivered from Pearl Harbor might have avoided the problem with an early warning. Twelve fighters tearing into unescorted bombers would have been at best "interesting" for the Japanese. As it was, the bombers escaped basically untouched. The 21 enemy planes destroyed later on by the four remaining defenders should make us wonder what a yield might have been harvested by a larger air garrison.
The main defensive weapons for the defense battalion were not manned. Although the Japanese planes would continue to return, a combination of camouflage of the 5" guns and the movement of the defensive sites of the AA weapons preserved them for the initial amphibious assault.
This assault followed rather quickly during the early morning light of December 11, 1941. It was at this point that the Japanese naval forces described above began to close with the defenders. Only one 5" battery had a range finder. No matter. At a distance of about 4500 yards the batteries on Wake opened up. Three hits in rapid succession forced the Yubari to withdraw under a smokescreen laid down by the destroyers in her flotilla.
Meanwhile, the battery on Wilkes Island, aiming down the bore, hit and sunk the destroyer Hayate. Other hits followed on one of the supporting cruisers, two destroyers and a destroyer transport. The final blow to the Japanese efforts came when a Wildcat piloted by Capt. Henry T. Elrod hit and sunk the retreating Japanese destroyer, Kisaragi, when one of his aerial bombs exploded among her depth charges.
As the Japanese drew off, Admiral Pye who temporarily took command from Admiral Kimmel, ordered forces out from Pearl to reinforce Wake. Scheduled to arrive were about two hundred Marines and another air squadron. We will not examine why they ultimately did not press forward, but history records that this might have been a very wise decision after all.
For coming to reinforce and bolster the flagging Japanese naval forces were four 8" gun cruisers, replacement destroyers, and most importantly indirect support of the effort, carrier Hiryu. Three more carriers at least were available for adding punch if this effort failed. Compared to the small Task Force under Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher (Saratoga, two cruisers, two destroyers) this might be more than enough to deal American naval forces a second beating on the heals of Pearl Harbor.
For eleven days, Wake was subjected to varying amounts of aerial bombardment. Besides the more apparent damage done to ground facilities like barracks and the Pan American hotel, the gradual attrition of the planes of VMF-211, and casualties among the garrison, a possibly more serious problem arose. The communication lines which connected the three islands defensive positions together were gradually blasted apart. The small radio net would prove inadequate to provide the command and control necessary to deny the attacking Japanese a foothold.
The Japanese had learned from their earlier mistakes. Their second effort would come at night. A fresh SNLF contingent of some 1000 men were to be committed at night to a landing on the southern coast of Wake and Wilkes. Most of the troops were to be transported in two of the converted destroyers which were to run up to the shore and beach themselves. Other troops would utilize barges.
Rear Admiral Sadamichi Kajioki would not be denied a second time. Should this effort falter, 450 blue jackets from the naval crews had already been designated to reinforce the SNLF. The odds must have looked very good, indeed, to Japanese planners.
As the boats began their final approach, in the deep dark of 0200 hours, Japanese efforts did not all go smoothly. Only some 90 to 100 SNLF troops landed on Wilkes where they had some initial success in grabbing a 3" gun position. After some initial confusion the island's 70 or so defenders effectively counterattacked, killing all but two men who were taken prisoner.
It was to be on Wake, though, that the telling numbers of Japanese attackers successfully drove into the defending American "line". That word is in "quotes" because the American position could be seen as several pockets of resistance, isolated from each other, seldom within command of either Cunningham or Devereaux formed from gunners, cooks, clerks, planeless aircrew, and civilian volunteers.
At the site of Camp 1, Lt. Arthur Poindexter assembled the 34 men of the mobile reserve, sent there somewhat earlier in the evening. After exchanging desultory fire with the machine gun platoon and 160 or so infantry landing on the extreme flank, he rounded up about 20 more enlisted men who had hung around the area near Camp 1. Despite taking some casualties, he pushed eastwards and was in relatively good order by the time the surrender was announced later that morning.
The critical point from the perspective of the island's defense occurred on the right flank where Major Putnam, commander of VMF-211, formed up some 20 of his airmen along with several civilian volunteers, who took up a position on the right flank of the Japanese landing areas. They supported Gunner Hama's attempt to bring direct fire on the Japanese with a 3" gun.
By morning their line was bent like a horseshoe around the gun position which during the night had pumped a number of rounds into one of the Japanese destroyer transports.
Meanwhile, Devereaux ordered his Executive Officer, Major George Potter to form a defense line about 100 yards south of the CP with the last 30 clerks and communications men available. They too began to take serious fire from the Japanese.
Perhaps the defense of Wake was no more ferocious than by Putnam's position. Several times hand to hand fighting erupted. Men hurled rocks when bullets ran out. The formidable Captain Elrod singlehandedly stopped an infantry charge with his tommy gun only to be shot down later. By 0600 Putnam's line was almost at the base of the 3" gun. So close were the Japanese that Hamas himself killed three Japanese with his .45 pistol.
With dawn's arrival, the last reserves were committed by Devereaux as he moved the gunners from battery D, some nine men, forward to hold the line by the CR It would not be enough. Faced with no hope of reinforcement, confirmed by Admiral Pye during the early morning, out of communication with Wilkes, and believing it had fallen, Cunningham ordered all hostilities ended.
Wake Island An Epic Battle Its Defenders Couldn't Win
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© Copyright 1996 by Mike Vogell and Phoenix Military Simulations.
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