_Col William J. Whaling, seen here circa 1945, was an observer to the
Pearl Harbor attack, being awakened from slumber while staying in Col
Gilder Jackson’s quarters on the morning of 7 December._]
Meanwhile, Swartz ordered the field music to sound “Call to Arms.”
Then, running into the officer’s section of the mess hall, Swartz
informed the officer-of-the-day, First Lieutenant Cornelius C. Smith,
Jr., who had been enjoying a cup of coffee with Marine Gunner Floyd
McCorkle when sharp blasts had rocked the building, that the Japanese
were attacking. Like Swartz, they ran out onto the lanai. Standing
there, speechless, they watched the first enemy planes diving on Ford
Island.
Marines began to stumble, eyes wide in disbelief, from the barracks.
Some were lurching, on the run, into pants and shirts; a few wore only
towels. Swartz then ordered one of the platoon sergeants to roust out
the men and get them under cover of the trees outside. Smith, too, then
ran outside to the parade ground. As he looked at the rising smoke and
the Japanese planes, he doubted those who had derided the “Japs” as
“cross-eyed, second-rate pilots who couldn’t hit the broad side of a
barn door.” It was enough to turn his stomach. “They’re kicking the
hell out of Pearl Harbor,” he thought.
Meanwhile, unable to reach Colonel Harry B. Pickett, the 14th Naval
District Marine Officer, as well as Colonel Jackson, and Captain
Samuel R. Shaw, commanding officer of Company A, by telephone, Swartz
sent runners to the officers’ respective quarters. He then ordered a
noncommissioned officer from the quartermaster department to dispense
arms and ammunition.
While Swartz organized the men beneath the trees outside the barracks,
Lieutenant Noyes dressed and then drove across the parade ground to
Building 277, arriving about 0805. At the same time, like Swartz, First
Lieutenant James S. O’Halloran, the 3d Defense Battalion’s duty officer
and commanding officer of Battery F, 3-inch Antiaircraft Group, wanted
to get in touch with his senior officers. After having had “assembly”
sounded and signalling his men to take cover, O’Halloran ordered Marine
Gunner Frederick M. Steinhauser, the assistant battalion communications
officer, to telephone all of the officers who resided outside the
reservation and inform them of the attack.
In Honolulu, mustachioed Major Harold C. Roberts, acting commanding
officer of the 3d Defense Battalion since Lieutenant Colonel Robert
H. Pepper had accompanied Colonel Jackson to sea in _Indianapolis_,
after taking Steinhauser’s call with word of the bombing of Pearl,
jumped into his car along with his neighbor, Major Kenneth W.
Benner, commanding officer of the 3-inch Antiaircraft Group and the
Headquarters and Service Battery of the 3d Defense Battalion. As
Roberts’ car crept through the heavy traffic toward Pearl, the two
officers could see Japanese aircraft flying along the coast. When they
reached the Water Street Fish Market, a large crowd of what seemed to
be “Japanese residents ... cheering the Japanese planes, waving to
them, and trying to obstruct traffic to Pearl Harbor by pushing parked
cars into the street” blocked their way.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, as his acting battalion commander was battling his way
through Honolulu’s congested streets, O’Halloran was organizing his
Marines as they poured out of the barracks into groups to break out
small arms and machine guns from the various battalion storerooms.
After Harry Noyes drove up, O’Halloran told him to do what he could to
get the 3-inch guns, and fire control equipment, if available, broken
out and set up, and then instructed other Marines to “get tractors and
start hauling guns to the parade ground.” Another detail of men hurried
off to recover an antiaircraft director that lay crated and ready for
shipment to Midway.
* * * * *
Marines continued to stream out onto the grounds, having been ordered
out of the barracks with their rifles and cartridge belts; they
doubled the sentry posts and received instructions to stand ready and
armed, to deploy in an emergency. Noyes saw some Marines who had not
been assigned any tasks commencing fire on enemy planes “which were
considerably out of range.” At the main gate of the Navy Yard, the
Marines fired at whatever planes came close enough--sailors from the
high-speed minelayer _Sicard_ (DM-21), en route to their ship, later
attested to seeing one Japanese plane shot down by the guards’ rifle
fire.
Tai Sing Loo, who was to have photographed those guards at the
new gate, had left Honolulu in a hurry when he heard the sound of
explosions and gunfire, and saw the rising columns of smoke. He arrived
at the naval reservation without his Graflex and soon marveled at the
cool bravery of the “young, fighting Marines” who stood their ground,
under fire, blazing away at enemy planes with rifles while keeping
traffic moving.
Finally, the more senior officers quartered outside the reservation
began showing up. When Colonel Pickett arrived, Lieutenant Swartz
returned to the officer-of-the-day’s room and found that Captain Shaw
had reached there also. Securing from his position as officer of the
guard, Swartz returned to his 3-inch gun battery being set up near
Building 277. Ordering Marines out of the building, he managed to
obtain a steel helmet and a pistol each for himself and Lieutenant
O’Halloran. Captain Samuel G. Taxis, commanding officer of the 3d
Defense Battalion’s 5-inch Artillery Group, meanwhile, witnessed
“terrific confusion” ensuing from his men’s efforts to obtain
“ammunition, steel helmets, and other items of equipment.”
[Illustration: