‘_A Difficult Thing To Do_’
Even as deliberations proceeded to determine the fate of the relief
efforts, the men on Wake, ignorant of what was transpiring at Pearl
Harbor and on the bridges of Task Force 14’s ships, fought on.
Shortly before 0700 on Wake (1040, 22 December, at Pearl Harbor), the
two trucks bearing Battery D’s former antiaircraft gunners, under
Second Lieutenant Greeley and Captain Godbold, respectively, reached
Devereux’s command post. Major Potter deployed the new arrivals in an
attempt to form a thin defensive line running across the island. The
attempt was doomed because of the terrain they were being forced to
defend, an area which had been partially cleared of brush as part of
the airfield construction. It presented the Marines with 450 yards of
ground without cover or concealment. Marine Gunner Borth established
a defensive line near the battalion command post with two .30-caliber
guns crewed by command post Marines and a few Marines from Battery D.
At about the time Greeley and Godbold reached Devereux’s command post
with Battery D’s Marines, Second Lieutenant Kessler, at Battery B,
shifted his attention to a column of three destroyers off Kuku Point.
Four U.S. salvos appeared to inflict heavy damage on the lead ship, so
he shifted his attention to the second ship in column. After about 15
minutes, dive bombers directed bombs and strafing toward the position,
the battery’s firing having called attention to its existence.
Fortunately, their accuracy was poor, and Kessler’s men escaped without
casualty.
By that time, the situation seemed to be grim. Enemy planes were
attacking every visible target. Major Potter’s final defense line was
receiving increasingly heavy enemy rifle and machine gun fire. Japanese
troops near the airstrip continued probing and besetting VMF-211’s
encircled remnant. Wilkes had apparently fallen to the enemy. Major
Devereux saw little left to be done. Still having no communication with
the stubborn defenders of Wilkes and of Camp 1, Devereux had no way of
knowing which of his units were still fighting.
About an hour after daylight (0630), Commander Keene picked up the
telephone in the contractors’ headquarters and found Commander
Cunningham and Major Devereux engaged in conversation on the line.
The latter reported being hard-pressed at his command post. He did
not believe, he said, that the battalion could hold out much longer.
Cunningham told Devereux that if he did not feel he was able to
continue fighting, he should surrender. A discussion between the two
men then ensued. “You know, Wilkes has fallen,” Devereux stated.
Cunningham answered that he did. Devereux then stated that he did
not feel he should make the decision to surrender, that Cunningham,
the commander of the island, should decide. Pausing for a moment,
Cunningham then told Devereux that he authorized surrender, and to
take the necessary steps to carry it out. Uncertain of his ability to
contact the Japanese commander, Devereux asked Cunningham to attempt to
make contact with the enemy, as well. Cunningham responded: “I’ll see
what I can do.”
Surrendering, however, would take time, and the “word” did not reach
everyone right away. On Wilkes, having reorganized his men, Platt
attempted at about 0800 to phone the battalion command post on Wake. He
managed to reach someone at the Camp 1 motor pool, but got no farther,
because the motor pool was not in communication with the command post.
At about 0800, Devereux notified the units he could still reach of
the surrender decision. On Peale, Kessler received orders to cease
firing the 5-inch guns. At Battery E, Lewis’ men removed and smashed
the firing locks. When stuffing blankets into the muzzles and firing
a round did not do sufficient damage to the guns, the men rolled
grenades down the barrels. Other Marines smashed equipment and
chopped up electrical cables. Lewis himself destroyed the optics and
electromechanical parts of the heightfinder and director by firing 20
rounds into them from his .45. Satisfied with that work of destruction,
he marched his men as a unit to Devereux’s command post. At Peacock
Point, First Lieutenant Barninger ordered that the 5-inch firing locks
be broken and buried, the telescopes smashed, and the rangekeeper
destroyed. Then, running up a white flag, he ordered all hands,
including the civilians who had stood faithfully with the battery, to
eat as much as they could. No one knew how much the enemy would allow
their captives to eat.
As surrender preparations proceeded apace on one side of Wake and
in the positions that Devereux had been able to reach by telephone,
Poindexter’s men, meanwhile, established themselves along a line at
the edge of the clearing east of Camp 1. They emplaced 10 .30-caliber
machine guns to cover their entire front with interlocking fields of
fire. Occasional low-flying planes strafed their positions. Japanese
gunfire from their front, though, proved ineffective. Poindexter sent
back word to Camp 1 for all “special duty personnel” to join the
reserve as riflemen.
When, by 0900, the enemy at the front having shown no inclination
to attack his position, Poindexter ordered a counterattack toward
the airstrip. Dividing his men into three 10-man squads with a
non-commissioned officer in charge of each, the commander of the mobile
reserve decided to launch his attack along a front which extended from
the beach into the brush on the north side of the road. Poindexter’s
counterattack regained the terrain between Camp 1 and the road junction
west of the airstrip.
Meanwhile Devereux, accompanied by Sergeant Donald Malleck, who
held aloft a white rag attached to a swab handle, set out down the
north-south road along the eastern shore of Wake to contact the
Japanese. As he passed Marines still in action he ordered them to cease
firing.
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