_Civilian contractors are marched off to captivity after the Japanese
captured Wake. Some, deemed important by the Japanese to finish
construction projects, were retained there. Fearing a fifth column
rising, the Japanese executed 98 contractors in October 1943, an
atrocity for which atoll commander, RAdm Shigematsu Sakaibara, was
hanged after the war._]
A _Special Naval Landing Force_ sailor soon emerged from the brush
along the road and halted Devereux’s progress, covering the major and
Sergeant Malleck as they took off their helmets and laid down their
weapons. Unable to speak any English, the Japanese motioned them toward
the hospital bunker, where Devereux found an enemy officer who spoke
some English. The enemy had already captured the hospital, killing one
patient and wounding another when they fired into the entrance. Soon
thereafter, Commander Cunningham, who had changed into his blue uniform
for the occasion, arrived to arrange the details of the surrender.
Devereux and Malleck, accompanied by a Japanese officer, then began the
sad journey toward those Marines who still stubbornly held out ahead of
them.
Meanwhile, the resistance put up by Hanna and the remnant of VMF-211
had prompted the Japanese to call for more close air support. One
plane overflew the embattled 3-inch gun and carried out low-level
attacks that allowed the observer to fire on the position with his
flexible-mount 7.7mm gun. The strafing killed two civilians, Paul Gay
and Eric Bryan, and wounded Major Putnam, Second Lieutenant Hanna, and
Corporal Holewinski.
Having finally reached the airfield at around 0930, Devereux found that
the Japanese had taken cover behind the revetments and had pinned down
Hanna’s men and what remained of VMF-211’s force. The major ordered
Captain Tharin, the only officer who had not been seriously wounded, to
cease fire. Of the 10 men in that position, all--including the gallant
Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class Hesson--had been wounded in the
last-ditch fighting.
Even as elements on Wake still held out, Vice Admiral Pye was informing
the CNO that Wake could not be evacuated. Japanese forces had landed,
supported by cruisers and destroyers and, probably, by a covering
force nearby. The “gallant defense of Wake,” Pye stated, “has been
of utmost value, but hereafter Wake is a liability.” In view of the
“extensive operations” then underway, the situation had forced Pye to
conclude that risking one carrier task force to attack enemy forces in
the vicinity of Wake was “not justifiable.” Pye had ordered the two
westernmost task forces (14 and 11) to retire toward Pearl Harbor. The
third (Task Force 8) he sent on an unrelated mission.
On Wake, Second Lieutenant Kliewer, seeing the Japanese flags all along
the beach, decided to set off the mines, blowing up the airfield,
and then to fall back in the confusion generated by the explosions.
Unfortunately, the rain had drowned the generator motor, which disabled
the electric detonator.
At 1015 Kliewer saw men carrying a white flag coming down the beach.
Major Devereux was among them, with a group of what appeared to be
Japanese officers. They stopped about 50 feet from Kliewer’s trench and
ordered him to surrender. Kliewer’s men counseled against giving up:
“Don’t surrender, lieutenant. The Marines never surrender. It’s a hoax.”
“It was a difficult thing to do,” Kliewer wrote later, “but we tore
down our guns and turned ourselves over.”
About one hour later, Devereux’s melancholy procession arrived at the
lines facing the mobile reserve, which still fought stoutly. A rifleman
shouted back to Poindexter that a “large group of Japs are coming
down the road toward us with a white flag.” As they trudged closer,
Poindexter could see no Americans in the group, and after ordering
his men to hold their fire, he stepped out into the road, Springfield
at the ready. Cautioning his men not to fire unless the enemy
fired at him, he walked toward the group. Soon, he discerned Major
Devereux amidst them, shouting to him, telling him that Wake had been
surrendered.
Dropping his rifle and grenades in the road, Poindexter joined
Devereux, who then told him to return to his unit and order his men to
drop their weapons and stand up. At that, Japanese troops, bayonets
fixed, began to rush the positions they had been engaging, but were
stopped by a Japanese officer who interposed himself between the two
sides. As Poindexter and his men trudged toward the airstrip, he saw
large numbers of enemy troops emerging from the brush and falling
in along the road, confirming his suspicions that the enemy had
established itself in force in the region.
[Illustration: _In a photo copied from a Japanese pictorial history_,
Special Naval Landing Force _troops pay homage to the memory of Lt
Kinichi Uchida, whose unit lost two other officers and 29 enlisted men
killed and 34 wounded at Wake Island._
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 315175
]
Devereux then progressed to Camp 1, which was still held by the machine
gun sections of Poindexter’s group. There, a Japanese sailor climbed
to the top of the water tower observation post and cut down the stars
and stripes that had been flying throughout the battle. Elsewhere
at Camp 1, in what could be regarded as one of the last measures of
defiance to the now-victorious foe, Gunnery Sergeant John Cemeris, the
Wake detachment’s machine gun maintenance sergeant, unaware of the
surrender, fired briefly at a low-flying floatplane.
Cemeris was not alone in his defiance. Marines on Wilkes, ignorant
that their shipmates on Wake and Peale had laid down their arms, still
sought to carry on the fight as best they could. Platt, sighting ships
to the southwest of Wilkes, ordered Battery L to engage them. McAlister
and his men hurried back to the 5-inchers, only to find the ships out
of range. Enduring bombing and strafing attacks from Japanese planes,
around noon the Marines at Battery L spotted small boats standing
toward the channel between Wilkes and Wake, and observed several
transports and warships lying about 4,000 yards out. Manning the
5-inchers, the Marines discovered one would not move and that one of
the dive-bombing attacks had damaged the recoil cylinders of the other.
Platt then ordered McAlister’s Marines to take up a position along
the old channel and fire on the small boats. An exploding bomb killed
20-year-old Private First Class Robert L. Stevens while the men were en
route to their new positions. He was the last combat casualty suffered
by the Marines on Wake Island.
[Illustration: