Wake Island POW’s
Approximately 2,000 miles west of Hawaii sets three small
islands collectively known as Wake.
Until the 1930’s the islands were uninhabited. In the mid 1930’s, Pan American Airlines setup
a refueling station for its Pacific clippers.
Then in January of 1941, civilian contractors began the task of turning
Wake into a military base. By December
1941, Wake had become a working military base with a compliment of:
- 38 officers
- 485 enlisted men
- 1,200 civilian contract employees.
This included Marine Fighter Squadron,
VMF-211, and comprised of 12 Grumman F4F-3 Hellcats. The
First Marine Defense Battalion had:
Quantity
|
Description
|
12
|
Three inch anti-aircraft guns
|
24
|
.50 caliber anti-aircraft machine
guns
|
30
|
Ground defense .30 caliber
machine guns
|
3
|
Five inch naval defense batteries
|
However, only the naval defense
batteries were manned at anywhere near full strength, and there were only
enough guns for 449 of the Marines.1
On
December 6, 1941, the senior officers on Wake were Major James Devereux of the
First Marine Defense Battalion; Commander Winfield Cunningham who was the
officer in charge of naval activities and commander of the defense of Wake;
Major Paul Putnam who was the commander of VMF-211; and Nathan Dan Teters who
was the construction superintendent in charge of Wake’s civilian contractors.
At
0700 Monday December 8, a message was received from Pearl Harbor and Hickam
Field stating that Pearl Harbor was under
attack. By 0845 all of Wake’s defensive
positions were “manned and ready.”2 By noon, the attack on Wake had begun by a
flight of 27 Mitsubishi “Nells” bombers from the Chitose Air Group of Japans 24th
Air Flotilla. The Japanese continued
their hit and run attacks with the Wake defenders holding their own. This continued until 0900 on December
21. Forty-nine dive bombers escorted by
18 zeros fighters from the Japanese carriers Hiryo and Soryo lead the second
Japanese invasion force. At 0235 on
December 23rd; 1,500 Japanese marines landed on Wake. After the landing, Wake’s marines and
civilian contractors gave as good as they got, especially considering there was
a lack of weapons and number of service men.
By 0730, Devereaux rigged a white flag.
He then left his command post and headed south.3 By 1430 the last shot had been
fired. The remaining 433 military and
1,104 civilians became prisoners of war (POW’s).
The
Wake POW’s were rounded up and made to strip to their skivvies and marched to
the airfield where their hands were bound by telephone wire and then a second
length was looped around their necks and tied to their hands. Admiral Kajioka, the Japanese commander,
seemed uncertain what to do with so many prisoners. “He radioed his headquarters at Truk. After a lengthy delay the reply came back
‘you are authorized to take prisoners.’”4 “At 1700 Admiral Kajioka arrived at the
airfield and gave the following proclamation ‘here it is proclaimed that the
entire islands of Wake are now the property of the Great Empire of Japan.’ Public notice the Great Empire of Japan, who
loves peace and respects justice, has been obliged to take arms against the
challenge of President Roosevelt.
Therefore in accordance with the peace loving spirit of the Great Empire
of Japan, Japanese Imperial Navy will not inflict harm to those people though
they have been our enemy—who do not hold hostility against us in any respect so
they can be in peace! But whoever
violates our spirit or whoever is not obedient shall be severely punished by
our martial law issued by the headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Navy.”5 The first 48 hours of captivity were
torture; prisoners were made to endure two days exposed to the elements with
little or no clothing and practically no food or water. On Christmas day, the prisoners were given a
thin gruel of rice and “a gift of sorts when several vehicles appeared at the
airstrip, piled with articles of discarded clothing.”6 That
evening the POW’s were moved to the remaining
barracks. Where the civilian cooks were
allowed to prepare two hot meals a day and bread and jam at night, this lasted
till January 11, 1942. A former
passenger liner the Nitta Maru arrived at Wake.
At about noon the next day, Japanese guards informed the prisoners that
they had exactly one hour to prepare for departure. About 1,150 of Wake’s defenders, enlisted men,
and civilians would be crammed into the ships cargo hold with a little straw
bedding and a few five gallon buckets for sanitary facilities. Then 28 officers were herded into what had
been the ships mailroom. All of the
prisoners had to run a gauntlet of Japanese sailors raining kicks and blows on
the newly boarded passengers. “They made
us jump onto the ship and if we did not move fast enough to suit them they beat
the hell out of us,” PFC Artie Stocks remembered.7 “A sign which was posted in the hold in the
ship stated the regulations the prisoners must obey. An example would be, the prisoners disobeying
the following orders will be punished with immediate death: disobeying orders and instructions, showing a
motion of antagonism and raising a sign of opposition, talking without
permission, resisting mutually, climbing a ladder without order, etc…”8 During the twelve day voyage five
prisoners were beheaded and no one knows why or how these five men were chosen
for execution by Lt. Toshio Sato, commander at the Japanese guard detachment.9
After about a week at sea, the
Nitta Maru pulls into Tokyo where a few prisoners are taken off. The Nitta Maru continued on to Shanghai , China ,
the location of the Woosung Prison Camp.
In January of 1942, Woosung was home to 1,500 prisoners and was
commanded by Colonel Goici Yuse who was notorious for his violent and
unpredictable temper. He organized the
prisoners in ten man shooting squads explaining if one man escaped the other
nine dies. He died in March of 1942 and
was replaced by Colonel Satoshi Otera who wasn’t much better. An example of his cruelty is when he
discovered a hole in a 100 pound bag of sugar; he retaliated by denying food to
all prisoners for 72 hours. Though this
only amounted to about 1,500 calories it was sorely missed by the
prisoners. Despite the starvation diet,
Major Deveraux insisted on the same military discipline found at a state side
marine base and insisted that the marines exercise daily. The prisoners continued to fight their
captors anyway they could. “When they
were put to work repairing roads they widened or deepened potholes or loose packed
the dirt so the holes would soon get worse. When assigned to clean weapons they polished
the metal until it was too thin to be safely fired, lost parts, hid bearings,
loosened bolts, and/or substituted parts.”10 The discipline Major Devereaux
instilled served the Wake marines well and was one of the reasons that Wake
prisoners had one of the best mortality rates of any group of prisoners during
the war but no amount of exercise could have saved civilian Lonnie Riddle when
a prison guard shot him or kept other accidents from happening. Another reason for the Wake prisoner’s
relative good health was Edouard Eagle, a Swiss representative of the
International Red Cross. He was very
insistent on providing medical and dental help for the prisoners. He also provided warm clothing, food, and
medical supplies; although he was not the only person to come to the prisoner’s
aid. American “Shanghai ”
Jimmy James, a Minnesotan that owned four American style restaurants in Shanghai , provided the
Wake prisoners a Christmas tree with trimmings, cigars, cigarettes, and a hot
turkey dinner for the Christmas of 1942.
He also continued to send food, medicine, and other help until he too
was interned in the prison camp.11
In
all, 44 military personnel and 82 civilians were killed in action on Wake; 442
service men and 1,118 civilians were captured.12 Two civilians died after the seize fire. Twenty-seven service men and 115 civilian
died in POW camps or in route.12
There were 98 civilians that were kept on Wake and forced to assist the
Japanese with the rebuilding of the islands defenses.12 However by October 7, 1943, there was nothing
left to build and nothing left to build with.
The Japanese Commandant of Wake, Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered
Lt. Torashi Ito to take all the prisoners to the beach near the northwestern
extremity of Wake proper and execute them.
Not
all stories about Wake are as tragic.
One of the most inspirational stories is that of Lt. John Kinney, who
escaped from the Japanese and made it across almost all of China before he was picked up by an
army C-47 and returned to the United States.13 Although it took longer, a grand total of 415
servicemen and 901 civilians were repatriated.14
Notes
1.
Bill Sloan, Given Up For Dead: America’s
Heroic Stand At Wake Island (New
York : Bantam Dell, 2003), 51.
2.
Sloan, Given Up for Dead, 87
3.
Sloan, Given Up for Dead, 238
4.
Sloan, Given Up for Dead, 393
5.
Sloan, Given Up for Dead, 394-395
6.
Sloan, Given Up for Dead, 400
7.
Sloan, Given Up for Dead, 407
8.
Harry Spiller, American POWS In World War
II: Twelve Personal Accounts Of Captivity by Germany
and Japan (Jefferson , NC :
McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers, 2009), 16-17.
9.
Spiller, American POWS In World War II,
17
10.
James W. Wensyel, “Wake Island Prisoners of
World War II,” HistoryNet (2001), http://www.historynet.com/wake-island-prisoners-of-world-war-ii.htm
11.
Wensyel, “Wake Island ”, http://www.historynet.com/wake-island-prisoners-of-world-war-ii.htm
12.
Spiller, American POWS In World War II,
27
13.
John F. Kinney and James M. McCaffrey, “Escape,” in The Wake Island Pilot: A World War II
Memoir, (Washington: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data,
1995), 137-160.
14.
Kinney and McCcaffrey, Wake
Island Pilot,
137-160
Bibliography
Kinney, John F. and James M. McCaffrey,
“Escape.” In The Wake
Island Pilot: A World War II
Memoir, 137-160. Washington :
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data,
1995.
Sloan, Bill. Given
Up For Dead: America’s Heroic Stand At Wake Island. New
York : Bantam
Dell,
2003.
Spiller, Harry. American
POWS In World War II: Twelve Personal Accounts Of Captivity by
Wensyel, James W. “Wake Island
Prisoners of World War II,” HistoryNet
(2001),
http://www.historynet.com/wake-island-prisoners-of-world-war-ii.htm
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