Replies

I forgot to mention that my father and his Marine Corps always told me when I was a kid that the last radio message out of Wake in response to a question from the Navy asking what did the marines want was “Send us more Japs” !! Probably apocryphal but it was a great story to tell a kid.

The Times actually ran that story in the Dec. 17 issue (see the last item on the last page of that post). Here is the entire article:

'Send Us Some More Japs,' Wake Marines Ask Navy

By The Associated Press.
HONOLULU, Dec. 16-Take it for what it's worth, but this is the story circulating in Honolulu:

When Navy officials established contact with the marine garrison defending tiny Wake Island, they asked, "Is there anything you want?"

"Yes," came the reply, "send us some more Japs."

I was just on wiki (I know!) to see what happened with the POWs. Most of them were taken to Japan - many died, some survived - including Deveroux (wrote a book later). 83 civilians on Wake continued work on the island until they were executed after a U.S. bombing raid.

According to Wiki - the “send us” was placed at the beginning of the coded sentence, and the “more Japs” was placed at the ending of the sentence. Two “nonsense” words were used to begin and end a sentence to throw off the japs trying to decode it.

What I find so interesting is how the military and press would print these heroic words and actions without double-checking, etc. So many from that time - “We're surrounded - we've got ‘em right where we want em” (Korea), etc.

Funny - back in WWII and the early Cold War the American press would at least use the pro-American propaganda. Now they only seem to spew the anti-American propaganda.

I was just watching an old CBS(?) special about the La Drang valley battle in Vietnam - it was made right after the battle, which was a major victory for us in so many ways.

But at the close of the special, the reporter said something like “but it is yet to be known how long the American public will be able to bear the loss of their young men dieing in this remote land”. With scenes of flag-draped coffins, etc. I was amazed as this was the VERY FIRST major battle, and they are already reading the script!!