The enemy maintained aerial pressure on the atoll. Day after day, the shore-based Nell bombers of the Twenty-fourth Air Flotilla attacked, now covered by Zero fighters, helped by Mavis flying boats used as bombers, and soon by Val dive bombers from carriers Soryu and Hiryu. Enemy planes methodically worked over all battery positions, reducing american defenses. One by one, the defender planes were used up : when all the planes were destroyed, the remaining men of the squadron reported to serve as infantry.
In the meantime, at Pearl Harbor, a relief expedition made ready to sail. The relief train, consisting of Tangier cargo and Neches fleet oiler, had to deliver supplies, reinforcements and aircraft to Wake, evacuate wounded with a portion of the civilians, and return to Pearl Harbor. The expedition was to be protected from air, submarine, and surface attacks by the Saratoga task group : the carrier, three heavy cruisers and nine destroyers in all. But the speed of advance of the Task Force was considerably curtailed by the maximum speed of its slowest component, the old Neches, which could only make 12 knots.
Tangier
On 21 December, intelligence available at Pearl Harbor indicated a heavy concentration of shore-based Japanese aviation strength in the Marshalls, with the possibility that hostile surface forces might be encountered astride Task Force's approach to Wake. Eager to evacuate or reinforce the island, Admiral Pye, acting commander of the Pacific fleet, nevertheless decided that the risk was too great. In light of the destruction inflicted on the fleet at Pearl Harbor, he could not chance damaging much less losing an American carrier or capital ship. Finally, the relief force was recalled. It was but 425 miles distant from Wake.
He did not know that, at this very moment, some four enemy heavy cruisers were patrolling east of Wake, separated from any Japanese carrier air support by hundreds of miles, a sitting target for the airmen of the Saratoga; nor did he know that the Japanese attack force was disposed about Wake with no apparent measures for security against surface attack. Had all this been known, the story of Wake might have been very different.
Despite the fact that the same general difficulties were anticipated for the next attempt, the Japanese higher echelons let the basic scheme of attack remain largely unchanged : the new plan and estimate of the situation were, in essence, amplified versions of the original one which had failed. The sunken ships were replaced by two new destroyers (Asanagi and Yunagi), together with one more, Oboro. In addition, two carriers (Hiryu and Soryu with 118 aircrafts), screened by the heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma and the destroyers Tanikaze and Urakaze, were detached from their Pearl Harbor Striking Force, and headed toward Wake.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet, was now convinced that Wake, by contrast with other central Pacific objectives, constituted a major stumbling block. In order that Wake's deadly seacoast batteries might be afforded minimum opportunities, initial landings were to take place by darkness, shortly before dawn. And as a measure of surprise, there was to be no preliminary naval bombardment.
The Marines spotted the Japanese assault force at 2am, 23 December. At the same time, Japanese infantrymen clambered down into the medium landing craft, two heading for Wilkes Island and others for the south shore of Wake Island.
On Wilkes island :
At 02:45 hours, the Japanese Company with approximately 100 men came ashore under heavy fire coming from two .50-caliber machine-guns above the landing area. The tiny garrison of the Marines on whole Wilkes numbered only approximately 70 men. The Japanese soon overrun the positions of the nearly battery, and also commenced movement to the west, toward the next battery. That was all what the Japanese had accomplished on Wilkes Island. Further advance was not possible, as good camouflaged machine-guns nets pinned down the Japanese to the ground.
By 04:00 hours, the situation on Wilkes Island have stabilized. The Japanese were in firm possession of the first battery position, but surrounded by the Marines, which prevented them any expansion of the beachhead. Then, the Marine combat groups joined their forces, and then proceeded to sweep the entire position.
After the successful attack, the Japanese casualties were horrible: they lost four officers and at least 90 men. American's losses were 9 Marines and 2 civilian workers killed, and five wounded. But the communication line with Devereux's command post was dead and this has later probably misled Major Devereux into belief that Wilkes Island already had fallen into Japanese hands. Around 8am, after their forces being pushed from the island, the Japanese continued with aerial and sea bombardment of the Wilkes Island, and finally managed to silence the island's coastal battery.
On Wake island :
In the meantime, on the south coast of wake Island, east of Wilkes Island, the patrol boats No. 32 and No. 33 (two old destroyers) run ashore off the west end of the airstrip. When the two japanese Companies swarmed down the sides into the water, Lieutenant Hanna and his crew fired 3-inch rounds into the hull of patrol craft No. 33, which immediately burst into flame. Helped by the light of the burning ship, Hanna and his men shifted his fire onto the other beached vessel, patrol craft No.32, which was then also considerably damaged.
Despite the defense of the Marines, two other large landing crafts managed to ground on the reef about 30 yards off shore, east of Wilkes Channel entrance : the Japanese landing party (app. 100 men) landed on shore, and was soon infiltrating the brushy area. Soon after, another Japanese landing party commenced landing near beached destroyers.
South of the airfield, the Marines detachment still held its position, but it was by now surrounded by reinforced Japanese troops, who made several attacks. Then, Soryu and Hiryu launched their planes in support of the fighting troops. At 07:15 hours, carrier-based dive bombers arrived over the island, hammering remaining defense positions. With his command post under attack, convinced of the fall of Wilkes Island, and with enemy air superiority above his head, Major James P.S. Devereux, bearing a white flag, moved southward down the shore road to surrender the island with its scattered and exhausted garrison to the Japanese.
Eighty-one Marines, eight sailors and 82 civilian construction workers had been killed or wounded during the battle. The Japanese, however, paid a heavy price for their victory. Fragmentary information of varying reliability is to be found in various sources, however, the following estimated enemy losses are tabulated: 21 planes shooted down and 51 aircrafts damaged, 2 ships sunk and eight damaged, about 1.000 men killed or missing. Considering the power accumulated for the invasion and the meager forces of the defenders, it was one of the most humiliating battle the Japanese Navy ever suffered. And the Battle of Wake upset the timetable for the Japanese campaign of conquest in the Pacific.
Enraged by their losses, the Japanese treated the American soldiers brutally. Some were stripped naked, others to their underwear. Most had their hands tied behind their backs with telephone wire. And five of Wake's defenders were beheaded by the Japanese on board Nitta Maru. With the exception of nearly 100 contractors who remained on Wake Island, all the rest of the civilians joined Wake's Marines, sailors, and soldiers in prisoner of war camps.
Air raids on Wake occurred throughout the war, the first occurring in February 1942. Raids in October 1943, however, had grave repercussions for the contractors who had been left behind. The atoll commander, who feared that the raids portended a major landing, had them all executed. For that offense, he was hanged as a war criminal.
Wake was not recaptured by American forces during the war. There was no bloody American amphibious invasion to recapture the island, because air superiority and control of the sea made it possible to bypass Wake. The U.S. recovered Wake Island after the Japanese surrender in 1945.
Raising the U.S. flag over Wake Island on 4 September 1945, as a U.S. Marine Corps bugler plays "Colors". This was the first time the Stars and Stripes had flown over Wake since its capture by the Japanese on 23 December 1941.
A NEW FEATURE ~ The Foxhole Revisits...
The Foxhole will be updating some of our earlier threads with new graphics and some new content for our Saturday threads in this, our second year of the Foxhole. We lost many of our graphic links and this is our way of restoring them along with revising the thread content where needed with new and additional information not available in the original threads.
A Link to the Original Thread;
The FReeper Foxhole Remembers the Defense of Wake Island - Dec. 23rd, 2002
Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:
Naval Sea Systems Command. U.S. Navy Diving Manual Volume 1 (Air Diving). NAVSEA 0994-LP-001-9110, Revision #2. 15 December 1988.
www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq100-1.htm
www.history.navy.mil/nhc3.htm
www.ffaclan.free.fr/bf/ewake.shtml
