While Swartz organized the men beneath the trees outside the barracks, Lieutenant Noyes dressed and then drove across the parade ground to Building 277, arriving about 0805. At the same time, like Swartz, First Lieutenant James S. O’Halloran, the 3d Defense Battalion’s duty officer and commanding officer of Battery F, 3-inch Antiaircraft Group, wanted to get in touch with his senior officers. After having had “assembly” sounded and signalling his men to take cover, O’Halloran ordered Marine Gunner Frederick M. Steinhauser, the assistant battalion communications officer, to telephone all of the officers who resided outside the reservation and inform them of the attack.
In Honolulu, mustachioed Major Harold C. Roberts, acting commanding officer of the 3d Defense Battalion since Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Pepper had accompanied Colonel Jackson to sea in Indianapolis, after taking Steinhauser’s call with word of the bombing of Pearl, jumped into his car along with his neighbor, Major Kenneth W. Benner, commanding officer of the 3-inch Antiaircraft Group and the Headquarters and Service Battery of the 3d Defense Battalion. As Roberts’ car crept through the heavy traffic toward Pearl, the two officers could see Japanese aircraft flying along the coast. When they reached the Water Street Fish Market, a large crowd of what seemed to be “Japanese residents ... cheering the Japanese planes, waving to them, and trying to obstruct traffic to Pearl Harbor by pushing parked cars into the street” blocked their way.
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Meanwhile, as his acting battalion commander was battling his way through Honolulu’s congested streets, O’Halloran was organizing his Marines as they poured out of the barracks into groups to break out small arms and machine guns from the various battalion storerooms. After Harry Noyes drove up, O’Halloran told him to do what he could to get the 3-inch guns, and fire control equipment, if available, broken out and set up, and then instructed other Marines to “get tractors and start hauling guns to the parade ground.” Another detail of men hurried off to recover an antiaircraft director that lay crated and ready for shipment to Midway.
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Marines continued to stream out onto the grounds, having been ordered out of the barracks with their rifles and cartridge belts; they doubled the sentry posts and received instructions to stand ready and armed, to deploy in an emergency. Noyes saw some Marines who had not been assigned any tasks commencing fire on enemy planes “which were considerably out of range.” At the main gate of the Navy Yard, the Marines fired at whatever planes came close enough—sailors from the high-speed minelayer Sicard (DM-21), en route to their ship, later attested to seeing one Japanese plane shot down by the guards’ rifle fire.
Tai Sing Loo, who was to have photographed those guards at the new gate, had left Honolulu in a hurry when he heard the sound of explosions and gunfire, and saw the rising columns of smoke. He arrived at the naval reservation without his Graflex and soon marveled at the cool bravery of the “young, fighting Marines” who stood their ground, under fire, blazing away at enemy planes with rifles while keeping traffic moving.
Finally, the more senior officers quartered outside the reservation began showing up. When Colonel Pickett arrived, Lieutenant Swartz returned to the officer-of-the-day’s room and found that Captain Shaw had reached there also. Securing from his position as officer of the guard, Swartz returned to his 3-inch gun battery being set up near Building 277. Ordering Marines out of the building, he managed to obtain a steel helmet and a pistol each for himself and Lieutenant O’Halloran. Captain Samuel G. Taxis, commanding officer of the 3d Defense Battalion’s 5-inch Artillery Group, meanwhile, witnessed “terrific confusion” ensuing from his men’s efforts to obtain “ammunition, steel helmets, and other items of equipment.”
Naval Historical Center Photo NH 50926