1stLt Arthur A. Poindexter (seen here in a post-war photograph), commander of the mobile reserve on Wake, provided such evidence of “exemplary conduct and ability to lead troops ... with utter disregard for his own safety” that he was ultimately awarded the Bronze Star.
McAlister ordered Platoon Sergeant Henry A. Bedell to detail two men to hurl grenades into the enemy craft. The veteran non-commissioned officer, accompanied only by Private First Class William F. Buehler, gamely tackled the task, but Japanese gunfire killed Bedell and wounded Buehler before either had been able to work their way close enough to lob grenades into the boats.
McKinstry’s men, meanwhile, manned the 3-inchers of Battery F, but the guns could not be depressed enough to fire onto the beach. The Marines held their position until the men from the Takano Unit of the Special Naval Landing Force approached closely enough to begin lobbing grenades. Marines and Japanese grappled in the darkness, hand-to-hand, before McKinstry’s men, after removing the firing locks from the guns, pulled back to take up infantry positions. Their concentrated fires kept most of the Japanese at bay near the 3-inch gun position.
Other Special Naval Landing Force troops, however, probed westward, toward the 5-inch guns that had so humbled Kajioka’s force on the 11th. They ran into heavy fire from gun no. 9, a well-camouflaged .50-caliber Browning, handled skillfully by 20-year old Private First Class Sanford K. Ray and situated some 75 yards west of where the Takano Unit had first swarmed ashore. Ray’s fire prevented the enemy from advancing closer than 40 or 50 yards from his sand-bagged position, and his proximity to the beach allowed him not only to harass the enemy but also to report enemy movements. Although Japanese troops had severed most wire communication lines, Platt remained in touch with developments at the shoreline by reports from Ray.
Reports from observers along the beach soon began to deluge Devereux’s command post, where he and his executive officer, Major Potter, attempted to keep abreast of events. Gunner Hamas relayed the information to Cunningham, at his command post. On the basis of those reports, the island commander, at 0250, radioed the Commandant of the 14th Naval District: “Island under gunfire. Enemy apparently landing.”
At that point, Devereux directed Poindexter to move the mobile reserve into the area between Camp 1 and the west end of the airfield. Since the eight Marines had remained in the truck with the four machine guns, only 15 minutes elapsed before they set up both gun sections in a position commanding the road that ran along the south shore and also covering a critical section of beach. Within moments, Poindexter’s Brownings chattered and spat into the dim shape of the grounded Patrol Boat No. 32, most of the bullets striking the after part of the ship. Special Naval Landing Force troops who disclosed their positions by igniting flares soon came under fire. At Camp 1, just up the coast, men from Battery I and the sailors who had been serving as lookouts manned the four .30-caliber machine guns set up there. From Poindexter’s vantage point, the enemy troops appeared confused and disoriented, shouting and discharging a number of flares, perhaps for “control and coordination.”
Having received a report of Japanese destroyers standing toward Wake’s south shore (and well inside the range of the 5-inch batteries that had so vexed the enemy on 11 December), Second Lieutenant Robert M. Hanna, who commanded the machine guns emplaced at the airstrip, clearly perceived the threat. Accompanied by Corporal Ralph J. Holewinski and three civilians, Paul Gay, Eric Lehtola, and Bob Bryan, Hanna set off at a dead run for the 3-inch gun that had been emplaced on the landward side of the beach road, on a slight rise between the beach road and the oiled tie-down area at the airstrip. Up to that point, Major Putnam’s grounded airmen, their ground support unit, and the volunteer civilians, had been awaiting further orders. As Hanna and his scratch 3-inch crew sprinted to the then-unmanned gun, Devereux ordered Putnam to support the lieutenant.
Putnam assigned Second Lieutenant Kliewer to a post on the west end of the airfield, along with Staff Sergeant John F. Blandy, Sergeant Robert E. Bourquin, Jr., and Corporal Carroll E. Trego. They were to set off the mines on the field if the enemy attempted to use it. Two .50-caliber guns situated just north of the airstrip covered Kliewer’s position. At the eastern end of the strip lay the guns manned by Corporal Winford J. McAnally, along with six Marines and three civilians and supported by a small group of riflemen. The gunners enjoyed a perfect, unobstructed field of fire—the airstrip itself.
About 0300, just at a time when events began to develop with startling rapidity as the Japanese pushed ashore on Wilkes and Wake, Major Devereux lost touch with Camp 1, Putnam’s platoon, Hanna’s command post near the airstrip, and Barninger’s Battery A. Advancing Japanese troops probably had found the communication lines—the exigencies of war had prevented them from being buried—and cut them. Devereux’s last situation reports from those units painted a bleak picture. If Cunningham received less-than-encouraging reports from the defense battalion commander, he received equally grim news from CinCPac when, at 0319 Wake time, Pearl Harbor radioed to Wake that the Triton and Tambor were returning to Hawaiian waters. “No friendly vessels should be in your vicinity today,” the message stated, “Keep me informed.”
Painting by artist Albin Henning shows Marines firing a .30-caliber Browning machine gun as Japanese landing force sailors splash ashore. While inaccurate in details (barbed wire, for example, is an artist’s invention because no such obstruction existed at Wake Island, since the coral reef surrounding the atoll was bare of any holding ground for the stakes or anchors necessary to keep them in place), it does capture the desperate nature of the Marines’ final day’s fighting.