Wake's 378

It was Christmas week out there under the wide open sky on a sandspit in midsea, just as it was back home, where stores bustled, and parti-colored lights blinked from the trees in a million windows. But for the Marines on Wake Is land it was the week when they fought and died in their last, hopeless stand.

Since the 8th of December (the 7th on the U.S. side of the International Date Line) the little band of 378 sea-soldiers had been under repeated Jap attack. Frying in the Pacific sun on their desolate four-mile-long atoll they had seen a Jap cruiser and two destroyers standing off the island with the signal "Surrender" flapping gaily from their signal halyards.

That was just the beginning -- after the first aerial assault that had told them the show was on. Bantam (5 ft. 5 in.) Major James Patrick Sinnott Devereux, the detachment commander, returned a Marine's answer: "Come and get us." The Jap got another answer. Somehow, either by bombardment from the four fighter planes still on the island (eight had been smashed by the enemy) or by fire from his six 5-in. guns, little Jimmie Devereux sank the cruiser and one of the destroyers. He reported it tersely to Honolulu. Later he reported his men had sunk a Nip sub.

In 48 hours four separate air attacks were beaten off. Most of the Marines' fighter planes were lost. Again & again Wake was bombed. One attack was by 41 planes, another by 17. After each show was over Wake sent clipped reports. There was one that will never be forgotten: "Send us more Japs."

On Dec. 21, 17 heavy bombers smashed all but one of the 3-in. anti-aircraft batteries, smeared the power plant, fired the oil stores. The next day Wake reported that several enemy ships and a transport were standing off the island. What was left of the 3-inchers blasted away. Two destroyers were put out of action.

The Jap kept coming. And the Marines kept fighting. The Jap at last got his landing party on the beach. From Wake came the last chirp of the radio--the Marines were still fighting. It must have been hand to hand. Reported Major Devereux with magnificent euphemism: "The issue is in doubt." The rest was silence.

From Tokyo next day came an announcement : Wake was taken; it had been defended by 3,000 officers and men. To Jimmie Devereux--whom his civilian friends knew as an affable gentleman jockey, whom Marines knew as a studious, hard-fighting professional--and to the 378 Marines, alive and dead, of his command, the Jap had paid a fitting tribute.

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