“I am sorry to have nothing but bad news for you fellows. It’s beginning to look as though our only real hope to salvage anything out of this mess is a political settlement. We’ll keep you informed of all developments.
“This is Marine Space Force Headquarters, going over to you, awaiting reply.”
Altman’s face winked off the monitor, replaced by the Marine Space logo and the words AWAITING REPLY.
“Well,” Lieutenant Biehl said. “I guess that’s that.”
“Why do you say that, Moe?” Jeff asked, keeping his voice light. “A lot can happen between now and when the Xing Feng gets here.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Graham said. “You heard the general. Another Charlie transport is on the way. The enemy’s gonna be stronger than ever!”
“I’ll tell you what’s worse than that,” Melendez added. “They’ll have another damned ship in orbit! They’ll be able to blast this base to rubble as soon as they get here, and this time we don’t have an International Gun and we don’t have a bug loaded with shit! My God, do you think the Charlie CO is going to maintain a hands-off policy when he gets a second chance? He’d be a fool to do it.”
“Sergeant Major? What’s your assessment? How are the men holding up?”
Kaminski grinned. He appeared to have recovered completely from his momentary blackout of the day before. “No problems on that front, at least, sir. Morale is sky-high after we bagged that cruiser yesterday. And even the one shot for the International Gun made ’em feel like they were hitting back. They’re charged, Major, charged and ready to go, any damned place you tell them.”
“Yes. Of course, the question is, what I should tell them?”
“I can’t help you there, sir. I guess Major Devereaux was in the same fix as you.”
Major Devereaux, yes. That Marine hero had been very much on Jeff’s mind these past few days. The hero of Wake Island…the man who’d held out against overwhelming Japanese forces for sixteen days with 449 Marines. He’d been discussing Wake Island a lot lately with Chesty. The parallels with Europa, especially the early victories against enemy ships, were tantalizingly close.
In December of 1941, Wake Island—actually an atoll of three tiny islands around a lagoon almost 2,400 miles west of Pearl Harbor—was the site of an airfield and submarine base still under construction, but occupying a strategically important location north of the Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands, and between Hawaii and the Philippines. It was garrisoned by Major James Devereaux’s force of thirteen officers and 365 Marines of the First Defense Battalion and under the command of U.S. Navy Commander Winfield S. Cunningham, CO of the new naval air station on the atoll. The Japanese struck at the island with an invasion fleet immediately after their victory at Pearl Harbor, launching a devastating air raid that wrecked eight out of twelve available fighter aircraft.
The Japanese commander, however, was overconfident. In the opening phases of the battle, shore batteries manned by the garrison scored damaging hits on the light cruiser Yubari, then serving as the Japanese flagship; sank the destroyer Hayate; and hit three other ships as well. The four surviving fighters struck back and sank the destroyer Kisaragi. An attempted landing on December 11 was wiped out. One American died in the exchange against over five hundred Japanese sailors, marines, and airmen killed. The invasion force was driven off, and the defenders were jubilant. In the smoke-pall shadow of burning battleships at Pearl, the lopsided victory had provided an incredible boost to American morale. It was during this period that the codefiller message including the words “Send us” at the beginning, and “more Japs” at the end, had been picked up and spread by American newspapers and radio broadcasts.
But it proved to be only a temporary setback for the Imperial Japanese Navy. The invasion force returned, heavily reinforced, including support from two fleet carriers and several cruisers and destroyers detached from Admiral Nagumo’s attack force still en route from the Pearl Harbor attack.
The Americans had tried to organize a relief expedition; in fact, all three available U.S. Pacific Fleet carrier task forces had been ordered to the relief of Wake. But over-caution, breakdowns, fueling problems, and administrative confusion caused by the summary dismissal of the CINC-PAC blamed for the Pearl disaster had all resulted in the fleet being ordered to turn back just 425 miles from beleaguered Wake. There would be no relief force.
The Wake defense force, augmented by Marine ground crew personnel once the last fighter was disabled, plus a number of civilian construction workers, fought on heroically, but at 0235 hours on December 23, Japanese forces made it ashore at several points and began reducing Marine defenses one by one. At 0500 hours, Commander Cunningham sent his final message to Pearl: “The enemy is on the island. The issue is in doubt.”