The Japanese come ashore for the final time | Osprey Publishing.
The Last Day
The last day of the battle for Wake began early on December 23rd. The morning darkness and a light rain resulted in poor visibility that made the night pitch black. The surf was especially active, pounding loudly against the reef. It was a night the Japanese had asked for.
By midnight, there were mysterious lights being seen in the distance. This was the Japanese diversionary attempt gone awry. Kajioka’s plan this time was to have the cruisers Tenryu and Tatsua shell Peale Island to distract the Americans from the real landing sites along the southern shores of Wake. But the lights did serve to bring the garrison to a state of readiness it might not have otherwise been at. But the rain and rough seas conspired to send the Japanese off course, and they wound up shelling empty ocean. By 2 AM, Deveraux was getting reports of Japanese landings at Toki and Peacock Points.
Once the cruisers were done, they pulled away from the island to screen the island from any American naval intervention. In fact, Kajoika didn’t bring any of his ships anywhere near Wake to support the landings and left the invasion barges alone in the dark, cold, rain-tossed sea, making their way slowly towards Wake’s southern beaches. The Japanese were landing 1,500 officers and men of their Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF) on Wake. The Japanese SNLF was not a marine force, per se, but instead, sailors of the Japanese Navy. They had been given extra infantry training, but that training was often poor, and coupled with the usual Japanese fanaticism, this usually resulted in heavy casualties for the SNLF in most of their landing operations. Wake was no exception.
Patrol Boat 32 carried the Uchida Company (Japanese infantry units were often named after their commander), Itaya Company was aboard Patrol Boat 33. The plan was simple, they were going to ram the patrol boats into Wake’s barrier reef, and then the SNLF would wade their way ashore. The crews of the patrol boats had been told:
“…before they left Kwajalein that they should consider themselves ‘disposable objects.’ A senior officer advised them: ‘Drink plenty of sake now, because you will not be coming back.’” (Given Up For Dead, Sloan, pp. 271)
The remaining company, Takano Company, would come ashore in a mix of steel Daihatsu barges and rubber rafts. If these landings went awry, Kajoika had 1,000 more men in reserve, and if that failed, he was prepared to run aground all six of his force’s destroyers to commit their crews as infantry. Kajoika had been told there would be no forgiving any failure this time.
The Marines huddled in their foxholes and behind their guns. At 2:35 AM, the first waves of Japanese came ashore, and the night sky was light up with tracer and shell. Battle had been joined.
Meanwhile…With the Relief Force
The American relief force, Task Force 14, was still 425 miles away once the Japanese landing operations had begun. And the Americans had problems. First, there was the issue of the old fleet oiler Neches. She was slowing down the task force. It didn’t help that Admiral William Pye, the task force commander, was often tinkering with the plan and just slowing down the force’s progress to Wake with his own indecision. The American commanders were rather skittish about the idea of risking what carrier strength was left to the US Navy in the Pacific. Events would soon give them a reason to cancel the operation.
“Enemy on Island – Issue in Doubt”
Contemporary Image of the fighting on Wake. There are some inaccuracies. For one, the Marines didn’t have any barbed wire obstacles on the beach | National World War II Museum.
The Japanese came ashore to a hail of gunfire, but the Marines had
trouble picking them out in the night, especially since the Japanese had been
instructed to not fire but instead use the bayonet. Deveraux was asked if
Wake’s four searchlights could be turned on. The one searchlight sited on
Wilkes Island came alive and illuminated a pair of beached Japanese landing
craft and their human cargo, who were soon scythed down by a torrent of .50
caliber machinegun fire. Another searchlight on Wilkes picked up a force of
Japanese in three rubber rafts paddling their way towards the lagoon. They, too,
were taken under .50 caliber fire and were all sunk, according to reports. But
more Japanese came ashore on Wilkes Island and were threatening to overrun the
Marine positions at Battery F and Battery L.
Hyperwar.com
A retreat was ordered from the gun positions. The commander of Wilkes, Captain Wesley Platt, ordered a retreat, especially as many of the civilian contractors who had no arms at all, except for hand grenades, were in danger of being put into hand-to-hand combat with armed Japanese SNLF troops. One of the machine gun positions had been cut off by the Japanese advance, and worst of all? The phone lines to the rest of Wake had been cut. Wilkes was on its own.
Hyperwar.com
Meanwhile, the Japanese were coming ashore all over the southern beaches of the main island of Wake itself. The Japanese had come under withering fire from a quartet of .50 caliber machine guns manned by US Navy personnel that had been installed on the island’s water tower. Somehow the Japanese had managed to infiltrate past these positions. There were now 100 Japanese somewhere in the rear of the American positions on Wake.
While this was going on, Patrol Boats 32 and 33 rammed the reef near the island’s airfield and disgorged 800 men directly across from the island’s airfield. The Marines didn’t have much in this sector, ten Marines, the remaining 22 members of VMF-211, some sailors, and civilian volunteers, they had five .50 caliber machine guns, as well as one balky 3” gun, but not much else to defend the wide perimeter of the airfield against 800 Japanese. The airfield sector commander, 2nd Lieutenant Robert Hanna was on the wrong end of 10-1 odds.
But Hannah rose to the occasion, organizing a scratch gun crew for his 3” gun. He took Patrol Boat 32 under fire. (after an argument among the gun crew on whom would fire the gun). They fired a total of 21 rounds at the hapless vessel, setting off her magazines and leaving her aflame from end to end. Even the .50s got into the act, raking the burning ship from stem to stern. In the light of Patrol Boat 32’s funeral pyre, Patrol Boat 33 was spotted, and Hanna turned his 3” gun on her. A 5” gun also joined in and set Patrol Boat 33 ablaze as well. One source reports that by daybreak, some 350 Japanese lie dead in the surf of Wake in front of Lieutenant Hanna’s position, mute testament to the fight he and his men put up.
But the Japanese kept coming, and though Hanna and his men certainly took their toll, there were simply too many Japanese to stop. The Japanese got close enough to Hanna and his gun crew that Hanna was forced to employ his .45 repeatedly. A counterattack by VMF-211 checked the Japanese advance long enough to assemble a crude line based on the 3” gun position. The gun was no longer firing, as the Japanese fire was too withering to expose anyone long enough to load the gun. But the Japanese were holding off for now.
Japanese tactics were a holdover from China, where they had used the bayonet above all else and gotten away with it since the Chinese Nationalists had a paucity of automatic weapons. This was not a deficiency the Marines suffered from, and time and time again, the Japanese would crawl forward, jump up screaming “Banzai!” and charge into the teeth of Marine firepower, often getting cut down for their trouble. But the Japanese pressure was increasing, and they had cut all the phone lines from Wake to the outlying islands. Deveraux had no way to communicate with anyone on the island except for runners.
As daylight broke, the Japanese pushed forward, putting heavy pressure on VMF-211 and Hanna, the position began to crumble. Chaos reigned as the Marines attempted to retreat to the gun position, but the Japanese almost overran VMF-211 if not for one man’s actions. Captain Hank Elrod. He’d already distinguished himself earlier during the battle, sinking the Japanese destroyer Kirasagi. Still, after seeing some of his Marines and civilian volunteers go down to Japanese fire, he was a man enraged. He launched a one-man counterattack into the teeth of the Japanese advance, stalling it long enough for VMF-211 to get clear and fall back onto the gun position.
Captain Hank Elrod | Wikipedia
Against all odds, Hanna’s little group had managed to hold on.
The Japanese, however, had managed to land in force all over the southern shores of Wake and Wilkes Islets. Things were bad enough that the Americans attempted to blow up the airfield to deny it to the Japanese, but the charges did not detonate. And the Japanese unleashed their firepower, with carrier-based dive bombers from Soryu and Hiryu blasting Hanna’s position repeatedly. The Japanese pummeled the position into submission. By the time the bombers were done, only one American around the gun was unwounded.
Another Japanese force pushed towards Camp 1 and ran right into Deveraux’s reserve force under 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Poindexter. He had some 20 Marines, 14 civilians, two trucks, and 4 .30 caliber machine guns. The Japanese had stuck their head into a buzzsaw. They cut down the initial Japanese rush, and after a short fight, withdrew to a better position closer to Camp 1, where they reinforced themselves with yet more machine guns and everyone they could grab with a weapon. By 9:00 AM, Poindexter counterattacked, driving the SNLF before him and reached the western edge of the airfield.
Meanwhile, Deveraux and Cunningham had no communication with any of their outlying positions, except for those Marines on Peale. He reinforced the “last-ditch” line in front of his CP but could do little else to influence the battle. Cunningham had even less ability but sent a message to Pearl Harbor that inadvertently sealed the fate of the Wake garrison.
“ISSUE IN DOUBT-ENEMY ON ISLAND”
There were more local successes. A Marine 5” battery on Peale engaged a trio of Japanese destroyers, damaging one and forcing the rest to withdraw.
Situation on Wake Island at time of Surrender | Hyperwar.
But Deveraux and Cunningham had none of this information. They were cut off from their men, and there was no way to influence the battle. Rumors were flying fast and furious that Wilkes had fallen to the enemy, and there was little in the way of friendly troops between the Japanese and Deveraux’s CP. There is some debate on whether Cunningham or Deveraux gave the order to surrender, but by 7:30 AM on December 23rd, 1941, Deveraux and Cunningham had separately proceeded south to meet with the Japanese, ordering their men to ceasefire.
Wilkes Island Counterattack | Hyperwar.com
But the Marines had one last victory – Wilkes Island. While the final act had played out on Wake Island, the defenders of Wilkes counterattacked. The Japanese beachhead was hit from all four sides and was quickly overrun. Except for two wounded Japanese prisoners, the rest of the enemy force was wiped out by the Marines. Wilkes did not get the word to surrender until 2:00 PM. By 2:30 PM, the last American force on Wake had surrendered. The battle was over, but for the 1600 American prisoners of war, a worse ordeal of Japanese captivity was just beginning.
Aftermath
The Wake relief force had received Commander Cunningham’s fateful message, and at 7:00 AM, turned around and began the trip back to Pearl Harbor. Anger and disgust permeated the fleet, with Admiral Fitch having to remove from his own flag bridge aboard the cruiser Astoria rather than overhear “mutinous talk.” of disobeying the order and continuing onward anyhow. But discipline held, and Wake and her garrison was left to their fate. The Japanese had lost almost 500 dead in the two landing attempts to seize Wake.
For the rest of the war, the Japanese improved the defenses of Wake Island, but the Americans were content to cut off the garrison and let it die on the vine. The US Navy would often use the island as a form of live fire target that occasionally shot back for deploying ships and carrier air groups. 1200 US POWs were removed from the island, with a small force of 98 captive American civilian workers forced to stay and work for the Japanese. These poor unfortunates were murdered in October 1943, when the local Japanese commander was convinced an American invasion was imminent.
The US Navy came back to Wake on September 4th, 1945, and the Japanese garrison commander and his subordinate got the death penalty for their actions in October 1943. Today, the island remains in possession of the United States, jointly run by the United States Air Force and the Department of the Interior.
Wargaming the Battle
For as much of a well-documented and legendary last stand as Wake Island was, you would think there would be more wargames on the subject, but the fact is, there is not. I did do some digging and found these games, as well as some articles and a suggestion of my own on gaming the battle.
Boardgames:
Board Game Geek
This game was put out in 2018 and is an area movement low complexity effort from Lock n’ Load Games. It looks like a real “beer and pretzels” game and incorporates all three elements of the battle, air, sea, and the final fight on the island itself. I don’t own the game, but the reviews on Board Game Geek (BGG) look good. It’s not too expensive to find, and if you’re interested, it seems the game to try on the subject.
Board Game Geek
This was Mayfair Games’ effort from 1981, which has that early 80s no-frills look. The rules look pretty simple, and the whole thing, while not as highly rated as Lock N’ Load’s effort, has a few fans on BGG. The game is out of print, so you’re going to have to look for this one on eBay or BGG, but I didn’t see one for sale on eBay. However, BGG had a copy for $50 as of this writing. I’d say that would be a fair price for a copy in good to excellent shape.
Noble Knight Games
This effort by Two Buck Games is, like Wake Island- A Heroic Defiance, a point-to-point movement system. This seems to be a popular idea for Wake Island games. The game is also highly rated on BGG and it’s a smaller game than Wake Island. It does promise the game is playable in 2 hours. Japanese naval and air units are abstractly tracked, which I am not 100% with if the object of the game is to run up Japanese casualties. It’s a PDF “print and play” game, where you pay for the PDF of the game, print out the components and then play the game. It can be found at Wargame Downloads.com for the low price of $2.00. I’d say worth a look, no?
Amazon.com
Against the Odds Magazine puts out some great games about great topics. I’ve bought several of their games, and this game was highly recommended both on BGG and Miniature Wargames Magazine. This issue is a double feature about Peleliu and Wake. Both games feature area movement, are fast-paced, and designed to be solitaire games, so no opponent required. The magazine is still available from Against the Odds, and it looks like it would make a fun game.
Miniatures:
I’ve seen miniatures games about the final battle on Wake every so often. I saw a few games at Historicon in the 1990s, and both Wargames Illustrated and Combat Simulations magazine had some particularly good issues about wargaming the battle in miniature. St. Crispin’s Irregulars Wargaming Club in California also ran a few Wake Island games in 25mm in 2012 and 2015, Here are some pics of the 2012 game from The Miniatures Page.
Colin Rumford put on a Wake Island game in 1990 that was covered in this issue of Wargames Illustrated:
Wargames Illustrated
The game was run with some good-looking terrain at several UK shows and games out the final Japanese assault on the 23rd. The article has a short history of the battle, a map, rules, and clear victory conditions, as well as a nice order of battle at 1 figure – 10 men scale (which looks suspiciously like what Rapid Fire does now, I suspect these rules might have been a proto-Rapid Fire?)
Two last thoughts, one, the battle is small scale enough to make some excellent skirmish level scenarios for any of the skirmish optimized games out there like Chain of Command, Five Men in Normandy, and Nuts, as well as Bolt Action, come to mind.
Figures are certainly available for the island’s defenders, In 28mm, you have Steve Baber Models and Brigade Games has you covered for Americans. SNLF Japanese are equally available again from either Brigade Games, Company B, or Warlord Games in plastic.
In 20mm, you have Platoon 20 and Early War Miniatures. As for the Japanese, you’ve not got a ton of choices, but anybody with helmet covers should do the trick. They were common issues, and a decent paint job of most Japanese 20mm (SNLF tropical combat uniforms were a shade darker than Army uniforms), and they didn’t wear puttees early in the war but black boots.
In 15mm, you have Eureka, but beware, the Marines didn’t have Boys ATRs or any mortars. Again, for the Japanese, use my advice for the 20mm figures.
I’d also recommend Osprey’s Men at Arms #432 Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces, which is a good general work about them.
Another aspect to consider is the air war. VMF-211 put up a fight in proportion to its numbers, and their efforts would make several good games for such rules sets as Check Your Six, Bag the Hun, or other such rules sets. Any of them would be perfect for gaming out the drama in the skies over Wake.
Further Reading:
Two books I recommend, both are easily available on Amazon:
- Given Up for Dead, by Bill Sloan, Bantam Books, New York, 2003
- Wake Island, Osprey Campaign Series #144, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2011
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At Epoch Xperience, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse Epoch Xperience’s service on our parent site, SJR Research.
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(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)