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Japanese Forces Bomb Guam And Midway

In the Pacific... Japanese forces bomb Guam and Wake and Midway is bombarded by Japanese destroyers. The United States took control of Guam in the 1898 Spanish-American War. Guam came to serve as a station for American ships traveling to and from the Philippines, while the northern Mariana islands passed to Germany then Japan. Midway was a convenient refueling stop on transpacific flights, and was also an important stop for Navy ships.

Slightly more than 1,500 miles to the southwest of Wake, and about halfway to the Philippines, was another isolated American possession completely surrounded by Japanese-mandated islands - Guam. Here was a relatively large island, thirty miles long and from four to eight and one-half wide. The navy had maintained it as an important station for the Asiatic Fleet, and there was a powerful radio station on the island. Guam had always been a thorn in Japan's side.

Guam was the only island of the Marianas, or Ladrones, not under Japanese mandate. The important enemy base of Saipan was only 128 miles to the north. Rota was sixty-three miles away. Truk, the powerful key-base built up by the Japs in the west-central Pacific, was 635 miles to the southeast and Yap was less than 500 miles southwest. Guam was literally besieged even before the first shot had been fired. At 8:45 on the morning of December 7 eighteen land-based bombers swooped down upon Guam and immediately wrecked the radio station. Warships appeared offshore and opened a bombardment. At 4:45 in the afternoon six more planes came over to pick out objectives that might have escaped. Guam was cut off from the rest of the world at the outset but had not surrendered. Sixteen hundred miles to the west lay the Philippine Islands, now bursting into flames.

The word came at 0545 on 8 December (7 December, Pearl Harbor time). Captain McMillin was informed of the enemy attack by the Commander in Chief of the Asiatic. Fleet. In less than three hours Saipan-based Japanese bombers were over the island.

The initial enemy target was the mine sweeper USS Penguin in Apra Harbor; this small ship's 3-inch and .50 caliber guns were the only weapons larger than .30 caliber machine guns available to the Guam garrison. Under repeated attacks, the Penguin went to the bottom, and her survivors joined the forces ashore. The attack continued throughout the daylight hours with flights of bombers hitting the various naval installations and strafing roads and villages. The island capital, Agana, was cleared of civilians, and the few local Japanese were rounded up and interned.

That night a native dugout landed near Ritidian Point on the northern cape of the island, and the three men in it were captured. They claimed to be Saipan natives sent over to be on hand as interpreters when the Japanese landed. These natives insisted that the Japanese intended to land the next morning (9 December) on beaches near Agana. Captain McMillin suspected a trick. He believed that by this ruse the Japanese sought to draw the Marines out of their prepared positions in the butts of the rifle range at Sumay on Orote Peninsula. He decided not to allow this information to cause a shift of his major defensive force from a position which guarded important Apra Harbor.

By guess or knowledge the Saipan natives had one of the landing sites located accurately, but they were off on their time. The 9th brought no landing, but the bombers came back to give Guam another pounding. The Insular Force Guard was posted to protect government buildings in Agana, but the rest of the island's garrison remained at their assigned posts. Lieutenant Colonel William K. McNulty's 122 Marines of the Sumay barracks continued to improve their rifle range defenses, and the 28 Marines who were assigned to the Insular Patrol, the island's police force, kept their stations in villages throughout Guam.

After the Japanese bombers finished for the day all was quiet until about 0400 on 10 December. At that time flares burst over Dungcas Beach north of Agana, and some 400 Japanese sailors of the 5th Defense Force from Saipan came ashore. While the naval landing party moved into Agana where it clashed with the Insular Force Guard, elements of the Japanese South Seas Detached Force (approximately 5,500 men) made separate landings at Tuition Bay in the north, on the southwest, coast near Merizo, and on the eastern shore of the island at Talafofo Bay.

At Agana's plaza the lightly-armed Guamanians, commanded by Marine First Lieutenant Charles S. Todd, stood off the early Japanese attacks, but their rifles and machine guns did not provide enough firepower to hold against a coordinated attack by the Dungcas Beach landing force. Captain McMillin, aware of the overwhelming superiority of the enemy, decided not to endanger the lives of the thousands of civilians in lois charge by further and fruitless resistance. "The situation was simply hopeless," he later related." He surrendered the island to the Japanese naval commander shortly after 0600, and sent. orders to the Marines at Sunray not. to resist. The word did not reach all defenders, however, and scattered fighting continued throughout the day as the enemy spread out to complete occupation of the island. But this amounted to only token resistance. There was no chance that the determined Japanese might be driven off by a force so small, even if the defenders could have regrouped. Guam had fallen, and it. would be two and a half years before the United States was in a position to win it. back.

During the two days of bombing and in the fighting on 10 December, the total garrison losses were 19 killed and 42 wounded including four Marines killed and 12 wounded. The civilian population suffered comparable but undetermined casualties. The Japanese evacuated American members of the garrison to prison camps in Japan on 10 January 1942, and the enemy naval force that load been present at the surrender settled down to duty as occupation troops.

Part of the Japanese striking force which raided Pearl Harbor was a task unit of two destroyers and a tanker which proceeded independently from Tokyo Bay to a separate target - Midway. The mission of the destroyers was implied in their designation as the Midway Neutralization Unit; they were to shell the atoll's air base on the night of 7 December while the Japanese carrier force retired from the Hawaiian area.

Dawn of 7 December found five seaplanes of Midway's patrol bomber squadron (VP-21) aloft on routine search missions; two other (Dutch) patrol bombers had just taken off for Wake, next leg of their journey to the Netherlands East Indies. On the Sand Island seaplane ramp two more PBYs (Catalina patrol bombers) were warming up to guide in VMSB-231 which was scheduled to fly off the Lexington that day. At 0630 (0900 Pearl Harbor time) a Navy radio operator's signal from Oahu flashed the first news of the Pearl Harbor attack. A few minutes later a dispatch from Admiral Bloch confirmed this report and directed that current war plans be placed in effect.

Commander Cyril T. Simard, the Island Commander, recalled the Dutch PBYs (which were then put to use by VP-21), established additional air search sectors, and ordered Lieutenant Colonel Harold D. Shannon's 6th Defense Battalion to general quarters. The remainder of the day was spent in preparation for blackout, and in issuing ammunition, digging foxholes, and testing communications. All lights and navigational aids were extinguished after it was learned that the Lexington, with VMSB-231 still on board, had been diverted to seek the enemy's Pearl Harbor striking force.

Air searches returned late in the day without having sighted any signs of Japanese ships or planes, and the atoll buttoned up for the night with all defensive positions fully manned. At 1842, a Marine lookout saw a flashing light some distance southwest of Sand Island, but it quickly disappeared, and it was about 2130 before the one operational radar on Sand began picking up what seemed to be surface targets in the same general direction. Simultaneously two other observers, equipped with powerful 8x56 night glasses, reported seeing "shapes" to seaward.

Shannon's searchlight battery commander, First Lieutenant Alfred L. Booth, requested permission to illuminate, but his request was turned down. Senior officers did not want to risk premature disclosure of defensive positions. It was also erroneously believed that friendly ships were in the area, and there were strict orders against illuminating or firing without specific orders.

The apprehension of these observers was justified. The Japanese destroyers Akebono and Ushio had left their tanker Skiriya at a rendezvous point some 15 miles away and made landfall on the atoll at about 2130. By the time Lieutenant Booth had been cautioned about his searchlights, the two enemy ships had their guns trained on Midway and were ready to make their first firing run. The firing began at 2135.

The first salvos fell short, but as the destroyers closed range on a northeast course the shells began to explode on Sand Island. The initial hits struck near Battery A's 5-inch seacoast guns at the south end of the island, and subsequent rounds bracketed the island's power plant, a reinforced concrete structure used also as the command post of a .50 caliber antiaircraft machine-gun platoon. One round came through an air vent and exploded inside the building. The Japanese ships then suspended fire while they closed on the atoll for a second firing run.

In the island's power plant First Lieutenant George H. Cannon, although severely wounded, directed the re-establishment of wrecked communications and the evacuation of other wounded. He refused evacuation for his own wounds until after Corporal Harold R. Hazelwood had put the switchboard back in operation. Cannon died a few minutes after reaching the aid station, but for this action lie received. posthumous award of the Medal of Honor. He was the first Marine so honored in World War II.

Meanwhile the enemy ships opened fire again, this time at closer range, and Commander Simard ordered Shannon to engage targets of opportunity. Japanese shells set the roof of the seaplane hangar on Sand ablaze, lighting up the target for the enemy gunners, and accurate salvos struck the Pan American radio installation, the island laundry, and adjacent shops. At 2153 the Marine searchlight. crews got Shannon's orders to illuminate, but by then only the light on the south end of Sand could bear on the ships. This light silhouetted the Akebono about 2,500 yards south of the island, before a near miss from one of the destroyers put it out of commission. Crewmen reacted immediately to get the light back in action and on target, but. Battery A's 5-inchers stayed silent because communication damage had prevented passing of Shannon's command to open fire.

But Captain Jean H. Buckner, commanding Battery D's 3-inch antiaircraft guns, could now see the large Japanese battle flag on the Akebono's foremast, and he ordered his guns into action. Splashes could not be made out, although illumination was excellent, and Buckner's fire controlmen were positive that the shells were either passing through the ships' superstructures or into their hulls. Battery B (First Lieutenant Rodney M. Handley) on Eastern Island now added its 5-inch fire to the battle and .50 caliber machine guns opened up on the targets which were well within range. This firing from the Marine batteries kept up for five minutes before the Japanese succeeded in knocking out the searchlight. Although some observers believed that the Ushio had also been hulled, results of this Marine fire have never been determined. Both Japanese ships retired soon after the light was shot out and a Pan American clipper captain flying overhead that night en route from Wake reported seeing an intense fire on the surface of the sea and the wakes of two ships on the logical retirement course of the destroyers. Both enemy ships, however, returned to Japan safely, despite any damage that might have been done by the Marine guns.

The enemy fire had cost the 6th Defense Battalion two killed and ten wounded; two men from the naval air station were killed and nine wounded. Material damage on Midway was not too severe and was confined to Sand Island; the airfield on Eastern Island was not touched. The seaplane hangar had burned, although the frame was still intact, and one plane was lost in the flames. Another PBY was badly damaged by shell fragments, and fragments also caused minor damage to a number of buildings. The garrison had stood off its first Japanese attack, but there was little comfort in this. The defenders estimated - correctly - that the enemy would be back sooner or later with a much more serious threat.

With the outbreak of war, completion of the coastal and antiaircraft defenses of Midway took first priority and Marines were treated to the welcome and unusual sight of the civilian contractor's heavy equipment turned to on dugout and battery construction. Authorities at Pearl Harbor were determined to get reinforcements to the atoll and within a week after VMSB-231 made its historic long flight from Oahu, two batteries of the 4th Defense Battalion with additional naval 3-inch and 7-inch guns for coast defense were being unloaded. On Christmas, the Brewster Buffaloes of VMF-221 flew in from the Saratoga Which had been rushed out to Pearl from San Diego after the Japanese attack. This carrier had taken part in the abortive attempt to relieve Wake. The next day the island received another contingent of 4th Defense Battalion men, the ground echelon of VMF221, and much needed defense materiel when the seaplane tender Tangier, which had also been headed for Wake, unloaded at Midway instead. By the end of December the atoll, which was now Hawaii's most important outpost, had for its garrison a heavily reinforced defense battalion, a Marine scout-bomber and a fighter squadron, and VP-21's patrol bombers. Midway was in good shape to greet the Japanese if they came back, and the passage of every month in the new year made the atoll a tougher nut to crack.

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