Here Come the Marines!: The Story of the Devil Dogs, from Tripoli to Wake Island

By Alexander R. Griffin

After the bitter fighting against the U.S. Marines in Belleau Wood during WWI, the German commanders on the spot wrote to their high command that they were fighting “Teufel Hunde” or Devil Dogs. The ferocious nickname stuck to the U.S. Marine Corps, who referred to themselves as Devil Dogs to this day.

In this gripping account, written soon after the U.S. entry to WWII and the heroic defence of Wake Island came to a close, veteran writer Alexander Griffin recounts the famous history of the Marine Corps. From the shores of Tripoli, through the Halls of Montezuma to the hellish conditions of the Pacific the grit, determination and fighting spirit of the U.S. Marines shines through.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eschenburg Press
• Release date: Jan 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787209244

Alexander R. Griffin

Alexander Ross Mckenzie Griffin (January 26, 1903 - June 26, 1959) was born in Ontario, Canada in 1903 to William Wallace Griffin and Jean Griffin (born Wood). He is the author of three books on the subject of World War II: Here Come the Marines! The Story of the Devil Dogs, from Tripoli to Wake Island (1942), A Ship to Remember: The Saga of the Hornet (1943), and Out of Carnage (1945). He passed away in Philadelphia in 1959 at the age of 56.

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Text originally published in 1942 under the same title.

© Papamoa Press 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

HERE COME THE MARINES!

The Story of the Devil Dogs, from Tripoli to Wake Island

BY

ALEXANDER GRIFFIN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 5

THE MARINES’ HYMN 6

1. SEND US MORE JAPS 7

2. MY HEAD OR YOURS! 12

3. MEN AGAINST THE SEA 19

4. WAINWRIGHT AND THE PRISON MUTINEERS 28

5. PIRATES OF QUALLAH BATOO 32

6. FIGHTING THE REDSKINS 37

7. PUNISHING THE FIJI CANNIBALS 41

8. IN THE KRAALS OF THE SLAVE TRADERS 46

9. TO THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA 50

10. WHEN PERRY BLUFFED THE JAPS 55

11. THE HOWLING FOEMAN OF KOREA 60

12. AMBUSHED BY SOUTH SEA SAVAGES 65

13. THE FORBIDDEN CITY 69

14. AGUINALDO AND THE HEADHUNTERS 76

15. THE KILLER THAT CARRIES NO WEAPONS 81

16. WHY MARINES ARE CALLED DEVIL DOGS 85

17. THE MARINE WHO BECAME A KING 89

18. IN THE JUNGLE OF NICARAGUA 94

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 97

DEDICATION

TO CHRIS AND SANDRA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the Historical Section, Headquarters, United States Marine Corps; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the University of Pennsylvania Library; the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia office of the Marine Corps Publicity Bureau, and the works of such renowned historians as Richard S. Collum, Captain, U.S.M.C.; E. N. McClellan, Lieut. Colonel, U.S.M.C.; Harry A. Ellsworth, Captain, U.S.M.C.; J. Fennimore Cooper and others the author freely acknowledges his indebtedness for source material.

To Charles E. Fisher, Mary MacNeill Griffin and William C. Driscoll goes his gratitude for advice and assistance.

THE MARINES’ HYMN

From the Halls of Montezuma

To the shores of Tripoli,

We fight our country’s battles

On the land as on the sea.

First to fight for right and freedom

And to keep our honor clean;

We are proud to claim the title

Of United States Marine.

Our flag’s unfurled to every breeze

From dawn to setting sun;

We have fought in every clime and place

Where we could take a gun;

In the snow of far-off northern lands

And in sunny tropic scenes,

You will find us always on the job—

The United States Marines.

Here’s health to you and to our Corps

Which we are proud to serve;

In many a strife we’ve fought for life

And never lost our nerve;

If the Army and the Navy

Ever look on Heaven’s scenes,

They will find the streets are guarded

By United States Marines.

1. SEND US MORE JAPS

THIRTEEN hundred miles to the west lay Guam, its radio already silenced. A thousand miles north-east was Midway; it too, fighting for its life. Two thousand miles directly east was Pearl Harbor, its bomber armada burned, its harbor a shambles. And betwixt them all—and 4,000 miles from home—was the strand of sand called Wake.

A Marine garrison, Wake Island; one of those lonely outposts with which the Corps has been associated since the days of John Paul Jones. Manning it were a cocky, little, 120-pound Major by the name of James P. S. Devereux, a dozen pilots grouped together under the title of Marine Fighter Squadron 211, the dozen officers and 365 enlisted men of the Second Defense Battalion, United States Marines, and a Navy specialist or two. And on that morning of December 7th, 1941—December 8th, really, by a peculiarity of international time—they were waiting grimly, watching the hot blue sky.

Only 350-odd miles to the south and bound to attack was a major task force of the enemy, the Japanese. Soon, his planes would roar in; his cruisers, destroyers and gunboats heave themselves over the horizon and his transport-borne troops pour onto the white sand beaches by the thousands. There would be little chance for a fight against odds like that.

But the United States Marines will tell you they were reared on fights against odds. Let them tell of Squadron 211 rocketing into the Heavens against odds of forty to one, until neither man nor machine was left; or of the ground crew, who thumbed noses at bombs and kept the crates in the air, virtually recreating them out of junk and wrecked parts. Let them tell of the pitifully inadequate equipment with which they put up their fight—a dozen Grumman single-seater Wildcats; a dozen 3-inch anti-aircraft guns, half of them lacking in fire directors and listening devices; only six coast defense guns, 18 heavy machine guns, 30 light machine guns and the hand grenades and the rifles without which no Marine feels completely dressed.

Let them tell of the Major who watched the Japs pour ashore in overwhelming numbers, but who sent word to headquarters, Enemy on island; the issue is in doubt. And of that other message that brought a lump of pride into the throats of all America—the message to Send more Japs.

They hadn’t much with which to fight, but they put on a show, those Devil Dogs. They wrote a new meaning into the motto of the Corps: Semper Fidelis...Always Faithful.

Once upon a time the ruling Shogun, or Dictator, of Japan crawled over the side of an American warship—the Iroquois it was—and begged the United States Marines to save his life. That was at Osaka during the Japanese civil war, back in 1868. But the Marines like to tell of it because it illustrates an occasion when the Japanese lost face.

Well, they lost face at Wake Island, too. And to that self-same Marine Corps.

The first bombers came over at noon, twelve flying in the van in a high V formation and twelve more right behind. And they hit Wake with all they had. Not one. Not a hundred. But nearly 300 big, black 100-pound fragmentation bombs, bombs that spewed death, mushroomed into fires and in seven short minutes ripped apart the parked planes of Marine Fighter Squadron 211 (in for refueling after almost five hours of ceaseful ocean patrol). They devastated the squadron’s airfield, its machine shop, its offices and living quarters, some of its gas tanks, the Pan American Airways hotel, a contractor’s machinery and a labor camp where some 1,200 civilians were sticking it out in an effort to complete Wake’s only partially built runways.

Did Devereux’s Marines run aboard a warship and beg for sanctuary? They did not. They got the ack-acks going, and what was left of Squadron 211—and it was only four planes—into the air. Then they banged away till Mr. Moto wheeled and sped off with Squadron 211 at his heels. Later that day they sent the Clipper home, buried their dead—and there were 25 or almost half of Squadron 211’s pilot and ground crew personnel among them—and then sat down and figured ways and means to get even.

Next morning the Jap was back with 27 planes. He stayed up high; not yet hit, but scared to death of Devereux’s ack-ack barrage. And true to form, he bombed the hospital, killing three of the wounded and the labor camp, taking just a fleeting shot at Squadron 211’s field.

But Squadron 211 was already in action, taking on odds of seven to one. Presently they shot a Nipponese bomber out of formation, and she came hurtling down, all aflame, into the serried line of the surf.

They came back again the next morning—27 planes at 20,000 feet; really beyond effective reach of the Marine-manned anti-aircraft guns. Squadron 211’s five single-seaters, still going strong, made sweeping charges at better than 300 miles an hour on Mr. Moto’s tail, and blasted two of his bombers out of the air. But Devereux knew now what the enemy was up to. The Jap was trying to soften the Second Defense Battalion, United States Marines, for a landing attempt.

He came before the dawn the next morning—twelve Jap ships, including light cruisers, destroyers, gunboats, two troop transports and landing barges. The Tokyo radio prematurely announced a landing on Wake. Maybe they thought this was it. But had the men of Osaka forgotten so soon about the jittery dictator?

Major Devereux waited until he saw the whites of their eyes. The Jap armada moved in. On the airfield, the little single-seaters tensed; then revved it up as they took off greatly overloaded with big, gray 100-pound demolition bombs slung beneath their cowls.

A hidden range finder, watching them soar, sang out the mark:

Six oh double oh...five oh double oh...four seven double oh....

And from the air and from the sand those Devildogs of Wake let the boys from Japan have it!

From the sky, Major Henry T. Elrod and Captain Frank C. Tharin, of Squadron 211, screeched down, plunging eight 100-pound bombs onto a cruiser’s deck—and every blow a pleasure. Down on the dunes, the five-inchers blazed. And a destroyer, and then another, and then a gunboat went under. Total bag for the day was not only a cruiser, two destroyers and a gunboat but two bombers also. But Major Elrod crashed on the beach. And now there were even fewer fighters....

It was at this juncture, they said in far-off Honolulu, that the Navy officials got Devereux’s battle report, and radioed back: Is there anything you want?

Yes, came the reply. Send us some more Japs.

Whether they asked for them or not, the tired men of Wake got Japs...and in bunches.

A Japanese four-engined flying boat was shot down soon after dawn, but on his heels 27 land-based bombers came over above 20,000 feet and gave Wake a pummelling. Lieut. David D. Kliewer caught a Japanese submarine on the surface that same day and sent her to the bottom.

But the Jap knew his place and he stayed there—at high level bombing. Wake was hit by 44 planes, again by 29, by 42, by 32, and 27 in succession. With patched up ships, the men of Squadron 211 went up again and again, bagging six more Japanese ships. But the odds were growing increasingly tough, for now the Squadron had only two ships of its own left. Sometimes only one could fly.

On the twelfth day of the siege there came once again to the ears of the Leathernecks still left on their feet the drone of engines in the sky. This time there was no cause for worry. An American patrol plane from Midway had come to see how things were going and to take away Major Walter L. J. Bayler, who had set up Wake’s radio station and who was needed elsewhere for similar duties.

The men of Wake gave Major Bayler a cheer, but it took courage to raise their voices. For Christmas was only five days off, and that plane soaring off to the East would probably be their last link with the land where Christmas still was celebrated.

Major Paul A. Putnam under whose command Squadron 211’s last two planes were still so gallantly fighting, seized the chance to send along a report. It was really a requiem.

Of the original personnel of 41 enlisted men and twelve officers, Major Putnam wrote, "nineteen enlisted men and eight officers are still on duty, although four of those enlisted men and two of their officers are slightly wounded.

Personnel are living in dugouts made by the contractor’s men. Not comfortable, but adequate against all but direct bomb hits. Sanitation is only fair, but so far have had only a mild flurry of diarrhea. Fresh water is adequate for drinking.

Never had more than four active planes. For the most part, only two, frequently one. There have been a total of