Sunday in Hell, page 65
On landing, about forty minutes after takeoff, Hamilton went to Cunningham’s office while the aircraft was being refueled. Cunningham cleared him to take off again, subject to his orders and suggested the crew take a patrol flight with F4F Wildcats escorting, before leaving for Midway, which Hamilton agreed to do - with a 1300 hours takeoff. Commander Cunningham, an experienced aviator, laid out a plan that included escorting the Clipper with two F4Fs from VMF-211, and sufficient fuel for the Clipper to conduct the search, and the flight to Midway, with a reserve. The Japanese had other plans.
At 0710 that morning, 8 December, thirty-four Japanese Mitsubishi G3M Type 96 “Nell” land attack planes of the Chitose Air Group lifted off from the airstrip at Roi, in the Marshall Islands. Shortly before noon they came in on Wake at 13,000 feet. Clouds cloaked their approach and the pounding of the surf drowned out the noise of their engines as they dropped down to 1,500 feet and roared in from the sea. Lookouts sounded the alarms as they spotted the twin-engine, twin-tailed bombers a few hundred yards off the atoll’s south shore, emerging from a dense bank of clouds. They attacked Wake Island just prior to noon, and within ten minutes the area was a shambles. (The raid at Wake was 7 December and just prior to 2:00 p.m. Hawaiian time. Wake Island is across the international dateline.)
Hamilton, who a few minutes before the raid began had left Commander Cunningham’s office just arrived at the hotel by car, and due to construction had to walk - looked up to see the oncoming Nells. He ducked into one of the drain pipes, and later recalled they came in nine-plane, close formation. The first nine started by machine gunning the construction camp. The second nine began the bombing, dropping what appeared to him to be small bombs of about 150 pounds. He said, “The bombs fired the hotel, destroyed the Pan American buildings and dock, but didn’t hit the Clipper. However there were 16 bullet holes in the plane. By good fortune no bullets struck a vital spot.”
The garrison at Wake Island took a terrible blow in the air attack, which was to become a daily ritual. Warned at 6:50 a.m. the morning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the 1st Marine Defense Battalion, which numbered 449 men including the twelve VMF-211 pilots delivered by the Enterprise, had arrived on the Island 19 August. The garrison was still building its base and defenses, and had not yet received its radar, which was still in Hawaii. Lacking radar, and with no revetments to protect the aircraft from bombs, the garrison immediately went on wartime footing, and it was decided to keep four of the twelve Wildcats airborne on patrol as a hedge against surprise attack. One two-plane section, Captain Henry T. Elrod and Second Lieutenant Carl R. Davidson flew north, Second Lieutenant John F. Kinney and Technical Sergeant William J. Hamilton flew to the south, southwest at 13,000 feet. Both sections were to remain in the immediate vicinity of the island.
Visibility was poor, and the four Wildcats failed to spot the Japanese aircraft. Seven of the eight Wildcats on the ground were destroyed. Worst of all, VMF-211 lost twenty-three men dead and eleven wounded, including two pilots killed, from among fifty-five total aviation personnel on the ground. No Japanese aircraft were lost. At one stroke, VMF-211 lost 75 percent of its aircraft and over 60 percent of its personnel. Pan American’s base suffered a knockout blow.57
In the book, Pan American’s Pacific Pioneers, The Rest of the Story, author Jon E. Krupnick, recorded the “Report of Attack on Wake,” written by John B. Cooke, the manager of Pan Am’s Wake Island base.
After the bombing attack was over, I was bleeding some about the face and body, but a quick check assured me I had no injury of consequence.
I then left what was left of the building to see how others fared, proceeding directly to the hotel about a half block distant. This framed building of 40 rooms and spacious lobby and dining room was badly battered and one wing was already ablaze. Several minutes search revealed no one there and in leaving I noted what appeared to be all of the white Pan Am personnel on the dock or approaching it and the Clipper’s engines were being started.
At first it seemed to me to be a bit cowardly to think of leaving, but there would have been no purpose in remaining. Every Pan Am building had been hit and several were burning. Power was gone and radio was gone, all was gone. The station had been rendered useless.
A check revealed 16 bullet holes in the Clipper, but miraculously, somehow, the gas tanks and engines were not damaged. To leave meant saving the airplane and ourselves so we left.
Thirty-seven of us [including crew members], plus fuel, made a terrific load for the Martin. The first try for take-off failed, as did the second. For a third, the safety factor was nil as already the engines had been full throttled longer than cylinders ordinarily stand. But Captain Hamilton promptly taxied back for another try. This time he kept full speed the entire length of the runway. When the point had been reached where it was either take off or crash, the plane lifted and retained sufficient altitude to cross the island. We then skimmed the water for several hours. Necessarily, and to better avoid detection. At nightfall we took a respectable altitude that remained well aloft until we neared Midway, which we reached at midnight…58
Ten Pan Am Chamorro employees from Guam were killed in the attack on Wake Island. As soon as the bombers left Wake and the damage assessment was complete, Captain Hamilton cancelled the proposed reconnaissance flight, and ordered the M-130 stripped of all extraneous equipment and cargo. With the passengers aboard, he lifted off for the 1,185-mile flight to Pan Am’s blacked out base at Midway, and was about forty miles from their base when he reported seeing two warships heading away from Midway. When he landed just prior to midnight, he learned the island was shelled that afternoon.
They left Midway a little over an hour later, this time with the destination Pearl City on Oahu. For a time, they took a course toward the alternate landing area at Hilo, fearing they wouldn’t be cleared to land at the Pearl City terminal. They were then informed the way was clear at Pearl Harbor.
The escape from Wake Island by the Philippine Clipper was one piece of good fortune in the midst of an attack that foreshadowed a far greater disaster for Wake Island’s defenders fifteen days hence. Departing from Pearl City, Hawaii, the afternoon of 9 December Captain Hamilton flew the Philippine Clipper under radio silence to Pan Am’s base at Treasure Island, and arrived 10 December. All except the crew and one company executive, Frank McKenzie, airport maintenance engineer, were left at Honolulu, where they were evacuated to the mainland by ship.59
The Philippine Clipper, after landing at Pan Am’s Treasure Island terminal in San Francisco harbor, 10 December 1941. The aircraft landed in San Francisco still carrying the 16 bullet holes from the Japanese attack at Wake Island. UML
The Philippine Clipper’s return trip had been harrowing, but the experience of Captain Hamilton, his crew and passengers wasn’t quite as unnerving as were the travails of the Hong Kong Clipper’s Captain Fred S. Ralph, his crew, and passengers. On hearing of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Pan Am man in charge of the company’s interest in the China National Aviation Corporation, William Langhorne Bond, ordered the Hong Kong Clipper to fly to an inland lake near Kunming, but before the plane could be readied for departure, the Japanese struck Hong Kong. Just six hours after Commander Mitsuo Fuchida’s air armada began savaging Pearl Harbor and other military targets on Oahu, the Hong Kong Clipper lay tied at her dock at Kai-tak Airport on Kowloon Peninsula, when Japanese bombers passed over the city, unloading their bombs on the airport’s runway and firing incendiary bullets, setting the Sikorsky S-42 on fire. The airplane burned to the water’s edge, the Pan Am Clippers’ only casualty of the war due to enemy action.
The Pacific Clipper landed safely at Auckland, New Zealand that day, then continued and completed an unplanned, but necessary 31,500-mile around-the-world odyssey, landing at the LaGuardia Marine Air Terminal on 6 January 1942.60
The SS Lurline, Homeward Bound in Wartime Conditions
When the Anzac Clipper’s Captain Turner learned of the Japanese attack that morning, forty minutes before their estimated time of arrival at Pan American’s Pearl City terminal, the SS Lurline was still on course toward San Francisco. Everything had quietly begun to change for Lurline’s officers and crew some minutes earlier. Her skipper, Commodore Charles A. Berndtson, and First Officer John Van Orden had been told of the exchange of messages with the SS Cynthia Olson by Lurline’s Chief Officer, Edward Collins.
After Collins notified the Commodore and First Officer, and Van Orden had plotted the Cynthia Olson’s position: about 300 miles bearing 005 degrees true from Lurline, Collins returned to the radio shack. At that time he found Mr. Nelson copying another message, this one from the U.S. Navy. The message exchanges with the Cynthia Olson, which began at 8:30 a.m., 7:30 on Oahu, raised several important but unanswerable questions, until 10:15, when Collins returned to bring Berndtson the Navy message telling of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Collins recalled, though the messages from the Cynthia Olson were most unusual, “…we were shocked to receive the Navy message that we were at war. When Commodore Berndtson read the war message, his face mirrored the shock and deep responsibility he immediately recognized to be his.” On receiving word of the Japanese attack, Berndtson and his officers realized immediately a Japanese submarine must have attacked the Cynthia Olson, and there could be no doubt there was at least one enemy submarine between Lurline and San Francisco.
After a quick consultation in the chart room, Berndtson decided that two obvious orders must be executed without delay: change course to get off the Great Circle Route (the most direct route between two points on the earth’s surface) and increase to full speed. These two decisions were Lurline’s best available defense against submarine attack. She carried no deck guns, no radar, no submarine detection gear, and no airplanes to catapult and scout ahead for submarines or enemy surface craft that might be lying in wait. The only sensors available to her were the eyes of watchful crewmembers and passengers.
Naval and military officers aboard were gathered together, they were informed of the situation and a staff formed to enforce military security.
The commodore told Collins to inform the Chief Engineer, Ray Sample, what had occurred and to increase to full speed. Collins went aft to Sample’s quarters and found him at his desk working over his morning reports. When Collins told him the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, “…we were at war,” and the commodore wanted all boilers on line for full speed, Ray Sample didn’t question or comment - he simply got up from his desk and left his quarters. The only thing heard from him was the closing of the elevator door as he took the quickest and shortest way to the engine room to prepare for flank speed, Lurline’s full 22 knots.
Berndtson and Collins decided other shipboard measures were necessary during the remaining daylight hours. What needed to be done had to be done quickly and efficiently. The passengers could be briefed on the turn of events later. The two officers got the deck gang together, instructed them to break out all the paint in the paint locker, and immediately begin painting the windows on the decks, to black them out so that no lights from the inside would be detected by enemy craft. Fortunately, there were considerable quantities of blue and other dark-colored paints to darken the vessel.
Commodore Berndtson ordered the chief steward to close bars and remove the liquor to the store rooms. According to Collins, “The passengers were amazed to see what was going on. Perhaps some of them surmised that we were at war…” Unquestionably, the passengers were more than a bit curious, and among them there must have been an undercurrent of rumors and growing apprehension. But Collins observed no hysteria, undue excitement or outward alarm. They clearly knew that something unusual had occurred when crew members proceeded to paint the inside of windows in the public rooms and the portholes in their own rooms, and when crew members removed electric lamps to dim the interior of the ship.
At 5:00 p.m., Commodore Berndtson assembled the passengers in the First Class Lounge and told them what had happened. He told them what he knew of the attack at Pearl Harbor, and frankly stated he didn’t know which port the vessel would be instructed to dock - either San Francisco or Los Angeles. Passengers were told to surrender all radios and other electrical apparatus because they could be used by Japanese submarines to locate our position. They were then advised that the situation was serious, but there was no reason for undue alarm.
They were asked to expedite their meals in order to reduce the time they would be grouped in one area - and at all times to carry their life preservers. This last instruction before opening up to questions, must have been particularly sobering. There had been the obligatory life boat drills on leaving Honolulu, the precautionary norm under any circumstance when beginning a voyage. But this was markedly different. “At all times carry life preservers.” Not a pleasant order to ponder.
When the commodore asked if there were any questions, a somewhat strained silence ensued. Finally, an elderly woman said she was booked for Los Angeles and if the ship was going to stop in San Francisco, how would she get there? The captain responded saying he was unable to advise her on how to get to Los Angeles, as he was hoping only that he could get her to San Francisco. His answer seemed to break the tension among the passengers, and they all had a hearty laugh.
As darkness settled in, a watch of six able seamen was set on the leeward side of the bridge deck, to be available for night time emergencies requiring experienced sailors. In the steward’s mess room about twenty men from the steward’s department were on station throughout the night, available for emergencies in the vessel’s interior. Fortunately, none occurred, and there was no need to use any of these men during the three nights voyage.
Though the crew welcomed the night and the darkness, neither gave the measure of security hoped for, because it was a period of the full moon. The sky and the atmosphere were unusually clear. The moon reflecting on the water was a ribbon of silver from horizon to horizon, with the now-all-too-beautiful white hull of the Lurline illuminated by the moonlight. They felt as though the periscope of every Japanese submarine was watching them.
The tense race for safety was undoubtedly remembered for a lifetime by those aboard - the great white ship shining in the bright moonlight, racing for home at her full 22 knots while her passengers in life jackets scanned the horizon, hoping for a protective blanket of fog or a heavy rainstorm.61
At 2:00 a.m. the morning of 10 December, the Lurline slipped under the Golden Gate Bridge, just as air raid sirens plunged the city into darkness for the second time that night. She docked at 3:27 a.m. and by daylight the passengers were cleared completely through the necessary inspections.
At noon, 11 December, company officials handed her over to the U.S. Maritime Commission under a demise charter arrangement wherein Matson’s ship, crew, and supplies were placed at the disposal of the Government, with Matson operating the ship under order either of the U.S. Navy or U.S. Army Transport Service as the sub-charter changed from voyage to voyage.
In a few short days, the SS Lurline’s bright, white coat would receive multiple coats of admiralty gray, specifically intended to better hide her from the enemy. The outward change would be matched by dramatic changes inside. All trappings of luxury disappeared, along with openness and the sweeping grandeur of a once-proud cruise liner built for happiness and relaxation on the high seas. War was closing round her evermore tightly, while to the southwest of Oahu, three other ships which had received word of the attack on Pearl Harbor, were on course for Honolulu: the American Presidents Line’s SS President Coolidge, the U.S. Army Transport General Hugh L. Scott - formerly the President Pierce – and the United States Navy’s light cruiser, Louisville (CL-28).62
The Cruiser, the President and the Former President
The 9,050-ton Louisville, under command of Captain Elliott B. Nixon, left Manila Harbor on 25 November and steamed south to Tarakan, Netherland East Indies (Borneo), where she stayed 27-28 November, refueled, then, on the 28th sailed east, northeast, under orders to rendezvous with and escort the Coolidge and Scott to Honolulu.
Light cruiser Louisville (CL-28) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 26 May 1942. NA
On Saturday, 29 November, at 0904 hours, while on an east, southeasterly course of 110 degrees, the watch on Louisville’s bridge sighted the superstructure of the Scott, distant about 21 miles, and four minutes later sighted the Coolidge, commanded by Captain Henry Nelson, 18 miles distant. Both ships were off Louisville’s starboard quarter and the cruiser was on a converging course. At 1130 she joined with the two larger ships to escort them to Honolulu, with Coolidge in the lead as guide, and continued east, southeast toward Goode Island, Australia and Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa. At the time the three ships rendezvoused, the carrier Enterprise with Task Force 8, was two days west out of Pearl Harbor, en route to deliver the squadron of F4F Wildcat fighters to the garrison at Wake Island.63
On board the ten-year-old, 21,936-ton liner Coolidge, only fifty-four feet longer than the 600-foot, sleek, faster, cruiser Louisville, were missionaries, Manila businessmen; several score young Chinese, believed en route to join others of their countrymen at Army Air Force training centers; Russian and British diplomatic figures who had left China ahead of the renewed Japanese drive deep into that country; U.S. military and diplomatic dependents who left China, Japan, the Philippines and other southeast Asian countries, voluntarily leaving on urging of the State Department; an American businessman, John J. Waldron, a World War I veteran who had been in China eighteen years, developed a thriving carpet business, and by chance had left the Chinese capital for Shanghai to arrange for shipment of a $25,000 cargo of raw materials to America; and many others. A luxury cruise ship capable of providing service to a maximum of 988 passengers, Coolidge’s normal complement of 290 officers and men was expecting a reasonably routine voyage to Honolulu and on to San Francisco in spite of the tension in the Far East.64
