Sloan - Given up for dead: Americas heroic stand at Wake Island

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More Praise forGIVEN UPforDEAD

Given Up for Dead is the riveting account of a small garrison of Marines, sailors, and civilian workers who handed the Japanese their first defeat of World War II in the Pacific. It is poignant, solidly researched, and told with brilliance and sensitivity. My hope is that this book will serve as a lasting tribute to a remarkable and heroic group of men.

General P. X. Kelley, USMC (Ret.), 28th Commandant of the Marine Corps

[Given Up for Dead is] a gripping account... clear, concise... at times like a thriller.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Given Up for Dead is a welcome find.... It is the fifteen days of siege forming the core of the book that most readers are quite likely to remember most vividly.... By producing a nuanced account instead of a jingoistic, gung-ho glorification of a distant battle in a long-ago war, Sloan has added a valuable book to World War II literature.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A powerful new narrative... Sloan does an outstanding job in telling the story of these heroes... and giving a critical analysis of the various commanders actions.

Flint Journal

AUTHORS NOTE

During forty-five years as a journalist, editor, and author, Ive encountered hundreds of good storiesbut only a few truly great ones. The story of Wake Island definitely belongs in the latter category because it symbolizes the heights to which the human spirit can rise in the worst imaginable conditions. Its a story of misery and suffering, blood and death, defeat and despair, but its also one of resourcefulness, tenacity, comradeship, and incredible courage.

Truthfully, I stumbled onto it quite by accident. The project started early in 2001 with a phone call from my agent, Jim Donovan, who asked if I knew of any World War II stories most Americans might not have heard before.

A few days later, I mentioned Jims inquiry to Floyd Wood, an old friend and avid history buff. Help me out here, I said, kidding. Whats the most heroic untold story you can think of about World War II?

The first two words out of Floyds mouth were: Wake Island.

I faintly recalled Wake as one of those small Pacific outposts that fell to the Japanese early in the war. But my hazy recollections didnt include a single detail. Floyd quickly filled me in.

It was actually a victory of sortsat least the first part of the battle was, he explained. When the Japanese came to invade the island, the Marines played possum until the invasion fleet moved in close to shore. Then they opened up on them with their five-inch batteries and the few planes they had and sank or damaged a lot of enemy ships. The Japanese had to call off the invasion and limp back to Kwajalein to regroup. It was the first time theyd been stopped anywhere.

Floyd lent me a copy of a book called The Story of Wake Island, originally published in 1947 and written by Colonel James P. S. Devereux, who commanded the Marine detachment on Wake. It was the kind of story that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck if there was an iota of patriotism in your makeup.

I learned from the book that over 1,100 civilian construction workers had been trapped on Wake when the war broke out, and a search of the Internet turned up a civilian survivors organization, located in Boise, Idaho. I reached the groups president, Chalas Loveland, who, in turn, gave me the name and number of Franklin D. Gross, an ex-Marine in Independence, Missouri, who published a quarterly newsletter for military survivors of Wake.

Frank Gross turned out to be a walking directory of Wake Island veterans and a gold mine of information on individual stories of valor and heroism, some of which had never been fully told before.

Frank put me in touch with one Wake veteran who was practically a neighbor of mine. A retired Marine colonel named Bryghte D. Godbold had been a captain and strongpoint commander on Wake, and he lived just a few miles from my home in Dallas. When I did my initial interview with Godbold in June 2001, he was the first Wake Islander Id met face-to-face.

Not all the news was encouraging. Many Wake veterans had died within the past few years, and former Sergeant Charles Holmes of Bonham, Texas, who compiled one of the nations most extensive collections of Wake Island memorabilia, had been dead for more than a decade. No one seemed to know what had happened to Holmess collection in the interim, and numerous inquiries failed to turn up any information on its whereabouts.

But when Gross mentioned former Private First Class Wiley Sloman, then living in Harlingen in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, my excitement level soared. Here was just what Id been searching foran ordinary young Marine with a truly extraordinary story. Here was a virtually unknown saga of personal courage and nail-biting drama that could form the catalyst for a broader look at the Wake Islanders valiant stand against impossible odds, the flawed command decisions that sealed their fate, and the forced surrender that none of them wanted.

A crewman on a five-inch battery that sank the first major Japanese warship in the Pacific, Sloman had been shot through the head and left for dead on the battlefield. He lay there for three days, until he was found clinging to life by a burial detail collecting enemy corpses.

As soon as I heard Slomans story from his own lips, I knew what the title of my Wake Island book should be:

Given Up for Dead.

In late 1941 and early 1942, the battle for Wake was viewed as an event of immense historical import, but in later years it faded into an obscure footnote on the Pacific war. In this book dozens of young Americans from every corner of the country and every type of background bring their epic struggle back to life. Day by day and hour by hour, they describe how they endured, adjusted, fought onand survivedin circumstances as horrific as any nightmare.

Many of them were little more than boys when they fought for their lives and their nations honor in Americas first real battle of World War II. But they were fully ready to die at their guns, and, in fact, most were sad or angry that they werent given that right. Now theyre old men, grateful for their lives but still gripped by conflicting feelings, still harboring a sense of regret that they werent allowed to choose death above the dishonor of surrender.

For the most part, other Wake Island books have been broad overviews by military commanders or professional historians. Given Up for Dead, on the other hand, places the reader down in the sweat, smoke, and grime of foxholes and gun pits, where bullets whine, bombs explode, coral splinters fly, blood spurts, rats bite, men scream, and death is never more than inches away.

The saga of Wake is an old storyin many cases, an overlooked or never-heard storybut one you arent soon likely to forget. I believe the men who defended Wake Island sixty-plus years ago merit a permanent spot in our national consciousness, along with the heroes of Bunker Hill, the Alamo, Gettysburg, San Juan Hill, and the Argonne Forest.

Ive never met a group of men that I admired more. If this book can help them achieve the respect and remembrance they deserve from present and future generations of Americans, I could ask for nothing else.

Many people helped make this great story a reality. Without Frank Grosss contacts and his constant willingness to solve puzzles and provide information, Id never have gotten to first base. I lost count of the hours I spent with Wiley Sloman, both in person and on the phone. When he died suddenly just as the manuscript was nearing completion, I lost not only an invaluable source but a true friend as well.