The defense of Wake Island in December 1941 became one of the only bright spots in a month of disasters for the United States and its Allies in the Pacific. A tiny garrison of Marines, Sailors, Army radiomen, and civilian contractors held out from Dec. 8–23 and even stopped the first Japanese landing attempt cold, sinking two destroyers and inflicting heavy casualties in the process. Early war coverage turned the defenders of the tiny atoll into instant heroes.
Wake Island Myth Became A Wartime Rallying Cry
Perhaps the most famous line to come out of the siege of Wake Island is an apocryphal reply to a supposed message from higher headquarters. When the defenders of Wake were asked what they needed after their stunning rebuff of the Japanese invasion, the Marines allegedly replied: “Send us more Japs!”
It’s a killer quote, up there with Gen. Anthony McAuliffe‘s “Nuts!” answer at Bastogne and Oliver P. Smith‘s Korean War line about fighting in another direction. But as cool as Wake Island’s cowboy response is, it also almost certainly never happened.
Historian Gregory Urwin and others have traced how the phrase spread in wartime media, not from any authenticated dispatch from Wake but from stateside reporting and public-relations storytelling. The line was repeated, embroidered, and eventually treated as fact, even long after the battle and World War II was over.
Wake Island Reality Proved Stronger Than Legend
The Naval Officer actually in command on the island, Cmdr. Winfield Cunningham, later explained that outgoing coded messages from the island were padded with nonsense phrases to confuse enemy codebreakers. Somewhere between Wake and Pearl Harbor, the padding included “send us” and “more Japs” as the padded junk words. The phrases were then misread as the actual content of a message (as was expected), and a propaganda legend was born. Cunningham’s account of that process appears in his memoir and is echoed in later retellings.
There’s a nice irony here: the real story of Wake—the one that includes disciplined gunnery, improvised air operations, civilians volunteering for gun crews—is actually more interesting than this cartoonish one-liner. But the line stuck, because it sounded exactly like what Americans wanted defiance to sound like in December 1941.
Read About Other Military Myths and Legends
If you enjoyed learning the true story behind the famous quote “Send Us More Japs!”, we invite you to read about other military myths and legends on our blog. You will also find military book reviews, veterans’ service reflections, famous military units and more on the TogetherWeServed.com blog. If you are a veteran, find your military buddies, view historic boot camp photos, build a printable military service plaque, and more on TogetherWeServed.com today.
SHARE:
0 Comments