Postscripts to Wake Island Postal History
By Ken Lawrence
Limited space in the March 2016 American Philatelist could not accommodate a
complete showing of significant Wake Island covers and collateral material. I’m adding bonus
content here for readers who desire a more comprehensive picture.
First Flight over Wake Island
My article illustrated a letter-size envelope with a First Flight Wake Island cachet in
black ink carried on Lieutenant Commander Jesse G. Johnson’s March 8, 1935, flight from the
Navy ship USS Nitro canceled February 26 at Manila and March 15 at Honolulu, Nitro’s
departure and arrival dates for that voyage. This cover on a legal-size envelope with a magenta
cachet was canceled March 8, the date of the flight, with the Nitro ship postmark. Johnson
printed only about half a dozen envelopes with the magenta cachet.
Mail Posted at Wake Island by a Clipper Passenger
After Pan American Airlines began carrying passengers on trans-Pacific flights in
October 1936, many of them sent letters and cards from Pan Am hotels along the route, which
provided letterhead stationery and air mail envelopes. This cover, franked at the original
unpublished 50¢ per half ounce airmail rate, was collected by Philippine Clipper’s pilot on her
December 6, 1936, overnight fueling and rest stop at Wake, and entered the mail at Honolulu on
December 7.
U.S. Navy Ship Covers Canceled at Wake Island
August 2, 1933, covers canceled aboard the USS Chaumont initiated postal activity at
Wake Island, as noted in my article. They also inaugurated the practice of including Wake Island
in Navy ship postmarks struck there. USS Henderson called on February 3, 1937, and USS
Pensacola on June 4, 1940.
Storekeeper Second Class C.J. Miller, a USS Chaumont crew member, posted this March
19, 1941, letter while anchored at Wake Island. It went by Clipper airmail to San Francisco and
by domestic airline to South Carolina at the unpublished 35¢ rate. Clarence “C.J.” Miller
survived the attack on Pearl Harbor aboard a different ship. He died in April 2000.
A Postal History / Cancellation Study of the U.S. Pacific Islands (including the Trust
Territories) by Robert T. Murphy, published by APS in 1983, lists 12 Navy ship cancels from
Wake Island 1933-1941, but the author failed to record the 1940 Pensacola and the 1941
Chaumont postmarks.
U.S. Marine Corps Mail Posted at Wake Island
Marines’ mail sent from Wake Island is scarce, because the 450 members of the First
Defense Battalion did not begin to arrive at the atoll until August 19, 1941, and the last U.S. mail
before their surrender to superior Japanese forces left there in early December.
Private Manton Leon Fleming of Comanche, Oklahoma, sent this letter at the
unpublished 35¢ per half ounce airmail rate in time to catch Anzac Clipper’s last inbound flight
to San Francisco before Pearl Harbor, which departed Wake on November 25 and arrived at
Honolulu on November 26, where the cover was canceled.
Fleming died in captivity at Osaka Main Camp Chikko in Japan. His death was reported
to the International Committee of the Red Cross on February 26, 1944, his 23rd birthday.
Acme News Pictures distributed this file photograph to newspapers on December 11,
1941, with this caption: “View of Pan-American Clipper base on Wake Island. Defending
Marine garrison on the South Pacific island today sunk a Japanese light cruiser and a destroyer
by air action. Island underwent four separate attacks in the last 48 hours.” A Marine pilot had
sunk a Japanese destroyer, but not a cruiser.
Patriotic Covers and Cancels Salute Wake Island Defenders
Walter T. Poppenger of Akron, Ohio, published this colorful cacheted envelope. The
REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR WAKE and MANILA slogan in the June 6, 1942, Mahomet,
Illinois, cancel, was nonstandard, but took note of popular patriotic sentiments. “Pop, the Akron
Stampman” did not include identifying information in his cachets. His advertisement in the
March 21, 1942, issue of Stamps magazine listed this one.
My article illustrated the REMEMBER WAKE ISLAND slogan cancel of the Seventh
Marine Defense Battalion at Upolu, Western Samoa (a New Zealand mandate). This similar
cancel (but with an added hyphen), struck July 16, 1942, on a postage-free official mail cover at
Tutuila, American Samoa, was struck by the Third Marine Brigade’s postal clerk.
Private G.H. Pletz mailed this September 10, 1942, patriotic cover with thermographed
U.S. Marine Corps cachet in gold ink that saluted defenders at Pearl Harbor, Wake, Guam, and
Manila from the Marines’ base at San Diego.
This large April 22, 1943, official mail Marine Corps cover posted at Philadelphia
featured an allegorical image of a soaring Wake Island Marine as an avenging warrior fighting in
“The Wake of History.”
Battle of Wake Island Collateral Collectibles
Gum Incorporated included War Gum trading cards in packets of Blony bubble gum.
Defense of Wake Island was one of the earliest card subjects. A summary of the battle on the
back of the card exaggerated the Marines’ military feats. (The picture of a War Gum package
wrapper is an Internet reproduction, but the card itself is in my collection.)
Japanese artist Yasushi Matsusaka entered “Battle to Capture Wake Island (I)” and
“Capture of Wake Island (II),” at the Navy Department for the Greater East Asia War Art
Exhibit sponsored by Asahi News. The newspaper reproduced his paintings on these postcards.
Shortwave Radio Communication from Captured Wake Island Marine
This postal card tells a story that no other mailpiece I’ve seen has done. Postal
communication between Wake Island civilian and military men held captive in Japanese prison
camps formally began in late April 1942 when Japan provided the names of 120 American
prisoners of war to the International Committee of the Red Cross, a small fraction of the number
actually held captive.
However, except for officers and diplomatic internees, mail privileges for prisoners
whose rights were honored were limited to a maximum of three brief cards to their loved ones
each year, and those often took many months in transit before reaching the United States. As a
consequence, shortwave radio propaganda broadcasts from Tokyo that brought news of
individual prisoners were the only timely sources of information about their circumstances.
Los Angeles area members of the South Gate American Legion Post No. 335 monitored
the broadcasts and passed along information about prisoners to their families. This July 17, 1942,
card reported news of Marine Private First Class Robert Gordon Hundley to his family at Forest
Grove, Oregon:
Dear Friends, — A short wave broadcast coming from Tokio Japan & heard by me at 1120 pm July [date obliterated by water stain] this date gave a list of names of our boys who
are War Prisoners, among the names was Robert Gorden Hundly alive & well. I hope this
relieves your anxiety to a certain extent. Will you please notify me if this is your correct
name & address as later on there will be personal messages via short wave from these
boys. At least that has been the Procedure up to now. This program is sponsered by South
Gate American Legion Post 335 of South Gate Calif. Please write me. Sincerely yours
Mrs. R. E. Washburn
2572½ Cass Pl
Huntington Pk
Calif.
Evidently the Legion post had arranged with the armed services to obtain addresses of
families so that cards like this could be sent to them, addressed later in a different hand. This is
the only example of this volunteer activity I have ever seen.
A brief news item in the January 25, 1942, Oregonian reported that the Marine Corps had
notified Hundley’s parents that their son’s name had not appeared on any casualty list, so he
might be a prisoner of war. The radio broadcast confirmed that he was indeed a POW, not a
casualty.
Hundley survived his captivity and died in November 2001 at age 80.
Wake Island Civilians Interned by Japan
Willard Armond Nelson was a Wake Island civilian contractor imprisoned at the Tsumori
POW camp at Osaka, Japan. This cover was mailed September 30, 1942, and censored at New
York before being dispatched to the Red Cross at Geneva, and was examined by a Japanese
censor on arrival at the destination. Nelson survived the war and died at Boise, Idaho, in 1964.
My article illustrated and explained an unusual August 9, 1942, cover to Howard Clarke
Wilder, another civilian prisoner from Wake. That cover was censored at Chicago and struck by
a marking that had reclassified him as a (military) POW. This December 7, 1942, cover to him
was directed to New York for censorship (the special POW staff of the Office of Censorship had
relocated effective September 7); this time the civilian internee endorsement was accepted.
Because Japan limited most American prisoners to three cards per year to their loved
ones at home, they are scarce today. Chalas R. Loveland, a Wake Island civilian contractor
employed by Morrison-Knudsen Construction Company, sent this card dated June 24, 1943, to
his parents at Boise, Idaho, from a POW camp at Shanghai, China. En route it was passed by a
Japanese censor at Shanghai and an American censor at New York.
Loveland’s message shows that the most recent word he had received from them was a
January 10 cablegram, probably routed via the Red Cross after being approved by the U.S.
Office of Censorship, dated more than five and a half months before he was able to send his
reply.
He was released on September 23, 1945, making his ordeal one of the longest durations
of captivity for an American during World War II. In 1981 the Navy recognized him and other
Wake Island civilians as veterans, and gave them honorable discharges so they could qualify for
veterans’ benefits.
Loveland became an activist on behalf of American ex-prisoners after the war. He served
as president of the Association of Civilian Internees of Wake, Guam, and Cavite from 1986 to
1988. In 1986, after seeing a monument to the Japanese occupation force during a reunion at
Wake Island, he and several other veterans from Idaho took up a collection to erect a monument
to the American civilians who had been captured there. In 1991 his group petitioned the United
Nations to call upon Japan to pay reparations to former captives who had suffered beatings,
starvation, and forced labor.
Loveland died in February 2013 at age 92.
Wake Island Marine Prisoner of War
A POW card from a Wake Island Marine is scarcer than one from a civilian internee.
Corporal James C. McWiggins sent this one dated June 9, 1944, from the Kiawgwan camp near
Shanghai to his mother at Lake Providence, Louisiana. It was passed by a Japanese censor, but
must have taken more than a year to reach his mother, evident from the absence of an American
censorship marking
McWiggins survived the ordeal and returned home after the war. He died in October
1992 at age 76.
Wake Island Combat Photographs
After Japanese forces captured and occupied Wake Island, American submarines
blockaded the atoll to prevent resupply of the occupation forces while carrier-based aircraft
attacked enemy positions there. The Navy released this photograph to the press on April 4, 1942,
before our armed forces had won any combat victories, with this caption: “An aircraft carrier that
took part in the U.S. Navy’s attack on Wake Island is protected by ocean greyhounds of the
Pacific fleet.”
Two years later, after American forces had advanced across the Pacific, the Army Air
Forces released this photograph to the press on April 9, 1944, with this caption: “WAKE
ISLAND UNDER ATTACK BY ARMY BOMBERS — Aerial view of Japanese-held Wake
Island under attack by Liberator bombers of the 7th AAF March 11. In spite of intensive antiaircraft fire, all bombs were on target. Note plumes of smoke rising from Wake.”
Wake Island Mail after the War 1948-1950
As noted in my article, Geoffrey Brewster has recorded a December 18, 1945, cover
flown by Pan American Airlines from Manila to Wake Island on a Douglas DC-4 aircraft that
apparently represented the first postwar trans-Pacific flight. This May 29, 1948, Philippine Air
Lines cover flown from Manila on a DC-6 transport appears to be the next inaugural flight that
refueled at Pan Am’s Wake Island station.
As late as 1950 Wake Island still lacked civilian postal facilities. The sender prepaid this
December 12, 1950, photo postcard of Wake Island at the 4¢ airmail postcard rate, carried by
pilot’s pouch to Honolulu, canceled there for airmail transport by Pan Am to San Francisco and
by domestic carrier to Massachusetts.
Wake Island Inaugural Flight Covers 1951-1959
A civilian post office was established at Wake Island on May 1, 1951. The first mail
posted there included the Foreign Air Mail route No. 14 cover carried aboard Pan Am’s Boeing
B-377 Stratocruiser pictured in my article. Later inaugural flight covers struck with Wake Island
postmarks include these:
December 6, 1952, Wake Island to Rangoon, Burma; May 22, 1953, Wake Island to
Saigon, French Indochina; September 11, 1953, Rangoon to Wake Island (the cachet is dated
September 12); June 1, 1959, Wake Island to Djakarta, Indonesia; and June 5, 1959, Djakarta to
Wake Island.
Wake Island Machine Cancel
By 1965 the Wake Island post office processed a large enough quantity of mail to justify
acquisition of a machine canceller, which struck the postmark on this October 6, 1966, cover.
Note the 96930 ZIP-coded return address. The ZIP code for Wake later became 96798.
Wake Island after Civilian Flights Ended
After commercial airliners ceased calling at Wake Island in 1973, management of the
base was transferred to the Air Force. The post office became APO 96501, with the Army and
Air Force number doing double duty as the new ZIP code, seen in the cancel on this August 14,
1979, airmail postal card.