UNLIKELY WAR HERO

 

Several days ago, I was watching some YouTube presentations on military history when I heard of the US Navy gunboat USS Wake being captured by the Japanese in Shanghai harbor in December 1941. Curious, I began researching this naval vessel.

 

 

The USS Wake was originally the USS Guam. The ship was built in 1927 at Shanghai and was turned over to the US Navy shortly thereafter. USS Guam was assigned to the Yangtze River Patrol of the Navy’s Asiatic Squadron to protect American interests along that four-thousand-mile-long river. The ship had two cannons and eight machine guns for protection. To appreciate the ship’s mission and life aboard I highly recommend that the reader watch the movie Sand Pebbles starring Steve McQueen focusing on the fictional USS San Pablo. One could also research the USS Panay and the Japanese attack on it in 1937 (!) or even the USS Liberty and the Israeli attack on that ship (!!).

In January 1941 because the Navy was building a new USS Guam, the China gunboat was renamed the USS Wake (for Wake Island, a small mid-Pacific US possession). Throughout 1941 as American relationships with Japan soured, the US Navy had almost completely left China except for the USS Wake and its skeleton crew of one officer and 14 sailors, eight of which were radio operators. The Wake was now a floating communications intelligence center.

On December 8, the ship and crew were captured by the Japanese as they invaded Shanghai. Japan renamed the gunboat and used it for their own river patrols. After World War ll the Nationalist Chinese again renamed the ship and used it until captured by the Communist Chinese who eventually destroyed the vessel. The USS Wake had the distinction of being in the service of four different nations as well as being the only US warship of being captured by Japan during the war.

During my research I learned that the last commander of the USS Wake was Lieutenant Commander Columbus Smith who was described as an “old China hand.”  I immediately thought that the officer had a curious name, so I dug deeper and found a story more exciting than the ship he commanded.

On February 14, 1890, Columbus Darwin Smith (yes, his real full name) was born to Henry Marshall Smith, a physician, and Emily Delilah (Barnes) Smith In Atlanta Georgia. He was probably named after his grandfather Columbus Darwin “Lum” Smith and some of his uncles (father’s side) included Gustavus Adolphus, Martin Luther, Jefferson Randolph, and Andrew Jackson- all first and mille names, of course. Little is known of his early life but one could surmise by the time Smith graduated from high school he was well read, had a love of adventure, and possessed a superb memory which served him well in his adulthood.

High school graduation propelled Smith to sea as an ordinary seaman. He rose through the ranks to be a master sailor and become a captain of a merchant sailing ship in the Caribbean. When the United States entered World War l the Navy gave Smith an officer’s commission and command of a submarine chaser warship. He loved it!

When the war ended Smith reentered the civilian merchant marine becoming a first mate and captain of several freighters in the Pacific, the last route being the Japan- Hawaii circuit. In the late 1920s Smith gave up the ocean trade to become a master pilot and navigator on the Yangtze with his headquarters in Shanghai. Along the way he learned the Mandarin dialect and also Japanese.

With war fever high in November 1941 the admiral commanding the Navy’s Yangtze Patrol summoned Smith to his office to offer another officer’s commission to Smith if he would take command of the USS Wake. If he accepted Smith understood that by doing so he would be the ranking US naval officer in China because all other naval assets were in the process of leaving the country. Smith readily accepted the admiral’s offer. He was in command a week before war began. Not only was the USS Wake the first (and only) US warship captured by the Japanese but Smith was the first American officer taken captive.

Smith’s tenure as a POW was ironic, dangerous, and adventurous. In early 1942, Marines who had surrendered at Wake Island in 1941 arrived at the prison along with their naval commander, Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham. How ironic! Cunningham’s war efforts were considered heroic as the outnumbered Marines he commanded on Wake Island had sunk at least one Japanese warship and severely damaged several others. The aborted first landing attempt was the first Japanese defeat of the war. And Smith commanded the ship which was the Island’s namesake had been overtaken so suddenly by the enemy that not a single shot had been fired.

Smith and other officers suffered deprivations, near starvation, and regular torture. Once he demanded of his torturers why their methods were so barbarous. The Japanese curiously considered Smith’s question. Their reply was that since the Japanese race was superior therefore all other races were inferior so then their methods could not be barbarian.

Smith and several others escaped their prison in 1942 but were quickly discovered and returned for trial as deserters from the Japanese army! Smith was sentenced to ten years imprisonment even though his own defense counsel had argued for Smith’s execution!! Finally in 1944 Smith and two others successfully escaped and traveled 700 miles inland to freedom. Smith and his companions were flown to India. He able to contact his wife Rita to inform her that the government report of his death I was 1941 was erroneous.

Smith was promoted to captain but left the navy at war’s end to return to Shanghai to serve as the city’sport director. He died on November 18, 1966, in San Francisco and is buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno California.