Stand at Wake

From the halls of Montezuma

To the shores of Tripoli,

We fight our country's battles

On the land as on the sea.

Beyond the International Date Line, where it is always tomorrow, Wake lifts itself in three desolate sandy specks in the midst of a watery nowhere. A Clipper stop on Pan Am's famed trans-Pacific run, it boasted a small hostel, an imposing concrete air-raid shelter recently built, a catch basin for rain water, a hydroponic tank for growing vegetables, which the coral sand refuses to nurture.

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze

From dawn to setting sun.

We've fought in every clime and place

Where we could take a gun.

At Wake a tiny band of Marines made more of the Corps's imperishable history that had its beginnings in the fighting tops of John Paul Jones's Ranger and Bon Homme Richard. They had been there since the first day of war, beating off attack after attack by the Jap. shooting down his planes, sinking his surface ships, probably knocking the spots out of his landing parties. It was "probably" because Wake's Marines--well-trained rifle marksmen, as all leathernecks are--were busy at their prime calling. Between fighting they had little time for dispensing news.

In the snow of far-off Northern lands

And in sunny tropic scenes

You'll always find us on the job

The United States Marines.

The crew of the Philippine Clipper was at Wake when the first attack came--18 Jap planes that bombed and strafed the construction camp, the docks and fuel installations. The Clipper was ordered back to Honolulu. The Marines stayed on. Somehow they managed to sink a Jap cruiser and a destroyer. They knocked down two enemy planes.

Here's health to you and to our Corps,

Which we are proud to serve.

In many a strife we're fought for life,

And never lost our nerve.

Farther west, at Guam, the part-Marine, part-Navy garrison had been subdued by the Japanese. Guam, long denied the sinews of defense by a strangely bemused Congress, could have met no other fate. It was almost under the guns of the Japanese fortified island of Rota 70 miles to the north. But east of Wake, on Midway, Marines also stood fast. Quartered on an island group that is a Pacific paradise beside Wake, they sent out no news beyond the fact that they were still hanging on.

At the Marines' Headquarters in Washington their bemedaled commandant, Major General Thomas Holcomb, said: "What the hell did you expect the Marines to do? Take it lying down?"

If the Army and the Navy

Ever look on Heaven's scenes

They will find the streets are guarded

By United States Marines.

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