By Edward F. Murphy
Marine Lieutenant George Cannon flinched instinctively as a barrage of shells erupted short of the sandy beach with a violent roar, sending columns of water and sand soaring into the air. Before Cannon could settle himself, the next volley landed inland a few hundred yards, falling amid a stand of coconut palms. The third struck closer to the wide-eyed Marines hunkered down in their command post on Sand Island, Midway Atoll, at the far western edge of the Hawaiian Islands chain.
Cannon searched their faces in the dim light. Though none of them had ever been under enemy fire before, they showed no fear. The young lieutenant was proud of his men. They all felt safe behind the thick walls of the concrete building and hoped the next salvo would land beyond them. They gripped the deck as they heard another roar from the heavy guns.
News of the Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor had reached the Marine Corps’ 6th Defense Battalion at 0630 local time (0900 Honolulu time) on December 7, 1941. A short while later an official dispatch from the Hawaii-based Fourteenth Naval District confirmed the disastrous attack. The dispatch also ordered the garrison to go to general quarters and activate their war plans. Within minutes the Marines scrambled to their gun positions around the island. Among them was Cannon, a platoon leader in Battery H (.50-caliber antiaircraft machine gun), who set up his command post in a small room in the power plant building. Three enlisted men, Platoon Sergeant William A. Barbour, communications chief Corporal Harold R. Hazelwood, and a runner, assisted him.
He was born in Webster Groves, Missouri, on November 5, 1915, living there until his father died in 1931 and the family relocated to Detroit. He graduated high school in 1932, then attended Culver Military Academy in Indiana, before entering the University of Michigan. He graduated in June 1938 with a degree in mechanical engineering.
He joined the Marine Corps, then attended officer candidate training at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in May 1939 and joined the Marine detachment aboard the light cruiser USS Boise. In December 1940, he took command of a platoon in the 2nd Defense Battalion, which was then in training at the Marine base in San Diego, California. Three months later, orders sent him to the 6th Defense Battalion (DB) at Pearl Harbor.
Cannon and the 6th DB arrived on Sand Island on September 11, 1941, after months of training in San Diego and Hawaii. It was one of eight such units formed in the late 1930s in response to Japan’s aggressive invasion of China, when it became obvious that Wake Island, Midway, and Johnston Island, as well as the navy’s main anchorage at Pearl Harbor, needed increased security. While the army provided troops to guard the distant Philippines, these mid-Pacific Ocean locations also required protection, leading to a mission that was unusual for the Marine Corps.
As early as 1937, the Marine Corps was discussing the activation of battalion-sized detachments just for that purpose. Marine Corps commandant Maj. Gen. Thomas Holcomb recognized that Congress, given the isolationist fervor gripping the country, would not approve funding for offensive purposes. However, money might be available to fund defensive battalions to protect American interests abroad and allow an expansion of the Marine Corps beyond its 1939 strength of just over 19,000 officers and men. Each of the new 900-man defense battalions would have three antiaircraft gun batteries, three seacoast batteries, ground and antiaircraft machine gun batteries, as well as administrative and weapons maintenance specialists.
Midway’s strategic position 1,137 miles northwest of Oahu had been recognized as early as 1867 when Navy Secretary Gideon Wells authorized funds to survey the area. In 1903, a communications cable company established a station on Sand Island. By June 1935, Pan American Airways had a commercial seaplane base on Sand Island.
The first Marines to land on Sand Island, on May 31, 1940, were a small survey party from the 3rd DB. In September, a work party of nine officers and 168 enlisted men landed to begin the construction of defensive positions.
A naval air station was authorized for Midway in early 1941 and construction of support facilities on both islands as well as a landing strip on Eastern to complement the existing runways on Sand.
In the meantime, the balance of the 3rd DB was ordered to Midway. On February 14, 1941, the remaining 28 officers and 565 enlisted men of that battalion came ashore on Midway. At the same time, Cannon and the rest of the 6th DB, then in training in San Diego, received orders to move to Hawaii. There, the unit would continue its training and serve as a rotational pool of replacements for the Marine garrison on Midway and those soon to come to Wake and Johnston islands.
The need for manpower to build and fortify the base on Midway continued unabated during the spring and summer of 1941. The backbreaking work of the young Marines and the contractors paid off when Naval Air Station, Midway, was commissioned on August 1, 1941. The new air station would soon be home to a squadron of Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat patrol aircraft and a Marine scout bombing squadron.
A few weeks after the commissioning ceremony the advance elements of the 6th DB, 10 officers and 130 enlisted men arrived from Oahu on August 11.
With the completion of the airstrip on Eastern in early November 1941, the Marine Air Group 21 at Ewa Field on Oahu received notification of its pending move to Midway. Its Vought SB2U-3 Vindicator dive bombers of Squadron VMSB 231 received orders to land on the aircraft carrier USS Lexington on December 5, for a departure from Pearl Harbor and arrival off Midway on Sunday morning, December 7.
Army Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers en route to the Philippines had been landing on Sand Island for refueling for several months and Navy Squadron VP-21, flying Catalinas and destined for Wake Island, had arrived on December 1 to spend a week at Midway patrolling the nearby waters until the Lexington arrived with VMSB 231.
While the Marines toiled, two Imperial Japanese Navy task forces set course for the Hawaiian Islands. The main force under Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo sailed from Hitokappu Bay (now Kasatka Bay, under Russian control) in the Kuril Islands on November 26, 1941. Nagumo’s force consisted of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and eight destroyers. Its target was Pearl Harbor.
Two days later the Japanese destroyers Ushio and Sazanami, accompanied by a tanker, left Tateyama Naval Base along the eastern edge of Tokyo Bay. Called the Midway Neutralization Unit, the mission of these vessels was the destruction of the new seaplane base on Sand Island, preventing those aircraft from attacking Nagumo’s ships as they retired toward Japan after attacking Pearl Harbor. The existence of these two task forces was completely unknown to U.S. naval intelligence. Though the United States had been successful in cracking Japanese codes, those were codes primarily used in diplomatic communications and not naval codes.
Navy PBY Squadron VP-21 launched five Catalinas early on Sunday morning, December 7. They flew prescribed patrol routes searching for anything out of the ordinary. They found nothing. On the seaplane ramp on Sand Island, two PBYs prepared to take off to rendezvous and guide in the aircraft of VMSB-231. It had been a routine morning on the isolated atoll until that first message from Oahu arrived at 0630. Cannon and his Marines could not understand why Japan would attack the much stronger United States. But they were confident they would make the Japanese pay for that sneak attack.
The Midway Marines spent the rest of December 7 preparing the atoll for war. There had been no further messages regarding any Japanese activity around the Hawaiian Islands. None of the PBY search planes had seen any sign of Japanese vessels.
At 1842 hours, a sentry saw a brief flash of light on the horizon southwest of Sand Island. About three hours later the lone operational radar facility at Midway picked up two surface targets about 15 miles to the southwest. Soon, observers in two searchlight positions, equipped with powerful night-vision binoculars, reported that they saw “shapes.”
At 2135, the first salvo of shells came, falling short. Then the Japanese gunners walked their fire up the beach. A salvo bracketed Battery A, a 5-inch seacoast unit at the southern tip of Sand Island. The blasts severed many of the recently laid telephone lines. A salvo struck the new seaplane hangar. Another hit the powerplant where Cannon had set up his command post.
In the horrific blast, Corporal Hazelwood suffered a broken leg and Platoon Sergeant Barbour had his ankle smashed. Cannon suffered grievous injuries. Red hot, jagged shell fragments nearly severed his left leg with the force of the explosion crushing his pelvis.
Cannon refused aid and helped Hazelwood reestablish communications. Only after the radio was working and Barbour and Hazelwood had been evacuated—about 40 minutes—did Cannon agree to medical aid. But by then it was too late.
The Japanese destroyers circled for another run at Midway and shells rained down on Marine gun positions, knocking out several of them. Marines firing a 3-inch antiaircraft gun may have hit the enemy ships. A Marine-manned 5-inch gun then opened fire and hits were reported.
At 2158, the destroyers turned for home and the second Japanese sneak attack on December 7, 1941 was over. In the 23-minutes, Cannon and another Marine were killed, and 10 were wounded; two sailors were also killed.
At dawn December 8, Midway prepared for the worst, expecting another Japanese attack with land forces. The Marines of the 6th DB believed that with the damage sustained at Pearl Harbor they were on their own.
In anticipation of further attack, reinforcements arrived at Midway. But it was a slow trickle—17 SB2U-3s from VMSB-231, which were supposed to have landed at Midway on December 7, finally arrived on the 17th. Ground reinforcements in the form of 100 officers and men from Batteries A and C, 4th DB, arrived on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, 14 nearly obsolete Brewster F2A-3 Buffalo Marine fighter planes from VMF-221 landed. The next day, Battery B, 4th DB arrived by sea, with antiaircraft guns and their crews.
During the early months of 1942, the U.S. Navy continued to reinforce Midway. At the same time, the Japanese made plans to invade and capture the atoll. In June 1942, the two forces would meet in one of the most decisive naval battles of World War II.
The Navy announced a posthumous Medal of Honor for 1st Lieutenant George H. Cannon for his selfless disregard of his injuries, the first Marine to receive the prestigious medal in World War II. He was the last Marine cited for heroism “in the line of his profession.” More restrictive criterion was later adopted: “conspicuous gallantry above and beyond the call of duty involving actual conflict with the enemy” standard. The medal was mailed to his mother in Detroit. A destroyer escort, DE 99, was named in his honor in May 1943. He is interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Cannon’s mother loaned her son’s medal to Culver Military Academy in 1943 for a display honoring his heroism. The school returned it after the war. In 2000 Cannon’s sister, Margaret, donated the medal to Culver Military Academy, where it remains.
Edward F. Murphy has written many books and articles on military history. He lives in Mesa, Arizona. To Lieutenant Cannon’s nephews, Bart and Scott Cannon, the author extends a special thanks for their assistance.
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