Wake defender recalls WWII ordeal
By Bryan C. Sualog • Pacific Daily News • July 21, 2008
As the last remaining defender of the Wake Island, Francisco Chaco Carbullido said he was very happy to be chosen as the grand marshal for the 64th Liberation Day parade.
"I really wasn't expecting it," Carbullido said. "I'm very thankful for the selection.
Carbullido was one of 45 men who were working for Pan American World Airways on Wake Island when the Japanese invaded in 1941. They were enlisted by the U.S. Marine Corps to help defend the island.
On Dec. 8, 1941, Wake Island was bombed by the Japanese. On that day, the 18-year old Carbullido was already on a flight back to Guam.
"We're already two hours in the air," he said when the captain told him and the other passengers that he had orders to return to Wake Island because Pearl Harbor had been bombed.
All the civilian employees had already been evacuated except for the 45 Chamorro men.
During the first two days of bombing, 10 of the Chamorros were killed. Carbullido himself was injured by shrapnel during the bombing and taken to the hospital.
"My friend advised me not to stay," he said. "So, I did follow the advice. They took me and we went out hiding."
He left the hospital, along with co-workers Joaquin Salas and Antonio Peredo, and went into hiding in the jungle.
"The following day, the Japanese came again and bombed the hospital." Carbullido said there was only one survivor from that attack.
Carbullido said he and the other Chamorro men acted as messengers and would help the Marines move anti-aircraft guns from one place to another at night. When he and the other men weren't helping the Marines, they spent most of their time in hiding.
"We only go out at night because during the day they come and bomb us. Every day they'd come and bomb the island," he said.
It took the Japanese 16 days to overrun Wake.
"There wasn't enough guns to give to all of us," he said. "So some were issued hand grenades, some were not."
After the island was taken, Carbullido and the other Chamorro survivors were sent to Japan and then to a prison camp in Woosung, China, where they were imprisoned for three and a half years.
At the camp, Carbullido said the Japanese soldiers told him that all the Chamorros on Guam had been killed after Japan took over.
"We completely gave up hope," he said. "We thought that we would never survive."
Carbullido and the other men were forced to work 12-hour days digging trenches. They often were beaten.
He said in the second year at the camp, things worsened.
"Sometimes they fed us only once a day, sometimes twice a day, and they were very mean to us," he said.
Carbullido recalled one day when his captors caught him resting.
"They clobbered me," he said. "They had to put three stitches in my lips."
After almost four years in a prison camp, Carbullido and the other prisoners were informed that the war had ended.
"I don't know how to describe that feeling," he said. "After being in prison, after being scared for so long, I cannot describe the feeling because all this time I thought I'd never come home."
Two Chamorros died in the prison camp, leaving 33 of the Wake Island defenders alive.
It wasn't until 1988 that Congress recognized Carbullido and the other men as veterans and granted them military benefits.
The survivors were honorably discharged and awarded the Prisoner of War Medal.
Carbullido has been back to Wake Island twice since the end of the war. His most recent trip was in 1991 for the 50th Anniversary of the bombing of Wake.
He's not sure if he'll return again.
"I don't know. If I have the opportunity, sure I will, because I want to see where I suffered a lot during that time," he said.
Wake defender recalls WWII ordeal | guampdn.com | Pacific Daily News
Wake defender recalls WWII ordeal
For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman. 
