The Key West citizen., 1952-09-17
Inhabitants Are Evacuated
From Typhoon Wracked Wake
Rx ROY EsSoYAN

HONOLULU R-Trees and roofs
flew through the air like StraWS
but children sang bravely as they
marched to concrete bunkerS on
typhoon-lashed Wake island yes
terday.
Mothers comforted their children
in underground shelters while wa
ter sloshed around their feet. Out
side every building except four on
the flat little atoOl was being
smashed to bits by raging winds
and waves.
EyewitneSSes told stories like
these today from Wake and Kwa
jalein by radio as rescue opera
tions got into full swing to bring
some 700 inhabitants to Honolulu.
A C-97 Stratocruiser left the
storm-battered atoll with 80 evac-
uees. Some 800 more will follow
as fast as planes can land and
load up.
Four injured were flown to Kwa-
jalein Island, 700 miles to the
south, by a PPM Martin Mariner
yesterday.
Radio reports continued to trick
le in with details of the terrible
destruction wrought by heavy seas
and wind greater than 160-miles an
hour.
Preliminary estimates placed the
damage at 10 million dollars.
Helen Hawk, a reporter for the
weekly magazine Transpacifican,
said, Damage was much worse
than bombs could inflict. The no
tel, barracks, everything on ground
except concrete radio buildings and
the terminal was destroyed The
3OO-foot radio tower was blown
right down."
Miss Hawk, of Chicago, was
caught just before the typhoon hit
in all its fury. Her Military Air
in all its fury. Her Military Air
Transport Service plane from Hon.
olulu en- route to Tokyo. landed
in a cross wind, blowing two tires.
Maynard Joseph Fontaine, a
Coast Guard technician evacuated
to Kwajalein, said he saw 'roofs
and trees flying through the air
like StrawS."
Sgt. Thomas Albert Barker, "a,
an Air Force technician, accom-
panied the four injured men to
Kwajalein in the PPM Mariner.
Barker declared there was mo
panic, no hysteria among the wom-
en- and children. Everybody be-
haved wonderfully"
The children, he said, sang songs
as they marched from their homes
to the concrete blockhouseS.
"The families stayed in the flood
ed blockhouseS more than eight
at about 6 p. m.," he said. They
waned to take stock of their be-
longings, but they quickly went
back to the blockhouSes."
Two navigators of the Flying
Tigers Airline suffered bad body
bruises. One was knocked uncon-
scious. They were F. W. Moore Of
Denver and Blair Johnson of Los
Angeles.
"A QuonSet hut blew down on
them" Barker said. Moore start
ed running. He didn't know where
he was going. MiraculouSly he end
ed up at the diSpensary.
johnson dashed out of the Quon-
set hut and when he woke up an
hour later he was holding onto q
tree. He had been knocked cold"
Barker and Fontaine relayed
their reports through amateur ra-
di0 operators. Airman Les Lucas,
CroOksville, o.. sent the message
from Kwajalein to Marine Cpl.
Dave Gee of Walla Walla, Wash,
stationed at Pearl Harbor.
Mothers and children huddled in
the concrete blockhouSes for hours,
singing while the fierce winds and
tOrrential rains pounded the tiny
fiat atoll, which rises only Is feet
above sea level.
Water sloShed three feet deep
in the concrete structures at he
peak of he Sorm.
First planes from the outside to
reach Wake took food. drinking wa
ter and medicine from Honolulu'S
Hickam Field and Kwajalein.