About 0300, just at a time when events began to develop with startling rapidity as the Japanese pushed ashore on Wilkes and Wake, Major Devereux lost touch with Camp 1, Putnam’s platoon, Hanna’s command post near the airstrip, and Barninger’s Battery A. Advancing Japanese troops probably had found the communication lines--the exigencies of war had prevented them from being buried--and cut them. Devereux’s last situation reports from those units painted a bleak picture. If Cunningham received less-than-encouraging reports from the defense battalion commander, he received equally grim news from CinCPac when, at 0319 Wake time, Pearl Harbor radioed to Wake that the _Triton_ and _Tambor_ were returning to Hawaiian waters. “No friendly vessels should be in your vicinity today,” the message stated, “Keep me informed.” [Illustration: _Painting by artist Albin Henning shows Marines firing a .30-caliber Browning machine gun as Japanese landing force sailors splash ashore. While inaccurate in details (barbed wire, for example, is an artist’s invention because no such obstruction existed at Wake Island, since the coral reef surrounding the atoll was bare of any holding ground for the stakes or anchors necessary to keep them in place), it does capture the desperate nature of the Marines’ final day’s fighting._ Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 307142 ] Hanna and his men, meanwhile, reached the 3-inch gun and set to work. Anxious hands fumbled in the darkness for ammunition while Hanna--since the gun lacked sights--peered down the bore to draw a bead on the beached and stationary _Patrol Boat No. 33_ that lay less than 500 yards away. The first round tore into the ship’s bridge, seriously wounding both the captain and navigator, killing two seamen, and wounding five. Hanna’s gun hurled 14 more rounds on target. Some of his projectiles evidently touched off a magazine, and the beached warship began to burn. The illumination provided by the burning ship revealed her sistership, which Hanna and his hard-working gunners bombarded, as well. A short time later three _Special Naval Landing Force_ sailors attacked Hanna’s exposed position. In the ensuing fight, Hanna cooly shot and killed all three enemy sailors with his pistol and resumed the operation of his 3-incher. [Illustration: MAP 3 SITUATION ON WAKE ISLAND 0400, 23 DECEMBER 1941]