Robinson Crusoe in the U.S. Navy

In times of war people often do extraordinary things.  Such was the case during the Japanese invasion of Guam in World War II. 

The Japanese overran the little island of Guam on December 10, 1941.  There wasn’t much the Navy could do to help the vastly outnumbered American troops on the island as it was too busy dealing with the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor just three days before.

To protect his troops from unneeded slaughter, the commanding officer of the island’s American garrison decided to surrender.  When Radioman First Class George Ray Tweed and five other men heard about the impending surrender, they chose to take to the hills instead.

This is Tweed’s story.

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The Japanese invaded the little island, sending more than 3000 battle-hardened soldiers supported by naval artillery.  American forces numbered only a few hundred, with most of them naval personnel who were inexperienced in combat or had not been trained for this type of combat.  After short resistance the American commander chose to surrender rather than subject his troops to certain death.

Tweed contacted the commanding officer, requesting permission to hide out in the hills, assuming American troops would come back to retake the island within a matter of weeks.

Permission was granted and Tweed, along with five other men, took to the hills.

As the six began their evasion, all the other American forces were taken captive and sent to prisoner of war camps, where they suffered torture and deprivation for the remainder of the war. Many did not survive.

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The indigenous CHamoro people of Guam were mostly American sympathizers.  Indeed, most were American citizens.

Tweed, a 16 year veteran of the U.S. Navy, had been stationed on the island since 1939 with his family.  In October of 1941, two months before the attack, American women and children were evacuated.

By the time of the invasion, George Tweed had made many friends and acquaintances among the CHamoros.  The generous people went to work, helping the Americans in their efforts to avoid capture.  The CHamoros allowed the sailors to use shacks on their property or to hide in the forest nearby.  Natives shared their own sparse supplies with the American evaders, often packing the food or equipment into the forest and hills on their own backs.  Some even took the men into their homes for short periods, but the Japanese were trying hard to find the six men, especially Tweed, making that particularly dangerous for the CHamoro families. 

As a radioman, George was considered likely to find a way to communicate with American forces, who would then use any information he’d gathered to plan their own counteroffensive.

The Japanese offered rewards to islanders who could capture the American sailors, or give information leading to their capture.  No one stepped forward to collect the rewards so the invaders started interrogating anyone who they thought might know anything about the sailors.

The interrogations included beatings and torture, so it is a credit to the CHamorros that so few were convinced to help their oppressors.

Despite the CHamorros help, things didn’t go well for the Americans.  Three of them were captured soon after the invasion.  They were interrogated for two days then taken out and forced to dig their own graves.  Then they were beheaded and rolled into the fresh graves.

The Japanese sent out frequent search parties which often came quite close to capturing the remaining three.  Before too long, the searchers cornered two of the men in a chicken coop.  Knowing what had happened to their three friends, the two chose to fight.  One of them was quickly shot to death and the other ran out of ammo, so he surrendered.  He was shot in the head.

Tweed was now the last American left alive on Guam.

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By this time George was hiding in a cave, after having moved from place to place frequently.  He had acquired a broken radio, which he was able to repair.  With it, he managed to tune in an American station.  One of his CHamorro friends had given him a generator and wiring.  Tweed wired his cave for electricity and light. 

Another friend gave him a typewriter, which he used to type up a sort of newspaper in small numbers to share information with sympathetic residents.

He was a source of encouragement for the Guamanians, who were eager for the United States to retake the island.  His popularity sometimes worked against him as he was a frequent topic of conversation among them.  The gossip would eventually get to one of the Guamanians who sympathized with the Japanese.

Now that Tweed was the last one left to catch, the Japanese were pulling out all the stops.  Tweed got help from a Spanish farmer who hid him in a remote cliff-side.  George lived, if you use the term loosely, behind a large rock leaning against the cliff.  It was virtually inaccessible to invaders but offered little protection from the weather.  Tweed was often exposed to soaking from the frequent rains.

One big advantage of the new home was that the cliff offered George a good view of a large area, including the surrounding mountainsides and the ocean around his part of the island.  He could see Japanese ships sailing by, and he noted gun emplacements ready to take out American ships if they came back to the island.

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In 1944 Tweed started hearing rumors that the American Navy was finally coming back to Guam.  One day he saw two destroyers passing by his end of the island and grabbed the mirror he had been using to shave and a pair of semaphore flags he had made.

By reflecting the sun’s light with the mirror he was able to get the attention of the American ships.  He then used the semaphore flags to communicate, telling the sailors about the gun emplacements that were poised to fire.

The Navy used the information they had gotten from Tweed to take out the gun emplacements, then cautiously sent a boat in to see if George really was an American who had managed to evade capture for 31 months.

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Tweed was taken to the United States where he was reunited with his family. 

The Navy awarded him the Legion of Merit with “V” device and promoted him to Chief Petty Officer for the help he had rendered to American troops in their return to Guam.

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While hiding out on the island, during a conversation with the Spanish farmer who helped him hide, George had told the man he would like to pay him back once he got rescued.  The man, Antonio Artero, insisted that he wanted nothing in repayment.  However, in another conversation, the farmer confided that, if he ever got rich, he would like to buy a brand new four door Chevrolet sedan.  After his rescue, George contacted General Motors and the company kindly donated a sedan and sent it along with Tweed on a return visit to Guam.

George wrote the book, Robinson Crusoe, USN, about his experiences.  I have a copy of it and recommend it to those who want to know more about this interesting man and his experiences on Guam during World War II.

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I would like to take the opportunity on this Veterans Day to thank all American veterans for their service to this great country.  This is the land of the free because it is the home of the brave.

Also, yesterday was the Marine Corps birthday, and I’d like to send out a big Semper Fi to my Marine Corps brothers and sisters.  Ooh Rah!

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