The Arthur Foss Came Back
By Alice Winship
The word was out the fight might come
They’re comin’, oh, I tell you
Two Foss tugs with a job to be done
The threat bore the flag of the Rising Sun
The captain said we’ll load ‘er up and run
It’s a long way to Honolulu
A warning flight of PBYs
They’re comin’, oh, I tell you
Young Drew ran JUSTINE ‘cross the reef with the tides
The ARTHUR arrived with a load of supplies
An unarmed tug in an ocean full of guns
It’s a long way to Honolulu
Chorus: Chuggin’ o’er the vast grey sea
Steering for the home of the free
Wake Island fell to an enemy attack
But the ARTHUR FOSS came back
Drew transferred fuel from the JUSTINE FOSS
They’re comin’, oh, I tell you
Fill up the tanks on the ARTHUR FOSS
A long hard tow and a sea to cross
The captain said we’ll load ‘er up and run
It’s a long way to Honolulu
The ARTHUR just twelve hours gone
They’re comin’, oh, I tell you
Pearl Harbor was hit at the crack of dawn
Bombs fell on Wake and the fight was on
An unarmed tug in an ocean full of guns
It’s a long way to Honolulu
Chorus
One last command from the radio
They’re comin’, oh, I tell you
‘Drop your tow’ but the Cap thought No
We’re going as fast as this tug will go
The captain said we’ll load ‘er up and run
It’s a long way to Honolulu
Their planes will see us miles away
They’re comin’, oh, I tell you
White paint mixed with diesel will be gray
Slap on the paint with the tug underway
An unarmed tug in an ocean full of guns
It’s a long way to Honolulu
Back on Wake, three JUSTINE crew
Were worked like slaves and doomed
Three years in Japan in prison camp for Drew
Kept behind on Wake were the other two
With 96 they were lined up and were shot
The Justine sunk in the lagoon
But…
Chorus
Keep silent on the radio
They’re comin’, oh, I tell you
Reported lost, but fate let ‘em go
She pulled into Pearl from a three-week tow
An unarmed tug in an ocean full of guns
It’s a long way to Honolulu
Chorus
Notes
In the early 2000s, I was a volunteer deck hand aboard the Arthur Foss. I heard Drew Foss give an account of his WWII experiences aboard the Arthur Foss at Olympia Harbor Days. I also read his on-line account.
Early in 1941, two Foss Company tugboats were drafted to help build an air base on Wake Island, a coral atoll out in the middle of the Pacific a very long way from anywhere. One of the tugs would never return. The other tug beat the odds and made a long trip back under radio silence through enemy-controlled waters, and today can be found moored at the Historic Ships Wharf in Seattle. I was a volunteer deckhand on the Arthur Foss about twenty years ago.
The Justine Foss was a 57-foot tug used to ferry supplies over the coral reef into the lagoon at Wake. The larger tug, the Arthur Foss, was on a regular run taking supplies back and forth from the U.S. base in Honolulu, over 2000 miles away from Wake Island.
Early in December 1941, a flight of PBYs stopped off at Wake. They said they were looking for the Japanese fleet, which they were sure was out there somewhere in that direction. The contractors on Wake knew that war was coming. There was not enough fuel for both tugs to make it home across the Pacific. Since the larger tug had a better chance, the crews transferred diesel fuel from the Justine Foss into the Arthur Foss. The crew of the Justine Foss chose to stay on Wake to finish out their contracts. For two out of three of them, this would be a fatal mistake.
Twelve hours after the Arthur Foss left Wake, her captain got one last message on the radio. The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. A few hours later Wake was bombed. The last radio instructions given to the Arthur were, “Drop your tow and proceed to Pearl under radio silence.” But the Arthur’s captain reasoned that the tug was already going at her top speed, and wasn’t going to go any faster if she dropped the two barges.
There was the Arthur Foss, painted bright green and white, chugging slowly across the grey Pacific, which was swarming with Japanese ships and planes. The only paint on board was either green or white.
Back in Seattle, it made front-page news that two Foss tugs were missing in the Pacific. Because of wartime secrecy, the names of the tugs were not published. But the papers said one of the missing tugs had been in the movie ‘Tugboat Annie’. This was the Arthur Foss.
Meanwhile, back on Wake, the civilian contractors helped U.S. forces put up a valiant defense, but they had to surrender after several weeks. They were all taken prisoner for the duration of the war, and put to hard labor. One of the Justine crew was Drew Foss, who was the grandson of the company founders. He injured his foot and was transferred to a prison camp in Japan. Then in 1943, the Japanese commander on Wake panicked when American forces came too near the island, and was afraid that the U.S. prisoners could be a threat. He had all 98 prisoners shot.
But the Arthur Foss somehow escaped being spotted, and arrived after three weeks at Pearl Harbor, with not much left in her fuel tanks but fumes.
I wrote a song about this. There’s a sing-along part for you.
Credits
- Written by: Alice Winship
- Arranged by: Alex Sturbaum
- Dan Roberts: lead vocal
- Chris Glanister: cittern, whistle, harmony vocal
- Alex Sturbaum: guitar