WISLER-ANDY

PRELUDE  TO  PEARL  HARBOR

On Sunday, December 12, 1937, the riverboat USS PANAY was attacked and sunk by Japanese planes in the Yangtze River while at anchor near Nanking, China.  Although the sinking did not immediately lead to war, “Remember the PANAY” became a well-known slogan as World War II developed.  Then Radioman First Class Andy R. Wisler was a PANAY crewmember and the following excerpt from the book “The Panay Incident, Prelude to Pearl Harbor,” authored in 1969 by Hamilton Darby Perry, briefly describes some of Wisler’s actions that day.

“Wisler was a 30-year old career Navy man from Nashua, Missouri.  He had been in the Navy for nine years at the time of the PANAY attack – and eight of those nine years had been served on the Yangtze Patrol.  Wisler gravitated to the Yangtze because “that was where the action was.”  To Wisler the routine in the fleet was too boring.  A military tradition was strong in his family.  A grandfather had been a sergeant in the Western Territory during the Civil War.  An uncle had been with Dewey at Manila Bay.  When the first bomb hit, Wisler had been in the chief petty officers washroom gazing out the window.  Then wham!  From instinct he headed for the deck.  ‘I started to open the door to get out but the door was jammed due to the warped and buckled bulkheads.  The next attempt I did come out – along with the door, its frames and anything else that could adrift with it.’  It was a stout door and he remembers thinking later he ordinarily would have had a devil of a time breaking through it.”

“Wisler immediately hurried forward along the upper deck.  On the way Wisler ripped the canvas cover off one of the machine guns intending to come back.  Then Wisler made his way through the debris of the radio room and out onto the deck where he found his wounded captain.  When Wisler requested permission to man the machine guns the seriously wounded Executive Officer could only nod his assent.  Radioman Wisler took off at top speed to the upper deck and headed for the first machine gun on the port side.  The canvas cover was a tight fit and Wisler was tugging and cursing it loose when a hand with a knife reached out from somewhere and slit the canvas from top to bottom.  A box of .30-caliber machine gun ammunition appeared on deck beside him.  Wisler snatched a pan of ammunition, fitted it to the top of the Lewis gun and was in business.  Finding a target was harder.  The machine guns were mounted slightly recessed into the upper deck and their field of fire went in a wide arc from about 15 degrees behind the bow to 15 degrees ahead of the stern.  Now the planes were coming in from directly ahead and they could not swing the guns far enough forward to bear.  Gunners had to hold their fire until after bombs were released.  The best shots came when the planes turned to one side and started to climb.  Wisler recalls:”

“They would present a target going away.  But the speed was over 200 miles an hour – even in those days – and the target was available only a few seconds.  I don’t know how many rounds I fired.  I would let bursts go at planes, move the gun to lead them, fire and let them fly into the stream of bullets.  The only thing wrong was that no plane ever fell into the river.  They were passing me ammunition from where they could find it.  At gun number one the spent brass was about ankle deep.  I evidently had my mouth open most of the time and it was filled with a lot of burned powder.“

“After the planes left Radioman Wisler went through the wrecked radio room.  He found the Navy call book which listed confidential call letters of all ships and stations.  He heaved it into the river and watched with awful fascination as it seemed to float for about 20 feet before its weighted covers finally took it under.  He was glad there was nothing else lying around loose that he was supposed to get rid of.  If the other confidential material didn’t sink any better than that, they were in trouble.  Wisler looked out the radio room door at the distance between the sinking ship and shore.  He figured he could swim if he the water weren’t too cold.  The ship didn’t seem to be settling so fast now.  Wisler took a flashlight from the drawer of the wrecked radio room desk, put in some fresh batteries and pocketed $90 he had squirreled away in a stationery box in another drawer.  He picked up a heavy waterproof jacket he kept in the radio room and headed for the crew’s compartment as his own sleeping space was below the water line.  With the ship being abandoned he figured if he could scrounge what he needed from someone else’s locker, nobody could object.  A jackknife and some matches were the first necessities that came to mind.  He found what he was looking for, found a talcum-powder can, emptied it, placed the matches inside and stuck the whole thing in his jacket pocket.”

“At 3:05 pm, with the last boat alongside, Wisler stepped in.  He was followed by a junior officer who was the last man off the ship.  With flags still flying, PANAY was abandoned – the first ship of the U.S. Navy ever lost to enemy aircraft.  And, in a sense, the first American naval casualty of World War II.”

NOTE:  Wisler and his fellow PANAY survivors managed for several days to elude Japanese troops searching for them and he returned to duty until retiring from the Navy in July 1948 with the rate of Chief Radioman.  He died on March 8, 1997, and is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

NAVY  CROSS  CITATION

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Radioman First Class Andy R. Wisler, United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty during the bombing and loss of the USS PANAY (PR-5), when that vessel was attacked by Japanese airplanes during patrol in the Yangtze River, China, on 12 December 1937.  Radioman First Class Wisler was a member of the crew which courageously operated the machine gun battery against the attacking planes, even though these guns could not bear forward from which direction most of the attacks were made.  He remained at his post of duty until ammunition was expended and the order was given to abandon ship.  He then assisted in carrying the seriously wounded from the ship and transporting them overland for six miles to a hospital.  The conduct of Radioman First Class Wisler throughout this action reflects great credit upon himself, and was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)