The Day My Eight Year Old Self Killed A Shark

I killed a shark when I was eight years old. Looking back I see the shame of it. But at the time it was a source of pride. It was me and a gang of other boys in a "Lord of the Flies" kind of moment. The shark had done nothing to us. It's only crime was being a shark in the wrong place at the right time and us believing it was a threat. And truthfully, I suppose it was, but not really through any fault of its own.

Fifty-three years ago my eight-year-old self had no idea how important sharks were. I didn't know then that they maintained the ecosystem by keeping the species in the food chain below them under control. Or that they weeded out the sick and the weak. And I certainly didn't know that so many sharks loose their lives through ignorance, misunderstandings and actions like my own that day. So many in fact, today the hammerhead and great white sharks, along with some others are on the verge of extinction. I learned these things and more about sharks after I joined the Marine Corps. But I was a child then and it was more than half a century ago.

It was hot that day on Wake Island, a coral atoll in the Western Pacific Ocean. Me and my family lived there because my father worked as an air traffic controller for the Air Force. Looking at a map, Wake is the larger of three islets strung together in a giant lobster claw or U-shape. There isn't a whole lot of places to go on such a small place and when you're surrounded by ocean, it and its creatures were the primary source of entertainment for us as small boys.

We met at our hang out on the beach like we usually did. But that day, each one of us had brought something from our father's stashes. I brought rope, Tim brought giant hooks, and Jeff and Bobby brought bloody fish for bait. We set to work rigging up a bunch of lines. The next step was to carry these lines out into the water between the shore and the reef and drop them while the tides were down. There would be plenty of hungry fish trapped behind the reef. We boys intended to get some of them. What we didn't count on was a shark being among them.

We argued a bit over how to get the lines out there. Tim and Jeff weren't very good swimmers and Bobby had a broken arm and wasn't supposed to get it wet. Now that we were down to it, they were all having second thoughts. Not me. I was determined to see it through, so I took charge. I grabbed the lines and sloshed my way out into the water towards the reef. The lines were draped all over my shoulders and the bloody bait was trailing along in the water all around me. As you can imagine, this was a recipe for disaster. It wasn't long before a shark took notice and his giant form came bearing down on me.

My comrades standing in shallow water began to scream and run. I thought a water fight had ensued. I was irritated by the commotion. I whirled on them and yelled, "Shut up guys. You're gonna' scare the fish." Who knows if that was really a true statement but it was something we had always been told so we believed it. It was then I looked where my buddies were pointing and I saw why they were screaming and running out of the water. When I turned, I saw the enormity of the shark compared to me. Easily thirteen feet of shark was cruising towards me and my frail sixty-eight pound self. Frantically, I managed to get all the lines off me and heaved them out towards the shark and began running back to shore and screaming as enthusiastically as my buddies had.

As we stood bent over on the beach gasping for air, the shark hit those hooks and tore into the bait. I shuddered to think of how he might have torn into me like that. Then I got mad. He could have hurt me bad or killed me. Plus he made me hurt myself scrambling to shore. I had cut my foot on a piece of coral in my final race out of the water. We decided we needed to find a way to make sure that shark would never be able to hurt us or anyone else ever.

Once we realized he had our hooks embedded in his mouth, we knew exactly what we would do. We would drag him out of the water. If only it would have been that easy. Not knowing what was about to happen, we boys ventured cautiously back into the water grabbing at the lines. After finally capturing the lines, we began attempting to tug him to shore. As soon as we got the line taut, that shark would start putting up a fight. His strength was definitely greater than all four of ours together. We had no choice but to let the line out so he could run. Then when he quit pulling the line, we started pulling him in again. We repeated this process for a couple of hours. We were beginning to wonder if we were going to wear him out or whether he was going to wear us out. We gained an audience as our shark wrangling played on. Not one of the adults present that day told us how dangerous what we were doing was or about the importance of sharks to the oceanic ecosystem. Either they didn't know, didn't care, or were enjoying the show of sheer will of four little boys against the brute strength of the mighty shark. Being cheered on, we garnered the strength to outlast the shark.

Eventually as the exhausted shark surrendered the fight, we tugged him fully to shore. We admired our catch as he lay helplessly in the sand. Before he could rest up and get lively again, we used the same knives we had cut our rope with to make short work of him. We had no plans for him other than being victorious over him. Another sad fact about that day.

His tail seemed a fine trophy to me and since it was me that he had targeted, I felt I had a right to it. The section I cut was close to three feet long and for my eight-year-old self, it was almost as big as I was. I lugged it home. It wasn't until I got all the way there that I started to think things through. I realized now with vivid certainty that neither my parents nor my sisters would share my pride in my shark tail trophy. Not realizing the gaff I was making, I hid it under my bed.

It wasn't quite two days before the shark tail began to make its presence known. My sister, Carol, ever my tormentor, was the first to notice. And of course, she traced the foul odor to my room straight away. By now, she had enlisted the aid of my other sister, Toni, and like two blood hounds they found my trophy in my secret hiding place. I should have known when I heard their screams what had happened and that there was going to be trouble for me. But clueless me was trailing Mom as she came running from the kitchen to see why my sisters sounded like they were on fire. Mom threw her hand over her nose as she ran into my room. "Patrick Lee what on earth have you got in this room!" It was only then I realized the horribly foul odor in our house. There was nothing for me to do but pull the cardboard piece I had the shark tail laying on out from under my bed.

"Get that nasty thing out of here right now!" Mom shrieked. "Put it in the back yard so your Father can see it when he gets home." Now I started to understand how much trouble I was in if Mom was bringing Dad into it. My sisters were gagging and screaming as I carried it out. I stuck my tongue out at them. I was still proud of it even if nobody else was.

Dad came home to a house that smelled like an air freshener granade had been tossed into our house. After a brief conversation with Mom, he crooked his finger for me to follow him into the back yard. He struck a match and lit his evening cigar that he began to puff. Standing over the decaying matter of what once was a majestic shark's tail, he simple said, "Tell me about it." Somewhat relieved, I gushed out my story.

After I finished, Dad stood there staring off at the sky puffing his cigar. "And you thought killing that shark for fun was alright, son?" I remember the shame that washed over me to know my Dad was disappointed in me.

"Well, he tried to get me," I offered as defense.

Dad looked at me thoughtfully, "And you know why he did that, don't you? He was hungry and there you and your friends were splashing around in the water with a bunch of bloody bait hanging off of you. Of course he was going to try to get you."

He watched me stand there staring down at my feet. "And what about this? It wasn't enough you killed him, you had to cut him up and bring this here to the house. What for son?"

"I don't know," I whispered. Suddenly my grand adventure with the shark didn't seem so grand anymore.

"Go get my belt." I did, and let's just say there was a stern lesson learned that day, some tears and very red hide.

Later, Dad explained all about sharks and how they live and eat, why they were important to keep balance in the ocean. He impressed on me how dangerous what we boys had done with the bloody fish lines. All that poor shark wanted to do was get some dinner and there we were splashing around in the water with dinner hanging off of us like ringing the dinner bell for him to come and get it. The shark tail was returned to the shark body and both were buried by a group of solemn young, but now more learned and respectful, eight-year-olds.

******

Although this was a true event that occurred in my husband's childhood, creative license was taken with some details.

He says that living on Wake Island as a kid provided him lots of adventures, both grand and small. Some harmless, and some dangerous like this shark adventure.

The rich military history of Wake Island instilled in my husband the certainty that he would one day become a Marine. He made good on that at the age of twenty-six and put him on a path to many new adventures over the next thirty years of service.

Retired now, our grandkids call Patrick their Grandpa Gunny. Once a Marine, always a Marine.

Semper Fi and Oorah!

A brief history of Wake Island and it's function in World War II after Pearl Harbor