On MacArthur:
- ^ Connaughton, Richard. Douglas MacArthur and Defeat in the Philippines
- ^ Bartsch, December 9, 1941, p. 423
Blaming MacArthur on the Philippine attack is as bad as scapegoating Short and Kimmel at Pearl Harbor, deplorable and only would be claimed by the most extreme of FDR's many apologists.
(Incidentally, just what happened was predicted by Jimmy Doolittle 25 years before it did happen but he was punished with a court marshal.)
In 1941 the Philippines were a possession of the United States (a commonwealth with independence scheduled for 1946) but a far outpost, 5,000 miles from Pearl Harbor and over 7,000 miles from San Francisco. Manila is, however, only 1,800 miles from Tokyo.
On 26 July 1941, Major General Douglas MacArthur, retired Army Chief of Staff, was recalled to active duty and assigned to mobilize the Philippine Army and strengthen the U.S. garrison in the Philippine Islands.
The official plan for the defense of the Philippine Islands was "Philippine Department Plan ORANGE, 1940 Revision (short title: HPD WPO-3), AGO No. 326." That was an unrealistic plan. He successfully argued for a change of plans.
Ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese staged disastrous air attacks against Clark Field and Iba Field, destroying half the heavy bombers and fighters of MacArthur's Far East Air Force. The next day they struck at Cavite, the main naval base, causing heavy damage, and precipitating a naval retreat to bases in Java and Australia, 1,500 miles away.
American intelligence had broken the Japanese code. Copies of Magic were always promptly delivered in locked pouches to President Roosevelt, and the secretaries of State, War, and Navy. They also went to Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall and to the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark.
However, although three Purple decoding machines were allotted to Britain, none were sent to Pearl Harbor or the Philippines. Intercepts of ciphered messages radioed between Tokyo and its Honolulu consulate had to be forwarded to Washington for decrypting.
Here are some of the things Washington knew that Short, Kimmel and MacArthur didn't:
November 5th: Tokyo notified its Washington ambassadors that November 25th was the deadline for an agreement with the U.S.
November 11th: They were warned, "The situation is nearing a climax, and the time is getting short."
November 16th: The deadline was pushed up to November 29th. "The deadline absolutely cannot be changed," the dispatch said. "After that, things are automatically going to happen."
November 29th (the U.S. ultimatum had now been received): The ambassadors were told a rupture in negotiations was "inevitable," but that Japan's leaders "do not wish you to give the impression that negotiations are broken off."
November 30th: Tokyo ordered its Berlin embassy to inform the Germans that "the breaking out of war may come quicker than anyone dreams."
December 1st: The deadline was again moved ahead. "To prevent the United States from becoming unduly suspicious, we have been advising the press and others that ... the negotiations are continuing."
December 1st-2nd: The Japanese embassies in non-Axis nations around the world were directed to dispose of their secret documents and all but one copy of their codes. (This was for a reason easy to fathom when war breaks out, the diplomatic offices of a hostile state lose their immunity and are normally overtaken. One copy of code was retained so that final instructions could be received, after which the last code copy would be destroyed.)
FDR, knowing of the coming Japanese attack could have reinforced MacArthur with troops, equipment, naval resources and planes but did not.
On 22 December, Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma's Japanese 14th Army came ashore at Lingayen Gulf, about 135 miles north of Manila, with 80 ships and 43,000 troops, followed by units with tanks and artillery.
MacArthur had 19,000 American troops, about 11,000 of his trained Philippine Scouts, and 60,000 other Philippine troops that he had not had a chance to train and who were not very reliable.
In a few weeks, the Japanese had achieved aerial and naval supremacy in the Philippines, isolating MacArthur's force from Australia to the south and from Hawaii and the United States to the east.
Eventually president Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to move his headquarters to Australia, over MacArthur's objections.
Bottom line was that the successful execution of MacArthur's Bataan plan saved the 75,000 American and Philippine troops on Luzon from immediate defeat,
delayed the Japanese timetable for conquest by four months, and kept large Japanese combat forces tied up in the Philippines long after Malaya, Singapore, and the Indies had fallen.
FDR's pet general, George Marshall had blustered publicly that the Philippines would be armed with long range B-17 bombers that would deter Japanese attack but not enough of those were dispatched to the Philipines to pose a serious threat to Japan, plus they couldn't make a round trip flight and would need to refuel in the USSR and Stalin never even seemed likely to agree to that.
Roosevelt's intentions were nearly exposed in 1940 when Tyler Kent, a code clerk at the U.S. embassy in London, discovered secret dispatches between Roosevelt and Churchill. These revealed that FDR despite contrary campaign promises was determined to engage America in the war. Kent smuggled some of the documents out of the embassy, hoping to alert the American public but was caught. With U.S. government approval, he was tried in a secret British court and confined to a British prison until the war's end.
In 1940, Admiral J.O. Richardson, the fleet's commander, flew to Washington to protest FDR's decision to permanently base the fleet in Hawaii instead of its normal berthing on the U.S. West Coast. The admiral had sound reasons: Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to attack, being approachable from any direction; it could not be effectively rigged with nets and baffles to defend against torpedo planes; and in Hawaii it would be hard to supply and train crews for his undermanned vessels.
Pearl Harbor also lacked adequate fuel supplies and dry docks, and keeping men far from their families would create morale problems. The argument became heated.
Said Richardson:
"I came away with the impression that, despite his spoken word, the President was fully determined to put the United States into the war if Great Britain could hold out until he was reelected."
Richardson was quickly relieved of command. Replacing him was Admiral Husband E. Kimmel.
I will always believe the rumors questioning the integrity of Doug MacArthur came from the fact that he stood up to Truman and told him to kiss his buttocks.
It reminds me of a boss of mine one time who was one of the nicest I've ever worked for, and I've had the good fortune to work under some very nice men, when one day some big wheel came through the department and in an attempt to micro-manage, jumped my boss about me reading the daily CIA report when that wasn't part of my assigned duties and my boss bucked up and said in a loud voice that one could hear throughout not just our department but the whole section which was about the size of a football field;
"I'll run this department the way I see fit, if you have a problem with that then relieve me of duty right now and assign someone else to run it, otherwise just stay out of my department!"
That was a big surprise to me, I didn't have any idea he had that in him, and the kicker was, in the following year while I was there, the guy never ever set foot back in our department.
It also reminds me of one time I told my dad, who was a pretty smart man himself; "dad, you know that altogether, various agencies of the US government pass 500 new regulations every day?"
(The proposed EPA regulation of bovine flatulence to combat climate crisis comes to mind.)
And he replied; "Yes son, but you don't have to go by those regulations if you don't want to."
