This story was initially revealed Jan. 14, 2021, on HistoryNet.
Underneath orders from President Franklin Roosevelt on this present day 80 years in the past, famed Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur deserted his island stronghold of Corregidor throughout his protection of the Philippines towards the Japanese army invasion.
The overall left behind a mixed 90,000 U.S. and Filipino troops. Outmanned, outgunned and minimize off from provides, many would succumb to the Japanese push, some dying within the dreaded Bataan Dying March and others held prisoner till the tip of the battle. MacArthur would famously return to the Philippines in October 1944, greater than two years later, to liberate the islands and American troops nonetheless in captivity. Right here’s the within story on why MacArthur did not act at a decisive second within the battle.
AT ABOUT 3:40 A.M. on December 8, 1941, the telephone rang inside Lieutenant Common Douglas MacArthur’s lavish condominium atop the Manila Lodge. It was MacArthur’s chief of employees, calling with the stunning information that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor earlier that morning—December 7 throughout the worldwide date line in Hawaii. MacArthur, commander of American forces within the Philippines, hastened to his headquarters, the place his air chief arrived shortly thereafter with a request: Main Common Lewis H. Brereton needed permission to launch a bombing raid towards Japanese bases in Formosa earlier than the Japanese may strike Clark Subject, the primary American air base within the Philippines. Regardless of repeated appeals from Brereton, nevertheless, and even a number of minor Japanese air raids on the Philippines, almost seven hours glided by earlier than MacArthur lastly approved the strike.
By then, it was too late.
At 12:30 p.m. Brereton’s B-17 Flying Fortresses had been on the bottom at Clark Subject, being fueled and loaded with bombs for the Formosa mission, when 88 Japanese bombers and fighters attacked. Brereton’s B-17s had been defenseless. Of the 17 on the bottom on the time, 12 had been destroyed and 5 had been badly broken. Not a single one was flyable. “It was a large number. Oil dumps and hangars had been blazing fiercely. Planes had been burning on the bottom,” stated Lieutenant William E. “Ed” Dyess, who surveyed the destruction beneath from the cockpit of his P-40 fighter aircraft. On the bottom, issues had been as unhealthy as they seemed from above. Personal Howard Watson noticed “devastation and havoc throughout,” and Lieutenant Colonel Ernest B. Miller famous the “lifeless and wounded…strewn about.” To Lieutenant Austin W. Stitt, “All the pieces in all places appeared on fireplace and lifeless.”
Brereton’s heavy bombers had been the linchpin of the Philippines’ deliberate protection—however in a single stroke, Japan had obliterated that risk. Why MacArthur had held again and waited for the enemy to strike first was a thriller even to his colleagues. Army Chief of Employees George C. Marshall couldn’t fathom “how MacArthur occurred to let his planes get caught on the bottom,” and air pressure commander Henry H. “Hap” Arnold wrote in his 1949 memoirs that he by no means felt he obtained “the true story of what occurred within the Philippines.” Historians and MacArthur biographers have debated ever since why MacArthur waited so lengthy to authorize the Formosa raid.
The reply could lie within the shut relationship—too shut, maybe—between the American commander and Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon.
EVER SINCE THE PHILIPPINES turned an American possession in 1898, U.S. officers questioned find out how to defend it in case of battle with Japan, a rustic thought to have an expansionist eye on the islands. The Philippines is 5,000 miles from Hawaii, which made reinforcement and resupply tough, however fewer than 300 miles coast to coast from Japanese-held Formosa (now Taiwan). In 1934, protection of the Philippines turned a short-term proposition when Congress voted to grant it independence in 1946.
In 1935, Philippine President Quezon—the overwhelming alternative that yr within the nation’s first nationwide election—persuaded Washington to nominate outgoing U.S. Army Chief of Employees MacArthur as army adviser to the Philippines, to develop a military to guard it upon independence. Quezon and MacArthur had met in 1904 when MacArthur was a 24-year-old lieutenant recent out of West Level and Quezon was a 26-year-old lawyer with political aspirations. Their friendship ripened into “outstanding intimacy,” the New York Occasions reported, when MacArthur was stationed within the Philippines throughout the Nineteen Twenties. As army adviser, MacArthur continued to attract his U.S. Army wage whereas the Philippine authorities paid him a beneficiant remuneration and offered him with an expense account and a penthouse condominium in Manila. When MacArthur retired from the military in 1937, Quezon appointed him subject marshal of the Philippine Army.
Quezon was the driving political pressure within the islands, “100 and forty kilos of political and human dynamite,” within the phrases of a New York Occasions correspondent. To Excessive Commissioner Francis B. Sayre, the senior U.S. official within the Philippines, Quezon was a person “of marked skill, and a consummate politician…a prima donna of the primary order. All the time he was adroit and dramatic.” An advocate of independence, Quezon proclaimed he would “fairly stay beneath a authorities run like hell by Filipinos than one run like heaven by People.” He was loyal to the USA, however he believed his major obligation was to his folks. When American and Philippine pursuits diverged, he didn’t at all times willingly toe the American line.
Till 1946, the Philippines’ protection was America’s accountability, and Quezon started to doubt that the USA may shield his nation towards Japan. In 1937 and 1938, he visited Tokyo, ostensibly on trip, and felt out senior Japanese officers. The Japanese rolled out the pink carpet, and Quezon even dined with Emperor Hirohito. “Japan has no aggressive intentions in direction of the Philippines. All we would like is your commerce,” Quezon remembered Japanese officers assuring him. They promised to respect Philippine neutrality as soon as the islands turned unbiased. This planted the seed in Quezon’s thoughts that Japan may spare his nation within the occasion of battle with the USA—an thought with long-term penalties.
AMERICAN OFFICERS shared Quezon’s doubts about their skill to defend the Philippines. “A troop of Boy Scouts flying kites may take these damned islands,” Main Kirtley J. Gregg complained in a letter to his spouse in March 1941.
That was about to alter, nevertheless, and the catalyst was the B-17 Flying Fortress, a four-engine bomber that would fly 2,400 miles whereas carrying two tons of bombs. These planes would deliver “American energy again into the Islands,” Secretary of Conflict Henry L. Stimson proclaimed in September 1941. A fleet of heavy bombers within the Philippines may turn out to be “the decisive aspect in deterring Japan from endeavor a Pacific Conflict,” military chief of employees Marshall believed. If battle got here, Philippine-based B-17s may hit Japanese bases on Formosa. Ought to Japan advance towards Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies to grab the oil and different uncooked supplies it desperately wanted, B-17s may menace that advance. Marshall even envisioned Fortresses from the Philippines hanging the Japanese residence islands and touchdown in Vladivostok, Russia, to refuel and rearm.
The Conflict Division deliberate to have 170 heavy bombers within the Philippines by October 1942. As of late November 1941, nevertheless, solely 35 B-17s of the nineteenth Bombardment Group had arrived; 33 extra Fortresses had been anticipated in December and 51 in January. In an off-the-record press briefing, Marshall referred to the 35 B-17s already there as the best focus of Flying Fortresses on the earth.
As relations with Japan deteriorated, the military had recalled MacArthur to energetic obligation on July 26, 1941, and put him in charge of all American and Filipino troops within the islands. On November 27, Marshall warned MacArthur that battle was imminent. If hostilities couldn’t be averted, “the USA needs that Japan commit the primary overt act,” Marshall advised him.
If battle got here, Common Brereton deliberate to have his B-17s strike the air and naval bases in southern Formosa, about 500 miles north of Clark Subject. By December 8, 1941, Brereton had the bombers cut up between two bases. Nineteen had been at Clark Subject on Luzon, the primary Philippine island. The remaining 16 had been at Del Monte Subject on Mindanao, greater than 500 miles south of Clark and safely out of vary of Formosa-based planes.
Brereton discovered of the Pearl Harbor assault at about 4 a.m. on December 8 when Lieutenant Common Richard Okay. Sutherland, MacArthur’s chief of employees, woke him with the information. Brereton promised Sutherland that his bombers could be able to hit Formosa at dawn. He deliberate to have the B-17s at Clark Subject strike Formosa instantly, then fly the Fortresses at Del Monte as much as Clark for a second assault later that day.
At 5 a.m., Brereton went to MacArthur’s headquarters looking for permission to hit Formosa. Sutherland advised Brereton that MacArthur was too busy to see him and that he was to arrange for an assault, however to await additional orders earlier than launching one. Thirty-five minutes later, Marshall despatched MacArthur a radiogram ordering him to hold out duties outlined within the present battle plan, Rainbow 5, together with “air raids towards Japanese forces and installations inside tactical working radius of obtainable bases.”
Brereton returned to MacArthur’s headquarters at 7:15 a.m., however Sutherland once more refused to let him see MacArthur. Brereton renewed his request to bomb Formosa. Sutherland went into MacArthur’s workplace and returned a minute later. “The overall says no. Don’t make the primary overt act,” Sutherland stated. When Brereton protested that the Pearl Harbor assault was actually an overt act, Sutherland went again to MacArthur’s workplace, returning with the message that Brereton’s position was defensive “in the meanwhile.” A pissed off Brereton believed that MacArthur was throwing away the air pressure’s finest likelihood of hanging a decisive blow. To keep away from having his B-17s caught on the bottom, Brereton ordered them aloft and out of hurt’s means, circling over Luzon by 9 a.m.
MacArthur quickly obtained phrase of overt acts towards the Philippines. By 9:45 a.m., experiences of three minor Japanese air raids within the far northern a part of Luzon that morning had trickled into his headquarters. However when Brereton phoned at 10 a.m., Sutherland, sticking to MacArthur’s earlier directions, once more refused to permit an assault. Brereton warned that if the Japanese hit Clark Subject, a Formosa raid may not be attainable. Lastly, at 10:14 a.m. in response to Brereton’s headquarters diary, MacArthur known as Brereton—his first direct contact with Brereton that day—and approved the Formosa assault.
Due to MacArthur’s delay in approving the mission, Brereton now deliberate a three-plane photoreconnaissance mission to be adopted by a 16-bomber strike towards “identified airdromes in Southern Formosa on the newest daylight hour at the moment that visibility will allow.” With an early morning strike now inconceivable, photoreconnaissance would give Brereton’s bombardiers recent goal info. The air chief ordered Clark Subject’s B-17s to land; by 11:30 a.m., floor crews started refueling the bombers and loading them with bombs, whereas the flight crews obtained briefings on the mission.
However earlier than the B-17s may take off, 54 Japanese bombers appeared over Clark Subject at 12:30 p.m. and struck with lethal accuracy. They took out the hangars and restore amenities and left the runways pockmarked with craters. When the bombers completed, 34 Zero fighters strafed the sector for an hour, inflicting extra injury to the B-17s than the bombing had. By 1:30 p.m., 12 Fortresses had been burning wrecks and 5 had been badly broken. Solely two that had been within the air throughout the assault remained flyable. Fifty-five People had been killed and greater than 100 wounded.
The B-17s at Del Monte Subject had been un-harmed, and MacArthur promised the Conflict Division “a heavy bombardment counterattack tomorrow morning on enemy airdromes in southern Formosa”—an assault he later canceled when it turned evident that Clark Subject may not be used because the staging space. MacArthur known as the Clark catastrophe unavoidable. “Each attainable precaution…was taken right here,” he radioed Washington that afternoon, attributing the losses “solely to the overwhelming superiority of the enemy pressure.”
Hap Arnold positioned a blistering telephone name to Brereton. “How within the hell may an skilled airman such as you get caught together with your planes on the bottom?” he demanded. Practically half the B-17s had been misplaced, and Clark Subject was not a viable residence for them. A lot had been anticipated of the bombers, however they hadn’t delivered. On December 20, 1941, 14 of the unique 35 that had survived had been evacuated to Australia.
THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT that MacArthur pulled his punches by ready for Japan to strike earlier than he approved the Formosa mission. The elusive query is why.
After the battle, MacArthur gave a number of explanations for his baffling conduct, however none maintain water. First, he claimed that his orders prohibited offensive motion “except and till the geographic boundaries of the Philippine Islands had been invaded,” however that isn’t true. On November 27, Marshall had instructed him that if battle got here, Japan should commit “the primary overt act.” The Pearl Harbor assault was an indeniable overt act towards the USA; Marshall had by no means specified an act towards the Philippines. Even when MacArthur had misunderstood Marshall’s November 27 order, Marshall’s 5:35 a.m. order on December 8 authorizing “air raids towards Japanese forces and installations” ought to have eliminated all doubt. It’s unlikely that MacArthur, a superb man and a grasp wordsmith, misunderstood such a transparent message.
Second, MacArthur denied that Brereton had ever requested him personally for permission to assault Formosa. Brereton, Sutherland, and MacArthur’s headquarters diaries verify Brereton’s requests to strike Formosa, however MacArthur implied that Sutherland had saved these requests from him, saying he knew “nothing of what could have taken place between Common Brereton and…Common Sutherland.” Sutherland, a self-described “first-class son of a bitch,” had a popularity for blocking entry to MacArthur, however the proof suggests he didn’t conceal Brereton’s requests from his boss. Lieutenant Colonel William P. Morse, a member of MacArthur’s employees, heard Brereton’s 7:15 a.m. pitch and noticed Sutherland take that request into MacArthur’s workplace.
On high of that, MacArthur insisted he would by no means have allowed a Formosa raid as a result of it could have been “sheer suicide.” However Brereton’s headquarters diary reveals that MacArthur himself had known as Brereton to authorize the mission. And MacArthur’s proposed next-day assault on southern Formosa is one thing he wouldn’t have promised had he thought-about it to be suicide.
Lastly, in a 1945 interview with historian Walter D. Edmonds, Sutherland claimed all 35 B-17s ought to have been out of hurt’s means when the Japanese attacked Clark Subject as a result of, days earlier, MacArthur had ordered Brereton to maneuver all heavy bombers from Clark Subject to Del Monte. Researchers, nevertheless, have searched in useless for any such order.
IN SEVERAL LITTLE-KNOWN written statements, MacArthur implies a extra believable motive for holding again his bombers: that he had deferred to Quezon’s hope that Japan would spare the Philippines. “Even after the assault upon Pearl Harbor,” MacArthur wrote to historians Paul S. Burtness and Warren U. Ober in 1962, “it was hoped that the Japanese wouldn’t try invasion of the Philippines in view of its…approaching unbiased standing.” In 1954, he pointed to the supply of this hope. “Whereas I personally had not the slightest doubt we might be attacked,” MacArthur wrote to historian Louis Morton, “nice native hope existed that this is able to not be the case.” “Nice native hope” can imply just one factor: Philippine President Quezon, a view shared by John D. Bulkeley, a naval officer near MacArthur, who insisted “it was Quezon who put the clamp on issues.”
Quezon had a robust motive to encourage MacArthur to attend to see if Japan attacked. If the Philippines turned a battleground, it could imply 1000’s of Filipino deaths and untold destruction—one thing Quezon needed to keep away from. Japan had promised friendship to his nation and respect for its neutrality upon independence; Quezon appeared to just accept these guarantees. Japan didn’t need to assault the Philippines, he believed, and would accomplish that provided that threatened by American forces there. If the USA launched a bombing mission towards Formosa, he knew it could kill any likelihood Japan would go away the Philippines unhurt.
Even after Japan invaded the Philippines in Luzon’s Lingayen Gulf on December 22, 1941, Quezon clung to the hope that Japan may nonetheless be persuaded to spare his nation. On February 8, 1942, at a time when Filipino and American forces had fought the Japanese to a standstill on the Bataan Peninsula, Quezon requested President Franklin D. Roosevelt for quick independence for the Philippines so he may declare the nation impartial. Whether or not Japan would have revered Philippine neutrality appears solely a extremely distant chance, however this may by no means be identified as a result of Roosevelt refused to speed up independence.
After being evacuated from the Philippines in February 1942 to keep away from seize by the Japanese, Quezon advised Dwight D. Eisenhower—whom he knew from Eisenhower’s days as a MacArthur aide—that MacArthur had waited for Japan to strike out of the hope that it could spare the islands. Then Quezon added a twist: He stated it was MacArthur, not he, who believed Japan may bypass the Philippines. That state of affairs, nevertheless, is unlikely. As an skilled army officer, MacArthur knew Japan couldn’t ignore the risk U.S. forces posed there. He was additionally conscious that American radar had detected Japanese planes flying nighttime reconnaissance missions over Clark Subject on December 2-5, 1941, an indication Japan meant to assault the Philippines when battle got here.
However MacArthur had motive to defer to Quezon—one thing the proud army man could be reluctant to confess. MacArthur commanded fewer than 35,000 American troops, and too few had been soldiers. To defend the islands, he wanted the 120,000-man Philippine Army—and the morale and endurance of the Filipino troops hinged on Quezon’s unequivocal help for the battle effort.
Quezon was a revered determine within the Philippines. Only a month earlier than the outbreak of battle, he had gained reelection with greater than 80 p.c of the favored vote. The U.S. State Division known as him “a very powerful rallying level we’ve got to maintain the Filipino folks loyal to the USA” and famous that Quezon had “gained the love of the Filipino plenty…as has no different Filipino chief.” The risky Quezon’s help could be no certain factor if he believed MacArthur had needlessly introduced battle there.
MacArthur’s almost 40-year friendship with Quezon can also’t be missed. From 1935 to 1941, MacArthur had served as a well-paid adviser to Quezon. In an government order issued shortly after the Japanese invasion, Quezon paid MacArthur an extra $500,000 (greater than $8 million at the moment) from the Philippine Treasury “in recognition of excellent service to the Commonwealth of the Philippines.”
MacArthur bowed to Quezon’s needs on different events. In late December 1941, when MacArthur’s forces had been retreating to Bataan, U.S. quartermasters realized they lacked adequate meals to feed the garrison there. They tried to purchase rice from a Philippine authorities depot on Luzon and transport it to Bataan. Even 20 p.c of that rice would have fed the troops there for almost a yr, however MacArthur refused to overrule Quezon’s prohibition towards the sale. Quartermasters additionally tried to confiscate canned meals from warehouses owned by Japanese corporations, however beneath stress from Quezon, MacArthur refused to permit it. In January 1942, the Japanese emplaced artillery at Ternate, on the Luzon coast, to batter Corregidor, the island fortress in Manila Bay. For 2 weeks, MacArthur prohibited American artillery from firing on Ternate as a result of Quezon feared civilian casualties.
THE FINAL QUESTION is whether or not a Formosa raid may have succeeded. The possibilities had been “extraordinarily distant,” wrote Louis Morton, creator of the Philippine marketing campaign’s definitive account. Lieutenant Arthur A. Fletcher, a nineteenth Bombardment Group pilot, had a blunter evaluation: “the Japs would have been sitting on prepared, licking their chops.” Brereton’s pursuit planes—P-40s, P-35s, and P-26s—lacked the vary to escort the heavy bombers to Formosa. Unescorted B-17s had been weak to fighter assault, particularly Brereton’s early fashions, which lacked tail weapons.
Postwar interrogation of Japanese officers, nevertheless, reveals that an assault on the primary air base in southern Formosa that morning may need had an opportunity, albeit a slim one. The Japanese had deliberate a dawn assault on the Philippines, however heavy fog had delayed takeoff from Formosa till 10:15 a.m. If Brereton had launched his B-17s by 6:30 a.m., they might have discovered the enemy planes on the bottom beneath the fog, loaded with bombs and gasoline, and may need struck the kind of blow the Japanese would later inflict on Clark Subject. This prospect so anxious the Japanese {that a} false report of approaching American bombers that morning threw the bottom there right into a frenzy. And if the B-17s had taken off later, the enemy planes would have been on their option to Clark Subject, not less than leaving the B-17s to assault the Formosa base with out robust opposition. Japanese officers later admitted their antiaircraft defenses had been poor and that that they had dedicated all their frontline planes to the Clark Subject mission, leaving solely out of date fighters for protection.
The lack of the heavy bombers at Clark Subject did nothing to derail MacArthur’s profession or sully his popularity. On December 19, 1941, he was promoted to full common, and he later obtained the Medal of Honor for “conspicuous management in making ready the Philippine Islands to withstand conquest.” This was a far completely different destiny from that suffered by Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant Common Walter C. Brief, the commanders at Pearl Harbor, who misplaced their jobs for getting caught with their ships at anchor and planes on the bottom.
For Quezon and the USA, the preventing within the Philippines ended as badly because it had begun. On April 9, 1942, the 78,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan surrendered; the 11,000 males on Corregidor capitulated almost a month later, on Might 6. The Philippines had been in Japanese palms. By then, each MacArthur and Quezon had been evacuated to security. MacArthur vowed to return to liberate the islands, and Quezon dreamed of being at his aspect, but it surely was to not be: whereas being handled for tuberculosis at Lake Saranac, New York, the 65-year-old Philippine president died on August 1, 1944, fewer than three months earlier than MacArthur stepped again onto Philippine soil.
