by James Johns
General MacArthur’s officers and wives dining in the Manila Hotel’s Fiesta Pavilion, 1940.
The Manila Hotel (center left), site of General MacArthur’s penthouse residence, 1940. The Spanish-walled old city is just beyond the hotel complex.
Through most of the 1930s, Washington had considered the Philippines as just an American possession, not even defensible and of little strategic importance. As a result, what little armament was sent there was obsolete at best. When the bottomless pit of military hardware failed to materialize, the relationship between Quezon and MacArthur started to cool. Specifically, Washington had nothing to send. MacArthur told Washington that in order to meet the growing Japanese threat he was building a Philippine army that could be ready for anything the Japanese could throw at them. In the eyes of the rest of the world, MacArthur estimated he would be able to change the entire picture of the western Pacific.
It was during 1940 that a bill was introduced into the Philippine Senate limiting the terms to eight years that a president and vice president could serve. The bill would require FDR’s signature, who was himself in his eighth year and running for re-election. He let a sleeping dog lie. After twelve years in office, and upon his death in 1945, the Philippine Senate was still waiting for his signature. And because the defense budget that MacArthur required was far more than Manila could afford, the relationship between President Quezon and MacArthur would eventually cool even more.
Many in the State Department and even some on the General Staff were questioning why MacArthur was not pursuing alternatives to war rather than building for it. They even tried to pressure FDR to recall MacArthur to justify his actions. But again, there would be no rocking the boat as long as Roosevelt was running for his third term.
Now General MacArthur announced to Washington his grandiose plan not to defend just Luzon in a defense retreat to Bataan per WPO-3, but to also defend the entire Philippine archipelago. Because Washington had faith in his optimism, believing his inflated figures on the size of the Philippine Army and the depth of its training, it regrettably bought into his plan. The challenge of modernization started to appear. Compounding the shortage of equipment for the Philippines was the means to deliver it.
Over one million tons of supplies gathered on U.S. docks, waiting for the ships to deliver them.10 To counter former President Hoover’s warning that economic sanctions were roads to war, the prospect of FDR’s alternative, to do nothing, would have allowed Japan at her leisure to gobble up the balance of the European possessions, including the Philippines. This would have placed the United States in the same position that Japan had landed in, being cut off from the same tin, oil, and rubber, when it was most needed.
On October 31, 1940, the U.S. Army transport, USS U.S. Grant (AP-29), docked in Manila. Aboard was Major General Jonathan Wainwright, arriving to proudly accept command of the Philippine Division, the largest army unit in the Philippines and praised by MacArthur as equal to anything.
As the commander of the Philippine Department, it was up to Wainwright to resist the impending Japanese invasion, and after General MacArthur’s departure from the Philippines in March 1942, Wainwright would assume the role of Allied commander of the Philippines, a no-win situation. By early May of 1942, Wainwright would be forced to surrender and was interned in various POW camps until he was liberated in 1945. In 1942, he had been nominated for the Medal of Honor, but it was MacArthur who actually blocked the nomination because he didn’t think that Corregidor should have surrendered. After Wainwright’s release, however, MacArthur did not oppose the second nomination, and in September of 1945, Wainwright would receive his just recognition.
The division of an estimated thirteen thousand men that General Wainwright accepted actually consisted of only seventy-five hundred men. Most were Filipinos, many of whom spoke little or no English.11 If American units in the States had little, the Philippines, where the action would probably start, had nothing. Artillery, tanks, communications, and vehicles were virtually nonexistent. Troops had never trained as a unit nor held any maneuvers, and with the different dialects in the islands, communications were a challenge. Yet it would be their responsibility to defend the United States’ most Far Eastern possession, and eventually, according to MacArthur, one hundred twenty-five thousand men would complete six months of training.12 Defensive aviation was, at best, dismal. American pilots arriving in the Philippines could not believe that their operational aircraft were actually museum pieces, all overdue for the boneyards.
Based in Manila, Admiral Thomas Hart, who had studied at the Army War College as well as the Navy’s, commanded the American Asiatic Fleet. He and Major General George Grunert, who had been in command of the Philippine Department since May 1940, both recognized the inadequacies of the Philippine troops. The Philippine Department was responsible for the actual American defense of the island, and both said that this army was capable of defense operations only without maneuvering, and then only if supervised closely by the American officers. Half of the Philippine officers had no active duty experience and 15 percent had no training at all.
Navy defenses were also less than adequate. Admiral Hart’s Asiatic Fleet consisted of two cruisers, thirteen destroyers, seventeen submarines, twenty-four PBY patrol bombers, four seaplane tenders,13 and a mix of other support vessels. Hart considered that any aid to MacArthur’s defense plan would wipe out his navy in the first days. He even doubted MacArthur’s sanity. As an example, Hart suggested that in closely coordinated air missions, when navy aircraft were supporting army missions, they should be under the army’s control, and when army aircraft were supporting navy missions, they should be under the navy’s command. Not understanding that logic, MacArthur disagreed. But General Marshall in Washington laid it on the line for him: he would support naval missions.
General Grunert told Washington that important decisions for adequate air offense and defense, as well as the air warning service, should be made not by infantry officers but by an Air Corps general. This finally resulted in the arrival of General Henry Clagett and his assistant, Colonel Harold George, in May of 1941. Colonel George, an expert on bombing strategy, had been instrumental while working in the Air War Plans Division in the planning and production of aircraft before the war. Upon his arrival in the Philippines, he found that the combined American and Philippine Air Force consisted of only a few obsolete aircraft, left over from U.S. mainland inventory.
In July of 1941, Washington created a senior military headquarters for the Philippines, namely the U.S. Army Forces, Far East (USAFFE), commanded by MacArthur with the rank of lieutenant general. (Shortly after, MacArthur dissolved the Philippine Department, and several months later, General Grunert returned to the United States.) By August of 1941, the Philippine Army was inducted into the U.S. Army and full mobilization was underway. This reorganization could mean only one thing: the Philippines would be the front line. They would be defended, but with what? Even the morale of the average man on the street in Manila turned from that of dejection to optimism. Suddenly modernization was top priority.
Washington did detour the delivery of a contract of U.S. fighters, intended for Sweden, to the Philippines. At the time, the fighters were thought to be state of the art. But the deal resulted in as many problems as it resolved. It was in January 1941 when the Philippines started to receive what would total fifty-two Seversky P-35 fighter aircraft.14 In the end, they would not be a match for what the Japanese would put up against them. However, these P-35s, as export models, were still far superior to the Army Air Corps’ P-35s because American military planners were not convinced of the added value of wing guns in addition to cowl guns, both of which were incorporated into the Swedish contract.
But the immediate problem was that the manuals, instructions, and cockpit data plates were in Swedish and the instruments were in metric. Of equal concern, there were no spare engines or parts, so their numbers decreased as they wore themselves out, and this was still during peacet
ime. In addition, for aerial defense, there were three squadrons of Boeing P-26 Peashooters, one squadron of Martin B-10 bombers, and one squadron of Douglas 0-46 observation aircraft, all long overdue for retirement.15 It was well known at the time that when aircraft were worn out in the United States, they were sent to Hawaii. And when they were worn out there, they were sent to the Philippines.
Obsolete P-26 fighters that were flown by the Filipino pilots.
An unidentified group of soldiers pose on a Republic P-35 of the type rerouted from the Swedish contract to the Philippines (1941).
The B-18, which turned out to be yesterday’s bomber in today’s war.
More pleading from Manila to Washington finally resulted in the arrival of eighteen Douglas B-18 bombers from Hawaii. The pilots commented that the only advantage of the B-18 over the ancient B-10 was that you could get up and walk around in the aircraft. Still, General MacArthur was boasting that by Philippine independence in 1946, the islands would be in such a strong defensive position “that it would cost the Japanese ‘at least half a million men as casualties and upwards of five billions of dollars in money’”16 if the Japanese were to invade the Philippines “with any hope of success.”17
In addition to the bombers, General Marshall had rounded up some modern P-40s from squadrons in the States. When these arrived in the Philippines, a new challenge presented itself. It was discovered that the sole access road to the U.S. main fighter base, Nichols Field, was too narrow to admit the trucks carrying the disassembled planes because the road was hardly wider than the flatbed trucks. And when the road was finally widened and the P-40s were assembled, it was now discovered that someone had forgotten to send the coolant for the engines.
If the Philippines had little, U.S. allies in the Pacific were desperate. British Malaya, which supplied nearly half of the world’s rubber and over half of its tin, an obvious priority target of Japan, was in need of everything. England had just survived the Battle of Britain and was cleaned to the bone. All that could be spared were about one hundred fifty aircraft to defend all of Malaya and its huge naval base at Singapore.18 Many of the aircraft were Brewster Buffalo Fighters shipped directly from the United States; these had performed poorly at high altitudes, but they were considered sufficient to meet anything that the Japanese could mount against them. The ground defense force would consist of a mixture of Malayans, Indians, New Zealanders, Australians, and British, all poorly trained for the event and ill equipped. Even so, they were considered more than sufficient at the time.
Another strategic target of Japan’s was Singapore. The original work on the Singapore naval base had started in 1919, right after World War I, and in 1921, the British government made the big financial commitment. But the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty was signed, establishing the allowable naval ratios and forbidding naval bases or fortifications east of one hundred ten degrees east longitude. Singapore was just outside the boundary by six degrees, so there were more delays. Late in 1924, the final decision was made to commit to construction. Surprisingly, Britain supplied only a fraction of the cost because the Malaysian states, Hong Kong, and New Zealand also contributed.
Strategically, Singapore commanded one of the most important waterways in the world where the Indian and Pacific Oceans meet. In 1928, work on the naval base was speeded up. That same year, the British House of Commons announced a plan for the Americans to take over or lease the base in case of war since the United States had nothing west of Pearl Harbor, and the Americans would be leaving Manila in 1946.
Although Singapore was three thousand miles from Japan, the Japanese had already occupied the Chinese-owned island of Hainan, three hundred miles south of Hong Kong, as well as the Spratly Islands, some seven hundred miles northeast of Singapore. They used all of these as launching sites in their conquest of the Pacific.
Singapore Island itself measured twenty-seven by fourteen miles and was connected to the mainland by a causeway. The naval base was on the north end of the island, about twelve miles from Singapore City. The naval base prided itself on its two huge docks, one of them a floating dock nine hundred feet long by two hundred feet wide. This dock had been built in England and then floated the ten thousand miles to Singapore at a cost of two hundred fifty thousand pounds, still listed as one of the most remarkable marine feats.19 It was said to be able to lift any ship afloat. Up to eighteen-inch guns were installed for defense. The base covered about four square miles and was fully equipped to repair, refit, and refuel ships. The docks were equipped with cranes for repair of the largest deck guns. All fuel tanks were underground, and the base itself was heavily protected by antiaircraft batteries with ample storage facilities in the backwater Strait of Jahore. There were several military airfields on the island and up and down the Malay Peninsula that were located to strategically support Borneo, Hong Kong, Port Darwin (Australia), or Ceylon. For these reasons, Singapore was considered the British Pearl Harbor of the Western Pacific that would have to be reckoned with by the Japanese.
By October 1941, Britain considered the work complete, and earlier that year, reinforcements from Australia and New Zealand had started to arrive at prepared facilities on the Malay Peninsula to cover any potential attack by the Japanese through Thailand to its north. Interestingly, there were even British mock attacks against Singapore proper. The British Asiatic Fleet represented an enemy, and the regular garrison the defense, which always won out because the defense weapons only pointed out to sea with no thought that the Japanese might arrive through the back door. Tactically, the defense of Singapore was almost identical to that of Gibraltar, with its back door exposed to the enemy.
Also under major threat of the Japanese was the Dutch East Indies for its oil. By comparison, if British defense for Malaya was dismal, the East Indies had nothing. With Mother Holland occupied by the Germans, the Indies, with little or no potential outside help, were in desperate straits.
As of 1939, the Dutch East Indies’ navy (Royal Netherlands Navy East Indies) consisted of three cruisers, the Java, the Tromp, and the Sumatra. It had six or seven destroyers, about fifteen motor torpedo boats, eight submarines, and a mine layer.20 Its aviation consisted of roughly fifty flying boats, mostly Dorniers, as well as some fighters and observation aircraft.21 Their army would consist of whatever they could build with the time that they had.
Neither the Philippines or Malaya, nor the Dutch East Indies themselves, could offer much resistance to a strong-willed enemy. Nor were they organized. There was no strategy among them, no alternate plans, nor any unity of command. Each one was on its own with very limited strategic resources. It is unimaginable that Washington, specifically the president in collaboration with Churchill, would fail to make any such move to unify them or to coordinate their operations. The only redeeming factor was that just five thousand miles away, the U.S. Fleet was berthed at Pearl Harbor. Eventually, there would be such an attempt in December 1941 to organize the American, British, Dutch, Australian Command (ABDA), but it was too little and too late.
Heading up these field commands was British General Archibald Wavell. While the head of the Middle East Command, Wavell had enjoyed earlier success when he defeated the Italians in North Africa. But only a few months later with the fall of Greece, Winston Churchill transferred Wavell to India in July 1941 to serve as commander in chief. By early December, Wavell was also assigned to head the American, British, Dutch, and Australian Command (ABDACOM), which was short-lived. Within two months, and with so little remaining to offer resistance to the Japanese, the ABDACOM was dissolved. In many U.S. influential circles, the question was often raised that, with the United States and Japan on a collision course, should steps have been taken to check any Japanese aggressive moves while the Americans had the British, Dutch, and Free Chinese available to help?
Another concern for Japan, the last figure in the equation, was Vladivostok, located on the Sea of Japan and representing the most easterly advanced base of Joseph Stalin’s Siberian forces
. Russo-Japanese antagonism had dated back to the 1870s, with their only mutual interest being the desire for more Chinese territory. Vladivostok was virtually autonomous from Mother Russia with its own munitions factories as well as a strong military and naval zone fortified with airfields and a naval base. From this command, the Russian planes and submarines would not be easy pickings for the Japanese. A glance at the map would place Vladivostok almost in the middle of the Japanese Empire.
Because of their limited range, the U.S. B-17 heavy bombers would not be able to take off from Clark Field, Luzon, fly a mission to Japan, and return. But if Vladivostok were available to American pilots, they could continue on and fuel up for a return trip. But no arrangement using Vladivostok was ever concluded because Stalin was aware that any such agreement could activate an attack by Japan on her thinly guarded eastern borders. (This logic explains the impounding of the aircraft and incarceration of one of the Doolittle Raider crews that, with low fuel, opted for landing in Russia in April 1942.)
