Douglas MacArthur

by Arthur Herman

  And MacArthur was confident. That confidence wasn’t based on sheer ego—at least not entirely. He believed an American ramp-up in the Philippines would give his strategic plan its crucial edge—and a buildup was in progress. Reinforcements promised on August 16 were on their way by September 12. An antiaircraft artillery regiment, a tank battalion of fifty-four tanks, and supplies had left from San Francisco. Another thirty tanks and fifty self-propelled mounts for 75 mm guns—plus the arrival of the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment with a dozen new three-inch guns and more machine guns—would reach Manila before the end of September.

  Then there were the troops, more than 18,000 of them, as well as 1,321 officers and twenty-five American nurses.20 The officers included Air Force Second Lieutenant Sam Grashio, who sailed from San Francisco on November 1 to join an American fighter squadron of brand-new Curtiss P-40s. His ship was a former luxury liner turned troop transport, and on board was a clutch of senior officers fresh from the National War College.

  “To a man they were convinced there would be no war with Japan,” he remembered, “because the Japanese would not be so stupid as to start a war they would be certain to lose within a few weeks.” In short, MacArthur’s confidence was not limited to himself and his staff.21

  Indeed, MacArthur wrote in a letter to his friend John O’Laughlin, editor of the Army and Navy Journal, that news of his appointment had left Tokyo “dumbfounded and depressed,” while the rest of Asia, including the Dutch East India and Chiang Kai-shek’s China, greeted it with “complete jubilation.” President Roosevelt had “completely changed the picture and an immediate and universal feeling of confidence and assurance resulted”—a sure sign that MacArthur had read Quezon’s enthusiasm as a region-wide response.22

  MacArthur figured that by the spring of 1942 he would have a Philippine army of 200,000 men, even though so far not one regiment or company had reached full authorized strength. Most were at half that level.23 Yet in August MacArthur demanded that Washington ship him an additional 84,500 M-1 Garand rifles, 330 .30-caliber and 326 .50-caliber machine guns, 450 37 mm and 288 75 mm guns, as well as 8,000 vehicles of all types, to equip his as-yet shadow army for a full-out battle on the beaches.24

  MacArthur still believed that when push came to shove the Filipinos would rise to the call of their fatherland, and that the spiritual courage of his troops would overcome any numerical or material disadvantage they faced in fighting the Japanese. It was the same faith in mind over matter he had seen fulfilled with Americans in the Forty-second Rainbow Division. If it was misplaced (and when war came, many Philippine units surprised their American officers with their courage and fight, including Colonel Townshend’s Eleventh Regiment) one can note that it sprang from a lack of racist feeling rather than otherwise.

  But MacArthur’s conviction that his forward strategy would work rested on more than sentiment. It also rested on American airpower, specifically the B-17 heavy bomber. He had authorized its initial development as army chief of staff. With four engines, a crew of ten, and bristling with .50-caliber machine guns, the B-17 could fly 200 miles with a 6,000-pound bomb load. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese had an airpower weapon that could compete. In late August the army’s Air Corps chief, Hap Arnold, had decided to ask for four heavy bombardment groups, some 272 B-17s with another sixty-eight waiting in reserve, to be sent out to the Philippines, along with two fighter groups of 130 planes each.25

  Once they arrived, the expert consensus held, they could pound any Japanese landing force into submission from the air, and make life for Japanese naval support impossible. And in early October 1941 the first new B-17s landed at Clark Field, sixty-five miles north of Manila. Soon afterward the first fifty P-40s were uncrated in Manila, ready for assembly and flight. The promise of American airpower saving the Philippines seemed on the verge of being fulfilled.26

  In the event of war with Japan, MacArthur’s final asset, in his mind, was his USAFFE staff. They were men in the prime of their careers: with one exception, none was more than fifty years of age, and the youngest was forty-three. In addition to Sutherland and Sid Huff, there was Deputy Chief of Staff Richard Marshall, a VMI grad who switched from the artillery to the Quartermaster Corps after service in France in the last war. Marshall (no relation to George Marshall) was Sutherland’s equal as a hard-charging workaholic, but without the abrasive temper. In MacArthur’s view, Marshall had “no superior as a supply officer in the Army.”27 If Sutherland was the overseer at USAFFE GHQ, Dick Marshall was the workhorse, supervising procurement and storage of supplies, organizing the Philippine Army’s logistics supplies, and handling all the work for planning mobilization of the Philippine economy.28

  Charles A. Willoughby had come to Manila in 1939 and had acted as the liaison between MacArthur and the then-head of the Philippine Department, General Grunert, and President Quezon. No easy task, handling three such eccentric personalities; and Willoughby was something of an eccentric himself. Born in Germany to a German father and American mother, he had changed his family name from Tscheppe-Weidenbach to the more English aristocratic-sounding name Willoughby before becoming a second lieutenant during the First World War. He still spoke with a German accent and examined papers wearing pince-nez dangling from a silk cord.29

  But he also had a penetrating intelligence and inquiring mind. He had taught at the Infantry School and Leavenworth, and had even written a book, Maneuver in War, which he claimed was based on MacArthur’s own operational doctrines developed while army chief of staff. He had been promoted to lieutenant colonel the same day as Sutherland, and when USAFFE HQ was set up, MacArthur brought him over as his intelligence officer or G-2—a position in which Willoughby would repeatedly be a source of controversy, as well as insight, with regard to Japanese strengths and intentions.30

  Rounding out the key positions were William “Billy” Marquat, a specialist in coast and antiaircraft artillery; LeGrand Diller, whom Sutherland recruited from Wainwright’s Philippine Division over a game of golf to become MacArthur’s aide-de-camp (“you’re a member of my family now,” MacArthur told him when Diller agreed to join); Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Casey, engineering officer; and Colonel Spencer Akin, signal officer. They would form the core of what would become known as “the Bataan Gang.” As time went on, critics would dismiss them as a gang of incompetent sycophants who never told MacArthur news he didn’t want to hear; or alternately, as a gang of competent sycophants who did the thinking and legwork for which MacArthur liked to claim all the credit.31

  Neither characterization is accurate or even insightful. The truth was, MacArthur demanded loyalty from his staff as most egoistical, powerful men and women do, but he also gave loyalty back. That meant he sometimes overlooked mistakes, even blunders that would have cost less loyal staffers their jobs. But mistakes in MacArthur’s USAFFE headquarters were few, especially on the logistics and planning side. As time went on, MacArthur learned to give a few verbal instructions to Sutherland to pass on to the rest of the staff, who would then hammer out the details in time for MacArthur to read their findings, then approve—which he could do, because the results were perfectly coordinated with his ideas and vision. It wasn’t an approach to staff work that suited everybody; his successor in Korea, General Matthew Ridgway, would choose a very different, more hands-on, approach.32 But it worked for MacArthur through two wars—and it made the Bataan Gang essential to his brand of generalship.

  The lowliest of the group was Private Paul Rogers, stenographer to both MacArthur and Sutherland, and his memoirs give a vivid picture of the routine at 1 Calle Victoria in those tense months of September and October 1941.

  Rogers’s day began promptly at 7:30 A.M., with Colonel Sutherland usually already at his desk. It ran without interruption until lunch, followed by a brief return to the office until Master Sergeant Turner, the man in charge of the typewriting pool, would signal that Rogers was free to leave and wander the streets of Intramuros for an hour or two when MacArthur w
as hosting a late luncheon and Rogers was left with little to do.33 It was a 7:30-to-5:00 workday, seven days a week (with alternate Sundays off), while Sutherland and the rest of the staff tried to get the Philippines ready for war.

  Rogers never forgot the first time he was called in to take dictation from the general himself. One of MacArthur’s Filipino sergeant orderlies leaned in through the door. “Rogers, the General wants you. Bring your pad.”

  Rogers walked into the long office with its display of flags from MacArthur’s former commands. MacArthur was already pacing back and forth, and simply said, “Rogers, sit down and take this message.” He began dictating a message to General Marshall in Washington. Rogers was impressed with how MacArthur’s thoughts “rolled out with the precise, consistent, logical order that one expects of highly trained troops on review.” Later, as MacArthur was going over the typed transcript, Rogers had a chance to examine him more closely.

  “I noticed his black hair combed carefully over the thin spot on top of his head. His right hand trembled as he pointed to the letter”—already the slight tremor had appeared that MacArthur sought to hide but that plagued him for the rest of his life, and that some observers would mistake as fatigue or even shell shock.

  “His voice was husky with a slight guttural rasping,” Rogers later remembered, “pleasant but decisive. Handsome, poised, in perfect command of himself, yet gentle and benevolent in speech and manner,” this was the general to whom Rogers would dedicate the rest of his army career. He was also the one to whom Washington had entrusted the fate of the American effort in the Philippines, on the grounds that not only was he experienced and knowledgeable about the islands and the Far East, but was also, as commanding officers go, blessed with luck.34

  For the trial that was coming, he would need both, especially when he learned in October what Washington had planned for him.

  —

  That was when MacArthur first learned of the details of Rainbow Five, the new overall Allied plan for war with Japan in the event of a simultaneous war with Germany, as now seemed likely. It ordered withdrawal of all U.S. naval forces from the Philippines and ordered MacArthur’s forces to pull back for a last-ditch defense of Manila Bay. There was no word of when the navy might return; the implication was clear that it probably never would before the Philippines fell to the enemy.

  MacArthur was indignant, feeling almost betrayed. This was even worse than the limited defense of the Philippines that War Plan Orange had envisaged. That at least had offered the hope of relief, even if the six-month timetable was too optimistic. Rainbow Five, he felt, would deliver an even more bitter blow to Filipino morale if word leaked out. MacArthur composed a long letter back to Marshall, arguing that the new Philippine Army was up to the job of defending the islands alongside his American troops, and that with his new air force and new air force commander, whose arrival he expected imminently, they could hold out against the Japanese until relief came.

  It was in this message that he outlined his idea of a forward defense of the entire archipelago, especially the southern islands, where, if the Japanese managed to establish air bases, air bombardment would make retaining control of Manila Bay almost impossible.

  “The wide scope of enemy operations,” he wrote, “especially aviation, now makes imperative the broadening of the concept of Philippine defense, and the strength and composition of the defense forces here are believed to be sufficient to accomplish such a mission”—that is, if he had enough munitions to supply an army that would grow to 200,000 by early 1942, and especially if those promised B-17s arrived.35

  MacArthur’s bold forward strategy had a strong supporter who knew the terrain and the difficulties involved: Jim Wainwright. The commander of the Philippine Division had considered War Plan Orange a disastrous, even cowardly course of action; he deplored Rainbow Five even more. “Defense must be active, damn it, not passive,” he told MacArthur. “It must involve counterattacks.” He endorsed MacArthur’s counterplan of preventing the establishment of a Japanese bridgehead instead.36

  So MacArthur forged ahead with establishing tactical commands for North Luzon, South Luzon, and the Visayan-Mindanao area, including sending munitions and supplies to the dispersed commands and sending almost half the Philippine Army to the islands south of Luzon.37 On November 21 General Marshall wired Washington’s answer to MacArthur’s proposals. It was full authorization to defend the entire Philippines from enemy attack. Marshall also warned him that in the event the navy became involved in intercepting Japanese shipping or coordinating operations with the British Navy, MacArthur’s bombers would be expected to join in the fight.

  Permission was given; the die was cast. In retrospect, Washington’s expectations—and MacArthur’s—have an air of wishful thinking, not to mention unreality. But Marshall and the War Department believed MacArthur’s glowing accounts of how the Philippine Army was progressing. They also believed the conventional wisdom about the omnipotence of airpower, especially the B-17. So the critical issue now was how MacArthur coordinated with his air and naval counterparts—and what resources, including leadership, they could bring into the picture.

  MacArthur’s new air force commander was General Lewis Brereton, who arrived from Hawaii in November—and presented himself at the Manila Hotel. MacArthur told him to come straight up.

  To Brereton’s surprise, the commander in chief of USAFFE met him in an ancient dressing gown that had faded to rose or violet or even salmon—visitors who caught MacArthur in the midst of his dressing routine found it hard to tell. He greeted Brereton like an old friend as they reminisced about the Great War (Brereton had been in an aerial observation squadron serving with the Forty-second in 1918).

  “Lewis, you are as welcome as the flowers in May,” MacArthur said the next day, when Brereton showed the list of planes Hap Arnold was planning to send to the Philippines. He called Sutherland into his office. “Dick,” he said excitedly, “they’ve given us everything we’ve asked for.” They could now expect the imminent arrival of some 170 heavy and medium bombers, including B-17s, and 86 light bombers—a heady prospect.38 He soon set his new chief engineering officer, Hugh Casey, scouting for new airfield sites in central and southern Philippines, especially for the big B-17s.39

  Brereton was still an unproven quantity, but MacArthur’s relations with his air chief were certainly off to a good start. Relations with his navy commander, Rear Admiral Thomas Hart, were not so good. Hart and MacArthur, of course, had known each other for years; Hart had served with his brother Arthur. But Hart found his dead friend’s brother more “apart,” more distant, and as his seniority grew, less approachable. He also found MacArthur’s restless pacing and nonstop oratory in his husky, sometimes tremulous voice, unnerving. Once he plaintively asked, “Douglas, can’t we just relax and talk?”40

  But there was no time to relax. So MacArthur would find himself shifting to a phony bonhomie and enthusiasm that bordered on high-handed condescension. After one encounter, Hart wrote to his wife only half-jokingly: “Douglas is, I think, no longer altogether sane…he may not have been for a long time.”41 It was an unfair, exaggerated comment. But it underlined how far apart MacArthur and Hart stood on how to defend the Philippines—and even as commander in chief of USAFFE, MacArthur had no formal authority to get Hart to do anything.

  Indeed, Thomas Hart knew that his options were limited with only twelve submarines, a light and heavy cruiser, and a baker’s dozen antiquated destroyers.42 Yet MacArthur thought the navy could do more. The pair quarreled constantly over coordination of army and navy air patrols; MacArthur once told Hart bluntly he did not want his air arm directed by a naval force “of such combat inferiority as your Command.”43

  They even quarreled over navy shore patrols supervising American soldiers visiting bars and nightclubs in far-off Shanghai, where the navy personnel were fearful of any potential incident now that China’s biggest commercial city was under Japanese occupation. As commander of USAFFE
, however, MacArthur had jurisdiction over army personnel in Shanghai. He considered the navy’s action a serious violation of army procedures, so serious that his protests went all the way up the ladder to Admiral Harold Stark himself in Washington.44 MacArthur’s vigorous defense of a soldier’s right to get drunk when and where he wanted, earned plaudits from his grateful GIs—but none from Hart.

  In the final analysis, the real source of friction between them was not based on personalities or interservice rivalry or even different views of the use of seapower—something that would get MacArthur into trouble with admirals in Washington later.45 It was a matter of divergent orders. In the event of war, MacArthur would have to stay put and fight. Hart, by contrast, was under orders to sail away to join up with other Allied naval forces in the defense of Singapore or the Dutch East Indies. There was nothing MacArthur could do to convince Stark, Admiral Ernest King, and the other naval brass back in Washington that they should leave him a naval force that could at least harass and hamper, if not defeat, a large Japanese landing when it came.

  Lack of control over what the navy did was a severe disadvantage to MacArthur’s plans—not as crucial as he later liked to complain, but still a drawback. All the same, as November wound down he found every reason to be confident about the future. The American buildup was under way; he now had thirty B-17s in the Philippines, with more promised and on the way. American ground forces had swelled by 8,000, including more than 1,000 officers; while the Philippine Army, still gun- and training-poor, numbered more than 100,000 men.46

  Sid Huff’s effort to arm a Philippine navy with PT boats had not panned out. But a squadron of PT boats under Commander John Bulkeley, a red-haired, barrel-chested veteran salt, was ready to patrol Manila Bay—and would play a crucial part in the saga of MacArthur in the Philippines later on.

  By the end of November 1941, there was still plenty to do. There were airfields being built, and airfields to be built. There was Del Carmen south of Manila, and Del Monte, for example, and Nielson Field and Nichols Field. Nichols at least had a paved runway, yet Clark Field with its soft green turf was the only field large enough to accommodate the big B-17s. At times it crossed MacArthur’s mind that if something happened to Clark…Yet his masters in Washington were still convinced that war, when it came, would not be before spring 1942. It was the operative assumption, a mantra almost, so convincing and reassuring that MacArthur was able to repeat it to his staff and subordinates with such confidence that many concluded it was actually his own prediction. Critics would bitterly repeat it back to him later.47