“Thank you, son,” was all he said. Brown saluted, turned, and left MacArthur sitting alone, his face a mask.
As General Gouraud, his mentor from the World War, might have said, il ne manquait que cela. The belated message was the final insult in what was turning into a very long and disastrous day.25
The losses at Clark were more than a shock and a setback to his strategy of using his bombers to keep the Japanese off the beaches. They were proof that he faced an enemy with more resources, better discipline, and a more effective strategy than his own. If that required further proof, it came that afternoon when he got the full report of the devastation at Pearl Harbor, including the destruction of the fleet that was supposed to come to rescue them in the Philippines.
“Sixty Japanese carrier borne dive bombers attacked airfields and Pearl Harbor Oahu at 8:00 A.M., damaging hangars and planes on the ground. Three battleships reported sunk and three others seriously damaged. Second air raid at 11:00….Reports of attacks on Wake and Guam…Reports received that Singapore attacked by air….Limit this information to essential officers.”26
MacArthur then spoke with Admiral Hart, who had received the same report. Their conversation was somber, as the full weight of the disaster at Pearl sank in (in fact it was even worse than the report indicated: no fewer than nine battleships had actually been either sunk or crippled). Commissioner Sayre arrived at 5:30. He found MacArthur “pacing the floor” with a deeply troubled expression on his face. He read Sayre the radiogram “telling of the tragic losses at Pearl Harbor” and then filled him in on the disaster at Clark Field.27 They knew that any chance of a quick dispatch of naval forces to help protect the islands was now gone.
But there was worse to come. MacArthur was losing his own navy as well.
—
Clark Field was bombed on Monday, December 8. On December 10 the Japanese took off again, this time aiming for the other American airfields in the Philippines, including Del Carmen, Nichols, and Nielson Fields near Manila. The rain of bombs on Nichols was so intense that for a time the aircrews on Nielson two miles away thought their own field was under attack (they took their own pounding a few minutes later).28 That day the Japanese achieved full air superiority over the Philippines—and that same day, the Japanese hit the naval base at Cavite, eight miles southwest of Manila, leaving a trail of destruction and burning docks. More than five hundred men were killed or wounded in the raid.
Tom Hart watched in outrage from his hotel balcony—ironically only one floor down from MacArthur’s own penthouse suite. As he watched, a yeoman presented a message. Japanese planes had sent the British navy’s Prince of Wales and Repulse to the bottom, taking Admiral Tom Phillips with them.
Hart had had enough. He went to see MacArthur. He announced that he was pulling his naval forces out. It didn’t come as a complete shock to MacArthur. They had had a similar conversation before, at the end of October when they received the revised war plan, Rainbow Five, ordering the Asiatic Fleet to withdraw to the Indian Ocean in case of hostilities. Hart told him he now intended to follow those orders.
MacArthur tried to cajole him into following his, instead. “I’m counting on you to keep the sea lanes open,” he told Hart, so that transports from Pearl and the States could get through. For example, he had learned that very day that a seven-ship convoy led by the cruiser Pensacola, with 5,000 troops, 18 new P-40s, and other munitions, had diverted from Brisbane to the Philippines.29
Hart’s next words were like a dagger to his heart.
“The Pensacola convoy,” he predicted darkly, “will never reach Manila.” The Japanese had the islands blockaded, he said; no ships from the outside would be able to get through. MacArthur scoffed at the idea. It was only “a paper blockade,” he said.
Besides, “The Philippine theater of operations is the locus of victory or defeat. IF THE WESTERN PACIFIC IS TO BE SAVED IT WILL HAVE TO BE SAVED HERE AND NOW.” Those at least were the words he was sending to Washington, and to General Marshall.30 But Hart was adamant. He told MacArthur bluntly that the Philippines was “doomed.” He already had Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark’s approval to withdraw, and except for eleven submarines, the six-boat PT squadron under Commander Bulkeley, and some PBY flying boats, Hart was preparing to move the rest of his forces south to the Dutch East Indies. Marshall, and the army, did nothing to stop him.
Hart’s decision came on December 13, a Friday, as it happened. Three days earlier MacArthur had had news that was almost as bad: Japanese troops were already landing on Luzon.
—
The very first Japanese to land in the Philippines had actually disembarked at Batan Island in the Luzon Strait on December 8.31 But the first serious invasion forces were scheduled to arrive at Aparri, on the northern tip of Luzon, and Vigan, on the western coast. There they would seize airfields to provide fighter cover for the main event: a major amphibious landing farther south at Lingayen Gulf. Now that MacArthur’s air forces had been reduced by half, that part of the plan, at least, seemed assured.
All the same, the Aparri and Vigan landings did meet some unexpected opposition. The minute MacArthur learned of them, he ordered what was left of his air force to strike.32 As Japanese troops began disembarking, two B-17s from Del Carmen, whose crews had spent a harrowing night on the damaged Clark Field sleeping in their planes, came lumbering over the beach and began unloading bombs. One of the bombs hit one of the transports; the other, piloted by Captain Colin Kelly, struck what he assumed was a Japanese battleship, the Haruna. The triumphant moment was cut short when a Zero fighter ambushed Kelly’s plane as he was headed back to base. Kelly was shot down and killed, earning him the war’s first posthumous Distinguished Service Cross—and the first decoration for a West Point graduate. Meanwhile, P-35s from Lieutenant Samuel Marrett’s squadron sprayed the beach with machine-gun fire in several strafing passes, as Japanese soldiers scattered and tried to fire back. Marrett himself managed to blow up an ammunition ship before he, too, was shot down and killed, earning the second posthumous DSC of the war.33
Unfortunately, the army wasn’t in a position to match the persistence and valor of the Americans in the air. The troops never got a chance to fire a shot. Wainwright’s men were stretched so thin on the ground that he had only a single company around Aparri to oppose some 2,000 Japanese landing there, and no one at all at Vigan. And so they withdrew without even seeing the enemy, although MacArthur did order Wainwright to destroy all the bridges running south toward Manila in the Cagayan Valley, and to block Balete Pass, which Wainwright believed could be held by a single battalion.34
Still, to Wainwright none of this mattered. Like MacArthur and Willoughby, he believed the main landing would take place at Lingayen Gulf, where the bulk of his forces were stationed, especially the Eleventh Division. All the same, there was no denying, as Wainwright put it, “the rat is in the house.” The question now was how to keep him in the basement—in other words, away from Manila and Manila Harbor.35
It was while he was still digesting all this news that MacArthur was hit with Hart’s decision to pull out. The navy’s decision may or may not have been the result of panic, as MacArthur believed then and later (they had been “terrorized” by Pearl Harbor, he always insisted), but Hart was right about one thing: the Pensacola convoy was never going to arrive. The day war was declared, the convoy turned around and headed back to Hawaii—even though Washington continued to assure MacArthur that it was still on its way.
—
MacArthur’s painful Friday the 13th meeting with Admiral Hart was followed the next day by an equally painful meeting in Washington between General Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, MacArthur’s former chief of staff who was now head of the War Plans Division. It was Ike’s first day on the job, but if he was expecting an introductory tour of the War Department and staff followed by lunch, he was disappointed.
When Ike entered Marshall’s office, the army chief of staff was standing at his de
sk, his face a grim mask. In a few quick sentences he spelled out the disaster steadily growing in the Pacific, especially in the Philippines.
“We have got to do our best in the Pacific,” he concluded, even though he and Eisenhower knew Europe would be the central focus of the American war effort. “How are we going to do it?”
“Give me a few hours,” Ike answered without hesitation and adjourned to his office.36
When he came out, he had a handwritten, three-hundred-word statement titled “Assistance to the Far East.” Its first heading was to build up Australia as a base of supply for reinforcing the Philippines. Since “speed was essential,” Ike recommended using the navy’s aircraft carriers and fast merchant ships to ferry planes and supplies to keep the Philippines, and MacArthur, in the war.
“It will be a long time before major reinforcements can go to the Philippines, longer than any garrison can hold out without direct assistance…but we must do everything for them that is humanly possible. The people of China,” he added, “the Philippines, of the Dutch East Indies will be watching us. They may excuse failure but they will not excuse abandonment.”
“I agree with you,” Marshall said. “Do your best to save them.”
Secretary of War Henry Stimson also agreed. An old Philippines hand, he too believed that abandoning the islands would wreck American credibility. He showed Roosevelt MacArthur’s cable of his conversation with Admiral Hart.
Both men agreed that Hart’s actions showed “the usual Navy defeatist position” and that it should be stopped. “We cannot give up the Philippines this way,” Marshall had told Stimson, and Roosevelt told Admiral Stark that if he, as president, was pledged to defend the Philippines, so was the navy.
Stark bowed to the president’s orders. But he vigorously opposed MacArthur’s idea of sending aircraft carriers east to attack Japanese shipping around the islands, and did nothing to stop Hart’s departure. The discussion ended around 6:00 P.M. that evening with no clear decisions made.37
All the same, on that day the American policy toward MacArthur and the Philippines was set. There would be no withdrawal, but also no emergency reinforcement. Certainly there would be nothing that might reach Manila in time to save the situation—that is, unless a miracle happened and MacArthur and the Armed Forces of the Far East managed to hold off the Japanese long enough for Admiral Stark to decide the navy had recovered sufficiently from Pearl Harbor to make sending help “practicable.”
So there was no Pensacola convoy headed for Manila, no carriers headed at flank speed to fly new P-40s off to Clark Field, no countermanding Hart’s decision to withdraw to the East Indies. Instead, the support MacArthur would receive from Washington over the next weeks and months would be entirely moral.
“My personal and official congratulations on the fine stand you are making,” read one cable from President Roosevelt himself. “All of you are constantly in our thoughts. Keep up the good work.”
Marshall’s messages were in a similar vein all that December. “Your reports and those of press indicate splendid conduct of your command and troops. The President and Secretary of War and quite evidently the entire American people have been profoundly impressed with your resistance to Japanese endeavors.”38
Marshall also promised MacArthur a fourth star, and on December 18 Roosevelt sent President Quezon a check for $10 million for war relief. Two days later came promotions for Sutherland to major general, and Marshall, Casey, and Akin became brigadier generals.39
Otherwise, MacArthur, his men, and the Philippine people were on their own.
Over the next week, MacArthur and his staff supervised the closing of schools and began the evacuation of Manila residents to the countryside. There were trenches and air-raid shelters to be dug; food and medical supplies to be shipped to new locations; there was even the dispatch of bulldozers to construct new airfields on Manila and Mindanao where MacArthur could put the new planes he still believed Washington would be sending him.
Many on his staff must have pondered their commander’s mood. In MacArthur’s own mind, his chief duty was to project an unruffled optimism and a Churchill-like defiance of the enemy. When an aide suggested taking down the Stars and Stripes from the HQ, since it made it an obvious target for Japanese bombers, MacArthur shook his head. “Take every normal precaution,” he said, “but let’s keep the flag flying.”40
One evening a pair of reporters, one of them John Hersey, caught him standing out in the veranda of 1 Calle Victoria, hatless and feet spread apart, watching a flight of Japanese Betty bombers passing over Manila. A nervous aide asked, “Don’t you think you’d better take cover, General?”
MacArthur ignored him. He turned to one of his aides, saying “Give me a cigarette, Eddie,” as he continued to watch the planes. One morning another reporter saw him looking the picture of “serenity and confidence,” with “his gold-braided cap tilted jauntily…and swinging a cane.” To someone else, he confided with a slight smile: “You know, I feel Dad’s presence here”—a clear source of comfort to the commander of USAFFE and, he must have hoped by saying it, to others.41
But there was no disguising the fact that their situation was increasingly desperate. He had only one resource left for saving the Philippines. That was his beloved army, and General Joseph Wainwright’s North Luzon Force.
To prevent the Japanese from landing more troops, and to keep those already landed bottled up in the north of the island, Wainwright had exactly three Philippine Army divisions, with 3,000 Americans interspersed with native soldiers who had little training and even less experience, plus a Philippine Scout Cavalry regiment and infantry battalion, a field artillery battery, and a quartermaster depot unit. This was the force that was supposed to hold thousands of square miles of territory and 250 miles of beaches—while the Japanese enjoyed air superiority and complete freedom of movement at sea.42
The enemy demonstrated this on December 12 when, again without warning, fresh Japanese troops staged another landing, this time in southeast Luzon near Legaspi. Once again Japanese timing proved superb, while luck told against the Americans. The capture of Legaspi gave the Japanese a rough but usable airstrip, where they installed fighters just in time to intercept three B-17s that were flying up from Del Monte in a valiant effort to beat the Japanese back. Instead, only one bomber made it home, badly shot up; the other two crash-landed in the jungle. MacArthur and Brereton had another grim meeting and agreed that their remaining Flying Fortresses should pull back to Darwin, Australia, before any more were lost.43
MacArthur had now lost his entire bomber force—the force that was supposed to be the decisive key to keeping the Japanese from taking the Philippines. Instead, the B-17s had proved far more vulnerable, on the ground or in the air, and far less effective, than anyone predicted. As Richard Marshall sardonically pointed out to Sutherland after the Clark Field disaster, “If we hadn’t lost them on the ground at Clark today, we would have lost them later.”44 All the same, it was one more resource gone—and one more sign that nothing could stop the Japanese now.
Outwardly at least, MacArthur did not let the news from Legaspi ruffle his demeanor. He told astonished journalists that he was still waiting for the right moment to strike back. “The basic principle in handling troops,” he explained, “is to hold them intact until the enemy has committed himself in force.” He had even more far-reaching plans. On December 10, in the midst of digesting the Clark Field disaster, he had sent a message to General Marshall that “a golden opportunity now exists for a master stroke while the enemy is engaged in overextended initial air effort.” The master stroke MacArthur had in mind was enticing the Soviet Union to join the fight against Japan, which, he suggested, was “Japan’s greatest fear.” Marshall never bothered to respond.45
The truth was, Russia or no Russia, MacArthur still assumed that the decisive battle for the Philippines would take place in Lingayen Gulf, where his intelligence chief, Colonel Willoughby, predicted the Japanese would
n’t be able to conduct an amphibious landing until December 28, more than two weeks away.46 But the day after the Appari-Vigan landings, December 13, he suddenly sent a message to President Quezon and to Commissioner Sayre. It instructed them to be ready to leave for Corregidor on four hours’ notice.
Quezon in particular was stunned. He had believed MacArthur’s earlier promises that the Philippines would be able to hold out against the Japanese. He never imagined he would have to leave Manila or, despite the news about Japanese landings and the daily air raids, that the campaign was already going so badly. That evening he headed out to meet MacArthur at the Manila Hotel.
Because of the threat of Japanese air raids, the building was blacked out and plunged into darkness. But MacArthur met him at the service entrance to the penthouse, and the pair walked down to the garden, where they conversed in whispers.
Quezon could barely contain his anxiety. Did MacArthur really think he should leave Manila? MacArthur hastily explained no, it was just a precaution in case of the worst.
Quezon drew himself up. “I shall stay among my people,” he said stoutly, “and suffer the same fate that may befall them.”
MacArthur tells us he was moved. “Mr. President,” he said, “I expected that answer from such a gallant man as I know you to be.” But he had his own duty to fulfill, which was “to prevent you falling into the enemy’s hands.”
Besides, there was another plan he was also considering. He would declare Manila an open city, meaning that it and all its residents would be neutral in the coming fight and make no resistance to the Japanese.
Quezon was aghast. “Do you mean, General, that tomorrow you will declare Manila an open city and that sometime during the day we shall have to go to Corregidor?”
Again, MacArthur had to reassure him it was only a contingency plan. They simply had to be ready, he said, in case the Japanese managed to land in strength, and the rest of Luzon couldn’t be defended.47
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