Supreme Commander (3 page)

One of the reasons Marshall had brought Eisenhower to Washington was to deal with MacArthur. Marshall probably hoped that after all his years with the Far Eastern commander Eisenhower would know how to mollify MacArthur. In this task Eisenhower clearly and completely failed. He drafted nearly every cable Marshall sent to the Philippines; none of them, including the one summarized above, satisfied or convinced MacArthur.

The reason was, perhaps, not so much that Eisenhower was not delivering anything to the beleaguered garrison but rather that the War
Department was sticking to its prewar policy of Europe first. This was partly a strategic decision forced upon the policy makers. Germany was the more dangerous enemy, Europe was closer than the Far East and so shipping men and supplies there was easier, British and Russian troops were already fighting the Nazis, and so on. But it was also a foreign policy decision of the first magnitude, for it meant that in the government’s estimation Europe was more important than Asia, at least to Americans living in the middle of the twentieth century.

MacArthur disagreed, violently. He believed that Asia was the key to the future, and that it was on that continent and its offshore islands that America should make her major commitment. The split between MacArthur and Marshall could not have been more decisive. For the immediate future the problem was the moral commitment to the Philippines. MacArthur felt that Americans could never again have any influence among the Filipinos unless they made every effort to save the islands. Eisenhower agreed with this—he had said as much to Marshall his first day in Washington—but he never became a full-fledged Asia-firster, despite his years in the Philippines. For this MacArthur never forgave him.

MacArthur knew full well that not only Eisenhower and Marshall were responsible for what he called his abandonment. The decision was one that nearly every responsible official in Washington agreed to. Time and again MacArthur pleaded with the “faceless staff officers” to make the primary American effort in the Philippines. He argued that the islands could be saved if the U.S. bent every effort to the task. “The yielding of the Philippines by defeat and without a major effort would mark the end of white prestige and influence in the East,” he warned, and the United States had to either support the Philippines “or withdraw in shame from the Orient.”

But Marshall, Eisenhower, the War Department, and the British had already agreed that the program for the Far East was to hold the Malay Peninsula, if possible, and Australia and Burma, which was another way of saying that they had written off the Philippines. In a staff-prepared memorandum of January 3, WPD reinforced the decision. The fundamental consideration was that help could not be sent to the Philippines in time to save the islands (MacArthur estimated that he could hold on for three months), but beyond that the dispatch of a force that would meet the need would constitute “an entirely unjustifiable diversion of forces from the principal theater—the Atlantic.” It would take 1464 aircraft of various types, only half of which were
available, to hold the Philippines. Additional airfields in Australia and along the line of advance north would have to be built, along with supporting bases. This would require large naval resources; in addition to the vessels already in the Pacific, the Allies would have to bring in seven to nine battleships, five to seven carriers, about fifty destroyers, sixty submarines, and innumerable small craft. This diversion would cause the loss of the Atlantic supply line to England, jeopardize the Middle East, and limit the defense of the Western Hemisphere. Although no one ever gave formal approval to the abandonment of the Philippines, there was general agreement that saving the islands was not worth the cost and the risk.
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Like his colleagues in WPD, Eisenhower had no illusions about saving the Philippines, but he did want a larger commitment to the Far East. On New Year’s Day he noted on his desk pad, “I’ve been insisting Far East is critical—and no other side shows should be undertaken until air and ground there are in satisfactory state.” The “side shows” he referred to were plans to ship American forces to Northern Ireland to relieve the British (code name MAGNET), or a possible operation against French North Africa (code name GYMNAST). Both projects were then being discussed by the British and American Chiefs of Staff, meeting in Washington. On January 17, noting that the whole situation in the Pacific was critical, he scribbled on his pad, “My own plan is to drop everything else—Magnet, Gymnast, replacements in Iceland—and make the British retire in Libya. Then scrape up everything everywhere and get it into NEI [Netherlands East Indies] and Burma.”
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On January 14 Eisenhower got a convoy scheduled to take American troops to Northern Ireland reduced in size. He used the space saved to ship Air Force personnel, supplies, and aircraft to the Southwest Pacific.
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This slowed down MAGNET and GYMNAST, but it did not mean “dropping everything else” and did little to help the situation in the Far East, since it took weeks to reload the ships, turn them around, and get them to their destination. The reinforcements made no practicable contribution to the defense of the Netherlands East Indies. Eisenhower’s efforts to get B-17s into Java, the most directly threatened of the NEI islands, were likewise piecemeal and for the most part unsuccessful. There were a variety of reasons; the most important were simple absence of planes and crews and the tremendous distances involved.

Always present in Eisenhower’s mind was the problem of shipping. The United States, unprepared for the scope of the Japanese onslaught,
was incapable of meeting the enemy effectively with the forces available to it. The British, in their first meetings with the Americans, were shocked to find how little shipping their new allies had. The maximum American troop lift for January was 25,000 men, for February, 18,000 and for March 15,000.
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In the middle of January Eisenhower scraped up 21,000 men with ships to carry them to Australia but he noted on his desk pad, “I don’t know when we can get all their equip. and supply to them. Ships! Ships! All we need is ships!” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Also ammunition—A.A. guns—tanks—airplanes.”
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Two events in February illustrated the frustrations inherent in the attempt to hold onto something north of Australia in the Southwest Pacific. By the middle of the month everyone except the Dutch had given up on holding Java, but it seemed that something should be done. Eisenhower and WPD got the aircraft tender
Langley
, with a cargo of thirty-two P-40s, ordered to Tjilatjap, on the south coast of Java, along with the freighter
Seawitch
, which had twenty-seven P-40s in her hold. When
Langley
was almost within sight of Java, Japanese patrol planes spotted and sank her.
Seawitch
arrived in Java on the eve of the final invasion and had to dump her cargo of P-40s, still crated, into the sea to prevent their capture.
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Under the circumstances, the tension in the War Department could almost be heard. “Tempers are short!” Eisenhower noted in January. “There are lots of amateur strategists on the job—and prima donnas everywhere.” A little later he complained, “There’s a lot of big talk and desk hammering around this place—but very few
doers!
They announce results in advance—in a flashy way and make big impressions but the results often don’t materialize and then the workers get the grief.”
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As the stopgap measures failed to work and the pattern of Japanese aggression became clearer, Eisenhower began to have second thoughts about his plan to drop everything else and go all out in the Pacific. In the middle of January he talked with Major General Joseph T. McNarney, a West Point classmate and Army Air Corps officer who had recently returned from London to join the War Department. McNarney had no involvement in the Far East and would only talk to Eisenhower about Europe. He was most convincing. On January 22 Eisenhower noted the results on his pad: “The struggle to secure the adoption by all concerned of a common concept of strategical objectives is wearing
me down. Everybody is too much engaged with small things of his own”—which was as true of Eisenhower as it was of anyone else.

Eisenhower then announced his full conversion to the Europe-first doctrine. “We’ve got to go to Europe and fight,” he declared, “and we’ve got to quit wasting resources all over the world—and still worse—wasting time. If we’re to keep Russia in, save the Middle East, India and Burma; we’ve got to begin slugging with air at West Europe; to be followed by a land attack as soon
as possible
.”
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This was also, of course, the trend of Marshall’s thinking.

Eisenhower spent the rest of his tour in the War Department working assiduously for the Europe-first program. It did not mean that he was abandoning the Pacific, but rather that he had recognized the futility of piecemeal reinforcements and the need to draw back to Australia, lick the wounds, establish a workable defensive line, and meanwhile go over to the offensive in Europe. The temptations to change the basic RAINBOW 5 concept were always great, and it was difficult not to yield to them as the Japanese advance carried the enemy far beyond the points the Allies had imagined the Japanese could attain, but for the most part Eisenhower and WPD held firm. Events strengthened his hand, for short of Australia there was not much left to be saved. On the day Eisenhower wrote of the necessity to start an air campaign in West Europe, MacArthur fell back to his final defensive position on the Bataan Peninsula and the outer defenses of Singapore collapsed. The Japanese were gathering their strength for the final assault on the Netherlands East Indies and none of the governments resisting them had anything like the forces needed to hold out.

On January 22 Eisenhower wrote that he, Colonel Thomas Handy of WPD, and McNarney “stick to our idea that we must win in Europe.” Eisenhower realized “it’s going to be one hell of a job—but, so what?” In a sharp criticism of WPD’s action up to that time, he pointed out “we can’t win by sitting on our fannies giving our stuff in driblets all over the world—with no theater getting enough.”
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The scope of Japanese success had forced the planners to reconsider RAINBOW 5—no one had counted on losing Singapore, for example—and gave added weight to MacArthur’s program of turning full force on the Japanese first. The argument would continue throughout the war, but under Marshall’s strong direction the War Department never wavered after the first couple of months.

In any case it is hard to see what more Washington could have done to save the Philippines. Long after the situation on Bataan had
become irretrievable the War Department sent whatever reinforcements became available to the Pacific. As late as April 1942 no American forces of any size had gone to the British Isles. By the time sizable American forces were available for deployment overseas, the Philippines had already fallen. The Japanese had sealed their fate on the first day of the war by eliminating the Navy’s striking force. Even had the Navy gotten through, however, the Army had practically nothing to send. MacArthur could have held on longer with more equipment and especially air support, but the necessary units to retrieve the situation simply were not available. Money could not buy them—they had to be built and trained, and that took time.

Later that spring Eisenhower explained the predicament to his brother Edgar, who had said he wanted to get the war over with in a hurry. Eisenhower replied that he too was anxious to end it, but “there are so many things that we didn’t do in the past twenty years that their accomplishment now is a matter of weeks and months. It cannot be done in a minute. There is no use going back over past history either to regret or condemn; although I was one of those that for the past two years has preached preparedness and tried to point out the deadly peril into which the United States was drifting.” Eisenhower saw no point in an “I told you so attitude,” especially since “we have got a fearful job to perform and everybody has got to unify to do it.” The only consideration, he added, was the defeat of the Axis powers, for “if they should win we would really learn something about slavery, forced labor and loss of individual freedom.”
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Eisenhower did try to use money to save the Philippines. Marshall had sent former Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley to Australia with a brigadier general’s star on each shoulder and orders to use the $10,000,000 cash he carried to hire blockade runners. Eisenhower sent Hurley a series of messages, urging him to set prices high enough “to insure utmost energy and daring” on the part of ship commanders, and demanding redoubled efforts. The risks, however, discouraged most sea captains, and few ships could be found at any price. Despite liberal monetary offers and feverish activity, Hurley got only six ships started; of these only three got through. One reached Mindanao and two got to Cebu, but only 1000 of the 10,000 tons the ships carried reached the garrison in Luzon.
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It took weeks to convince the enthusiastic Hurley that he was not helping his old friend MacArthur, but finally he recognized what the War Department had seen all along. “We did not have the ships, the
air force or ground forces necessary to make the operation successful,” Hurley declared. “We were out-shipped, out-planed, out-manoeuvred, and out-gunned by the Japanese from the beginning.”
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Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Philippines, could not accept that conclusion. Dying of tuberculosis on a cot in the crowded tunnel of Corregidor, humiliated at the thought of Japanese troops in the presidential palace in Manila, frenzied because he would never live to see his country a free republic, Quezon blamed Washington for his desperation and decided that only shock action could retrieve the situation and force the United States to send help. If the United States did not intend to defend its colony, he told Roosevelt, it and Japan should be invited to withdraw troops, with the islands being neutralized. Since the Japanese already held Manila and badly needed the ports of the Philippines, the suggestion was absurd. Quezon knew that; so did MacArthur. But, like Quezon, MacArthur was ready to try anything. In forwarding Quezon’s proposal, MacArthur neglected to say that he disagreed with it. Rather, he said the plan “might offer the best possible solution of what is about to be a disastrous debacle.” If the Japanese accepted, the United States would lose no military advantage, and if the Japanese rejected the proposal it would be a psychological gain for the United States.
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