The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur (11 page)

MacArthur’s staff was now working around the clock to implement the chief’s war plans. With men and munitions on the way, MacArthur issued his first order as America’s Far East commander. He directed the commander of his North Luzon Force to “take necessary action to insure immediate readiness for any eventuality, but without creating local agitation or more comment than is unavoidable among the civilian population, or in your command.” The North Luzon commander, Major General Jonathan Mayhew “Skinny” Wainwright, immediately complied, setting his forward units (all of them Filipino) the task of surveying the beaches of Lingayen Gulf, the best landing areas for an invading army. Landing at Lingayen, both MacArthur and Wainwright knew, would provide Japanese forces a clear road to Manila, as the beaches led onto a verdant plain—a highway to the Philippine capital. The South Luzon Force, under the command of Major General George Parker, was assigned to defend the beaches near the capital. The Visayan-Mindanao Force, under Brigadier General William F. Sharp, was deployed in the southern Philippines.

Despite the buildup, the strength of the three forces was modest; just over 31,000 American and Filipino troops were listed as combat ready. The addition of troops from the 100,000-man Philippine Army helped, of course, but their numbers were only numbers—only two-thirds of them were trained, and they were armed with World War One–vintage weapons. Then too, MacArthur was woefully short of modern aircraft: Major General Lewis Brereton could put only thirty-five B-17 bombers in the air, in addition to the new P-40s and an assortment of reconnaissance aircraft. MacArthur’s naval assets were in even worse shape, to the point of being negligible—one heavy cruiser, one light cruiser, thirteen World War One–vintage destroyers, and seventeen submarines. Even so, the forces in the Philippines were stronger than they had ever been and gave both MacArthur and Washington confidence that the island country would not be overwhelmed. Their confidence showed just how poorly informed they were of Japanese strength.

In September 1940, three months after Hitler’s defeat of France, Japan seized French Indochina. Knowing that their armies in China would soon be starved for fuel, the Japanese now had within their grasp the solution to their resource problems. By striking south and east, the Japanese navy could seize the oil-, tin-, and rubber-rich Dutch East Indies and protect this resource-rich empire by striking against Manila and Singapore—and against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. “In the first six months of the war with the United States and Britain,” Japanese Minister of War Hideki Tojo predicted, “I will run wild and win victory after victory.” Throughout 1941, the tone of Japanese communications with the United States became insulting and confrontational. In early November 1941, the United States intercepted a Japanese message to the senior commanders of its forces in China. The message declared that Japan would renew its Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy and terminate discussions with the U.S. government aimed at resolving the China crisis. Relations between the two countries deteriorated over the next weeks, with many in the Roosevelt administration saying they believed that war in the Pacific was inevitable.

“These islands must and will be defended,” MacArthur told his skeptical staff. “I can but do my best.” That was MacArthur the heroic commander who believed in his country, in the Philippines, and in himself. But MacArthur the military leader, the realist, the quiet and somber man he rarely allowed anyone to see, had a different view. One observation provides a rare example of his unadorned self, an unusual portrait of MacArthur shorn of oratory. On the eve of the conflict, journalist Clare Boothe Luce visited MacArthur in Manila for a profile on the general for
Life
magazine. Luce noted MacArthur’s thinning hair, his mottled skin, and the trembling hands of an aging commander, but she noticed, too, the insatiable ambition—to be at the very center of events. MacArthur admired Luce, considered her well informed on Asia, but he never let down his guard. Except for this once, in an offhand moment, when Luce asked him his theory of offensive warfare: “Did you ever hear the baseball expression, ‘hit ’em where they ain’t?’ That’s my formula,” he explained, smiling confidently. But when she then asked him for his formula for defensive warfare, he hesitated—before finally answering. “Defeat.”

Army Chief of Staff George Marshall awakened on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, a little later than usual. He ate a light breakfast, flipped through the morning newspaper, saddled his horse (a white sorrel named “Prepared”), and headed out on a trail leading from his home at Fort Myer down along the Potomac River. It was a clear late-autumn morning with a crisp chill in the air, perfect for riding. Marshall trotted through Arlington Cemetery, the Washington Monument gleaming in the distance, before turning into open fields. The ride lasted one hour, and when he returned, there was a message that Colonel Rufus Bratton, the head of the Far East intelligence division, had called and was anxious to reach him. Marshall called Bratton at 10:30 and was told that there was “a most important message.” Bratton, the urgency in his voice coming over the phone, asked whether he should come to Marshall’s home, Quarters Number One at Fort Myer, to deliver it. “No, don’t bother to do that,” Marshall told him. “I am coming down to my office. You can give it to me then.”

Thirty minutes later, Marshall arrived at the War Department, along present-day Constitution Avenue near the White House, and met with Bratton, a West Point graduate and a Japan expert. Within minutes they
were joined in Marshall’s office by General Sherman Miles, the army’s intelligence chief. Bratton and Miles handed over the intercepted text of a Japanese message that had been decrypted during the night—the result of successful U.S. efforts to break Japan’s top-secret “Magic” code. The message was the Japanese response to a ten-point U.S. ultimatum issued by Secretary of State Cordell Hull two weeks before. The Hull paper demanded that among other things, Japan withdraw its “military, naval, air and police forces from China and from Indochina.” In exchange, the United States pledged to pursue “most-favored-nation treatment and reduction of trade barriers” and negotiate a “multi-lateral non-aggression pact” between Japan and the West. While there was no “or else” contained in Hull’s memorandum, there was little hope in Washington of a positive response. The crisis in American-Japanese relations had been building since 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria, but had worsened in 1937, when Japan struck south into central China. The Hull memorandum was America’s response.

Marshall read through the Japanese message twice, as Bratton and Miles stood in front of his desk. There were fourteen paragraphs in all, thirteen of them a tendentious defense of Japanese actions and allegations of American perfidy, culminating in a bellicose rejection of the initiative. Hull’s note, the Japanese said, “ignores Japan’s sacrifices in the four years of the China affair, menaces the empire’s existence itself and disparages its honor and prestige.” A final section, the fourteenth paragraph, announced that Japan was breaking off its negotiations with the United States. So far, at least, none of this was a surprise. But a final note, printed out on flimsy paper and decoded just hours before, was attached to the memorandum: This was the message that had sparked Bratton’s sense of urgency. The note instructed the Japanese ambassador in Washington to deliver the Japanese government’s extensive response to Hull at precisely 1 p.m., and not before.

Marshall read these words one last time before looking up at Bratton. “Don’t you think that is significant?” he asked. “One p.m. in Washington is sunrise in Hawaii.” Marshall, suddenly animated, reached for a pad of paper. Sherman Miles could see that the army chief was worried. “The Japanese are presenting at 1 p.m. Eastern Stand Time today what amounts to an ultimatum,” Marshall wrote. “Also they are under
orders to destroy their code machine immediately. Just what significance the hour set may have we do not know but be on the alert accordingly.” Marshall gave the message to Bratton, instructing him to send it to all army commands in the Pacific. By this time, Brigadier General Leonard “Gee” Gerow—the head of the War Plans Division—had come into Marshall’s office. As Bratton brushed past him and walked quickly down the hall, Gerow shouted after him. “If there’s any priority,” he yelled, “let them send the message to the Philippines first.”

D
ouglas MacArthur was asleep in his penthouse atop the Manila Hotel when the first Japanese bombers appeared over Pearl Harbor. Awakened by a telephone call from Chief of Staff Richard Sutherland at 3:40 on the morning of December 8 (the Philippines were on the other side of the dateline from Honolulu), MacArthur was told of the attack. The U.S. fleet, Sutherland said, had been caught without warning. Sutherland said he was certain of the attack but did not know the extent of the destruction. MacArthur was stunned. “Pearl Harbor!” he exclaimed. “It should be our strongest point.” Dressing quickly, MacArthur told his wife Jean the news and then headed to his headquarters at No. 1 Calle Victoria, a building that bumped up against the thick Spanish-built southern wall in Intramuros—the old city of Manila. “My first impression was that the Japanese might well have suffered a serious setback,” he later reflected.

Arriving at his offices, MacArthur considered ordering reconnaissance aircraft from his small fleet of bombers north to scout out Japanese air bases on Formosa to determine if there were enemy aircraft headed his way, but “subsequent events quickly and decisively changed my mind.” While MacArthur would later claim that he and his staff reacted swiftly to the Pearl Harbor news, the scene at his headquarters was, in fact, chaotic. Sutherland was on the telephone attempting to get more information on the Pearl Harbor surprise; the openly distraught Admiral Thomas Hart, the commander of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, hovered nearby, imploring MacArthur to issue orders sending the ships out of harm’s way. Meanwhile, air chief Lewis Brereton was in an outer office, pleading for a meeting with MacArthur. At 9:30 that morning, MacArthur received a report that a group of Japanese bombers was
spotted heading for Manila. Brereton, by now at his own headquarters, sent up a group of fighters to intercept them, but the bombers (as MacArthur said) “veered off without contact.” So far so good: MacArthur and his staff were at their headquarters, Brereton was at his, the American army was on alert, and Brereton’s air force was responding to possible Japanese threats.

But MacArthur’s outward calm masked deeper worries. The Pearl Harbor attack confused his staff and chipped away at their commander’s confidence. In the weeks prior to the attack, MacArthur had predicted that if an attack came, it would not come before April 1942. As the coming hours would show, MacArthur and Sutherland (and the military assistants around them) were nearly paralyzed by the contradictory reports of Japanese actions, and MacArthur reacted sluggishly to the looming threat. In midstride, Sutherland hurriedly drafted a reassuring press release about American actions—a strange diversion for an officer in the first moments of a world war. “The American command here has been alerted and all populations are in readiness for defense,” he said. This was typical Sutherland, whose value to MacArthur amounted to making certain that no matter who took the blame, it would not be Sutherland’s boss. Worse yet, when Brereton had reported to headquarters at a little after 5:00 a.m., Sutherland told him that MacArthur was busy. Come back later, he said. This was an astonishing pronouncement, for while Sutherland’s role was to implement MacArthur’s command priorities, the immediate defense of the Philippines was dependent on Brereton’s tiny Far Eastern Air Force. If there was one man whom MacArthur needed to see, it was Brereton. Frantic with worry and concerned that Japanese bombers could, at that very minute, be headed toward the Philippines, Brereton pressed Sutherland for permission to send his aircraft to bomb Japanese fields on Formosa. Sutherland said he would pass on the message to MacArthur.

Denied access to MacArthur, Brereton made his way back to his headquarters at nearby Nielson Field, where he issued orders that his fighters and B-17s prepare for offensive action. Then, at 7:15, he drove back to MacArthur’s headquarters, where he renewed his request to carry out a raid on Formosa. Sutherland repeated that Brereton should prepare his forces and await further orders. Puzzled and frustrated, Brereton
again returned to Nielson, where he received a telephone call from army air forces head General Henry “Hap” Arnold, in Washington. Arnold described the attack on Pearl Harbor and emphasized that Brereton should make certain that his bombers and fighters were either in the air or widely dispersed. The surprise at Pearl Harbor had been devastating, Arnold told him. The U.S. Army Air Force in Hawaii had been caught on the ground and destroyed. After talking with Arnold, Brereton acted quickly, directing three fighter aircraft north toward Formosa to look for Japanese aircraft and ordering his sixteen B-17s at Clark Field (forty minutes north of Manila) into the air. At 10:00, Brereton tried to contact MacArthur a third time. “I personally called General Sutherland,” he later said, “and informed him . . . that if Clark Field were attacked successfully we would be unable to operate offensively with the bombers.”

Sutherland listened to Brereton, approved his actions in sending out the fighter reconnaissance mission, and said that the air chief would soon hear from MacArthur. A little while later, at just after 11:00 in the morning, MacArthur finally telephoned Brereton to ask him what preparations he had made. Relieved to be finally hearing from MacArthur, Brereton told him that he had dispatched three aircraft northward toward Formosa and that his bombers were in the air. MacArthur approved Brereton’s deployment but told him to await the results of a Formosa reconnaissance before launching an attack.

Both men knew that a reconnaissance was essential: Brereton’s pilots had prepared target folders of Japanese airfields in Formosa, but as the official history later noted, they lacked “calibrated bomb-target maps and bomb release lines for given speeds and altitudes.” A reconnaissance would identify just how many of the enemy Brereton’s pilots would face, and where the targets were located. MacArthur told Brereton that he should launch an attack only after the reconnaissance was completed, with a strike at Japanese airfields coming late that afternoon. Brereton agreed and issued “Field Order No. 1,” sending it by teletype to Clark Field. The order directed two bombardment groups to strike Japanese airfields in southern Formosa “at the latest daylight hour today that visibility will permit.” Following Brereton’s instructions, the commander at Clark Field recalled the B-17 bombers and the fighters so that they
could prepare for their mission. They were on the ground by 11:30. Wingtip to wingtip, in a perfect line, the B-17s began to take on fuel and 100- and 300-pound bombs. The field’s log tells the story: “Shortly after 1130, all American aircraft in the Philippines, with the exception of one or two planes, were on the ground.”

Just as the last of Brereton’s bombers were landing at Clark, officers at Nielson Field learned that a group of aircraft had been spotted over northwest Luzon. A message warning of an attack was sent to Clark Field by teletype, but for reasons unknown, it failed to reach Clark’s commanders—most likely because the radio operator at the field (as the official history later commented) “had left his station to go to lunch.” Hearing of the possible attack, Brereton scrambled three squadrons of fighters—the 34th, 17th, and 21st—to intercept the Japanese. But Brereton’s subordinates had no idea where the Japanese attack would come, so the three fighter groups were directed to cover the air approaches to Luzon. One was deployed west over the Bataan Peninsula, a second covered flight paths to Nielson and Clark from the South China Sea, and a third was sent east over the Pacific. That was standard procedure: The three fighter groups covered all possible approaches to the islands, while a fighter group from Del Carmen Airfield was ordered to cover Clark. But what Brereton didn’t know was that the fighters from Del Carmen (just south of Clark) hadn’t been able to get into the air, because of a dust storm that kept them grounded. Additionally, the fighters from Nichols Field, south of Manila, had been in the air all morning and had returned to their base. Clark Field was left undefended.

When the commander of the advance packet of Japanese A6M Zeros, Japan’s highly regarded fighter aircraft, flew over Clark, he noticed that there were no American fighters in the air: “The sight which met us was unbelievable,” Saburo Sakai later wrote. “Instead of encountering a swarm of American fighters diving at us in attack, we looked down and saw some sixty enemy bombers and fighters neatly parked along the airfield runways.” Minutes later, Sakai banked his Zero to make way for the twenty-seven twin-engine G4M (“Betty”) bombers of the 21st Koku Sentai in the first attack wave. They appeared from the north, flew over Clark in a broad vee and, at twenty-two thousand feet, released their bombs. A second wave of twenty-seven bombers followed
fifteen minutes later. As a desultory array of Brereton’s fighters rose to meet the attackers, American anti-aircraft cannons blazed away, but their rounds fell short, well under the altitude of the Japanese bombers. At the same moment that Clark was being set alight, fifty-four Japanese Bettys and fifty Zeros attacked Iba Airfield, further west. A third wave then descended yet again on Clark. This third attack, from fighters that skimmed a mere hundreds of feet off Clark’s tarmac, lasted for nearly an hour. The Japanese destroyed hangars, barracks, refueling trucks, supply warehouses, and communications huts. In all, Brereton lost eighteen of his thirty-five B-17s, along with fifty-three P-40s and three P-35s, more than one-half of MacArthur’s Far Eastern Air Force. Eighty Americans were killed, 150 wounded. The Japanese lost seven aircraft.