The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur (14 page)

I
n Washington, the string of defeats of early December brought the grim realization that it would take years to turn the tide. On the morning of December 14, MacArthur’s former chief of staff, Dwight Eisenhower, reported for duty at the War Department, summoned there by Marshall to serve in the War Plans Division. Eisenhower considered the assignment a dead end, as it meant serving once again on someone else’s staff. But Eisenhower’s former boss, General
Walter Krueger, had recommended him and told Eisenhower that his assignment in Washington was important. After being shown where he would work by his old friend, Leonard Gerow, Eisenhower met with Marshall, who was standing at his desk when Eisenhower entered. Marshall quickly reviewed the series of American defeats in the Far East, finishing with MacArthur’s isolation in the Philippines.

“We have got to do our best in the Pacific and we’ve got to win this whole war,” Marshall said. “Now, how are we going to do it?”

Eisenhower stared back at Marshall. “Give me a few hours,” he responded.

Later that afternoon, Eisenhower presented his plan on several sheets of yellow legal paper. It was three hundred words long. Headed “Assistance to the Far East,” Eisenhower’s program was unadorned. “Build up Australia, a base of operations from which supplies and personnel (air and ground types) can be moved into the Philippines. Speed is essential.” Next: “Influence Russia to enter the war.” Then: “Initially, utilize the bombs and ammunition now in Australia to be carried on carriers and fast merchant vessels with planes. Establish fast merchant ship supply service from U.S. to Australia for maintenance. Ferry from Australia to Philippines.”

Facing Marshall, Eisenhower added his own conclusions: “General, it will be a long time before major reinforcements can go to the Philippines, longer than any garrison can hold out without direct assistance, if the enemy commits major forces to their reduction, but we must do everything for them that is humanly possible. The people of China, of the Philippines, of the Dutch East Indies will be watching us. They may excuse failure but they will not excuse abandonment. Their trust and friendship are important to us.”

Marshall remained silent, so Eisenhower plunged ahead: “Our base must be Australia, and we must start at once to expand it and to secure our communications to it. In this last we dare not fail. We must take great risks and spend any amount of money required.”

Finally, Marshall nodded. “I agree with you,” he said. “Do your best to save them.”

MacArthur, had he been present, would have been pleased with his former assistant’s plan—but also disappointed. He would have been
proud that Eisenhower believed, as he did, that America must fulfill its pledge to defend the Philippines, but he would have been shocked by Eisenhower’s conviction that the Philippine garrison was doomed, and that the defeat of Japan must begin from Australia. Whether pacing the floor in his headquarters in Manila or on his penthouse veranda, MacArthur imagined that somewhere over the eastern horizon, the U.S. Navy was sailing to his relief and that it was only a matter of time before it arrived.

Surrounded by his staff and the ever-vigilant Wainwright, MacArthur vowed to fight on. He peppered the high command in Washington with daily, and sometimes hourly, coded radiograms. “If the Western Pacific is to be saved it will have to be saved here and now,” one read, to be followed by another: “The Philippine theater of operations is the locus of victory or defeat.” MacArthur appeared confident and defiant. “My message is one of serenity and confidence,” he said.

As the forces of Japan bore down on him, MacArthur called together his senior commanders and laid out his plan for the defense of Luzon, marking on a map in his office the successive lines they would defend. His plan, he told them, was to buy time, fending off the Japanese while building up the defenses of Bataan and Corregidor, the island that served as the “cork” in the bottle of Manila Bay. Struggling to understand the pace of this new war, he gave exact instructions and precise orders. He seemed to hearken back to his days as a brigadier general, when he had led his beloved Rainbow Division fearlessly “over the top” at Côte de Chatillon. In one noted anecdote, he stands in his khakis, feet apart and hands on hips, outside his headquarters at No. 1 Calle Victoria, staring at Japanese fighters speckling the sky over Manila. He counts them with his eyes. “Fifty-five,” he says. Nearby, a gaggle of officers eye the fighters, casting furtive glances back at the headquarters, hoping they can sprint inside before the Japanese strike. One of them urges MacArthur to take cover, but MacArthur ignores the plea. Over his left shoulder, the remains of Cavite smolder in the December sun, while to the east the line of B-17 wrecks continues to send clouds of black smoke into the air over Clark Field. “Give me a cigarette, Eddie,” he says.

The picture of Douglas MacArthur, in mid-December 1941, calmly counting Japanese fighters veiled the worry he must have felt. American power in the Pacific had been shattered, with all of America’s military outposts, excepting those in the Philippines, overrun. There was little doubt that the islands that MacArthur loved were next on Japan’s list. George Marshall, in Washington, knew this too, even as he struggled to provide his Philippine commander with the aircraft and supplies he needed, but that Marshall did not have.

Given the lack of the dozens of army divisions, air squadrons, and battle fleets needed to oppose the Japanese, Marshall viewed his immediate post–December 7 task as maintaining the morale of the Americans and Filipinos facing the Japanese—to “buck up” MacArthur, even as his air force lay smoldering on Philippine airfields. “The resolute and effective fighting of you and your men air and ground has made a tremendous impression on the American people and confirms our confidence in your leadership,” Marshall cabled MacArthur three days after the December 8 debacle. “We are making every effort to reach you with air replacements and reinforcements as well as other troops and supplies.”
This was brazen fibbing of the most obvious sort, for MacArthur’s command had fired nary a shot in anger, and most senior American officers not only didn’t believe the Philippines could be saved, but believed to do so would be a waste of time.

The navy, in particular, was prepared to write off the archipelago. The United States should not be in the business of “defending the indefensible,” navy planners told Marshall after December 8. They pointed out that the original plan for the defense of the Philippines, dubbed Rainbow 5, was for MacArthur’s Philippine garrison to retreat into Bataan and wait for the Pacific Fleet to sail to its rescue. But since the plan depended on ships that now lay at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, it seemed inevitable that the garrison would retreat into Bataan—where it would surrender. So, senior navy officers believed, instead of reinforcing MacArthur, the United States should prepare for the day when a new fleet of battleships and aircraft carriers, based at a rebuilt Pearl Harbor, could defeat the Japanese in a series of naval battles in the Central Pacific. The events in the Philippines were a terrible tragedy, the navy said, but American military planners needed a sober dose of realism. MacArthur not only couldn’t be helped, but shouldn’t be helped. Or, as Admiral Thomas Hart told MacArthur during a December 12 meeting with him in Manila, the Philippines were “doomed.”

MacArthur cabled Marshall on December 13, reporting what Hart had said and arguing that if anyone ever suspected that the United States was abandoning the islands, “the entire structure will collapse over my head.” Irritated at Hart’s attitude, Marshall approached Secretary of War Henry Stimson, telling him, “We cannot give up the Philippines in that way.” The president needed to tell the navy to get in line. Stimson agreed. “Politically,” Stimson later recalled, “it was still more important that this defense be supported as strongly as possible, for neither the Filipino people nor the rest of the Far Eastern world” would forgive the United States if it abandoned the archipelago. Stimson met with Roosevelt on the morning after his talk with Marshall and showed him MacArthur’s cable. The next day, the president told the navy that as he was bound to defend the Philippines, so was the navy. Having lost the point, Harold Stark, the then chief of naval operations, pointedly instructed Hart to reassure MacArthur that the navy stood with him. But
the result of this finger-wagging was tepid, at best. The navy should help MacArthur, Stark cabled Hart, when it was “practicable.”

The problem for Marshall was that reinforcing the Philippines was not all that “practicable.” MacArthur was left with what he had in place: a total strength of 22,532 men, of whom just over 3,000 were Americans in General Jonathan Wainwright’s Philippine Division. Another 12,000 Americans served as a part of air, naval, or various supply units. Ten “reserve divisions” of Filipinos, led by Americans, were also available, as were members of the small but well-trained Philippine Scouts—some 6,500 men. The recent arrival of an anti-aircraft artillery regiment, a tank battalion, and “reserve supplies” helped, as did fifty tanks that had arrived in August. But that was it. Which is why, on December 11, Marshall had sent his “buck up” cable and why, just weeks later, on the eve of the Japanese invasion, he told MacArthur to expect a fourth star, the rank that MacArthur had held as chief of staff. The promotion was Marshall’s way of keeping MacArthur’s morale intact, while at the same time sending the most unsubtle of signals to the navy. MacArthur might be isolated, perhaps even “doomed,” but Marshall would do everything he could to support him. That included making sure that the commander outranked every navy officer in sight.

O
n December 22, General Masaharu Homma’s Fourteenth Army, more than forty-three thousand well-armed soldiers, came ashore on the beaches of Lingayen Gulf. The size of the invasion fleet was sobering: The Japanese arrived aboard seventy-six transports in three convoys that were escorted by two battleships, four heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, two seaplane carriers, and a handful of destroyers. MacArthur had nothing to match it. A single American submarine sortied to meet the invading army, but then lay on the seabed to avoid detection (its commander was later relieved). Six more submarines were dispatched to intercept Homma, but they succeeded in sinking only a small transport. Four B-17s were able to strafe the convoy, hitting the cruiser
Ashigara
, Homma’s flagship. Otherwise, the defense was paltry. Thomas Hart’s attitude didn’t help. His December 8 performance and his blunt assessment that the Philippines were “doomed” had set MacArthur against him. By mid-December, Hart had decided that
without air cover, he should salvage what he could of his fleet by sending it to Borneo. It mattered little to MacArthur that Hart’s actions were approved by Washington—in the general’s view, the navy was running. The two met a final time, on the street outside MacArthur’s headquarters. MacArthur was direct, giving Hart instructions on what the admiral should do when he reached the south, but inside, MacArthur was seething.

The Far East commander didn’t underestimate the enormity of the situation in the Philippines. In the two weeks before Homma’s convoys appeared in Lingayen Gulf, MacArthur gave his staff crisp, precise, and unambiguous instructions. Large numbers of Japanese citizens in the Philippines were interned in a single swift operation. MacArthur directed his quartermaster officers to secure anything of use in Manila and the surrounding area. Food stores, weapons, trucks, and petroleum products were seized and forwarded to Philippine and American units; the rest was packed up and sent to Corregidor, the tadpole-shaped island in Manila Bay. The naval base at Cavite was stripped of weapons and munitions; every ship in Manila Bay was searched and unloaded; and junks, barges, rafts, floats, and rowboats were requisitioned. The port area, vulnerable to continued Japanese bombing, was cleared. There were unexpected windfalls. MacArthur’s teams came across a load of Bren guns and assorted munitions aboard a Canadian ship bound for Hong Kong. He secured its release, and the weapons were transported to a tank group in northern Luzon.

Less than one week after the debacle of December 8, Philippine High Commissioner Francis Bowes Sayre ordered the destruction of all Philippine currency to keep it out of the hands of the Japanese. The commonwealth’s gold was shipped to Corregidor under guard. On December 13, the Philippine National Assembly passed a resolution giving Quezón extraordinary powers and voted $10 million to purchase assorted weapons, but the funds could not be spent on what did not exist. That same night, in a meeting in his penthouse, MacArthur told Quezón that he wanted the Philippine government to move to Corregidor. Quezón objected. “Were I to go to Corregidor,” he told MacArthur, “my people would think I had abandoned them to seek safety under your protection. This I shall never do. I shall stay among my people and
suffer the same fate that may befall them.” This was a fine speech, and Quezón meant it, but MacArthur was adamant: The general wanted to declare Manila an open city to keep it from being bombed, and he didn’t want Quezón to become a hostage.

After conferring with his wife and children, Quezón agreed, and the Philippine government began preparing for the move. Jorge Vargas, the mayor of Manila, was given the unenviable task of dealing with the Japanese when they arrived in the capital. He sought out MacArthur for his advice. “There is nothing you can do,” MacArthur told him. “[Y]ou have to follow what the Japanese Army of occupation orders you to do. Under international law you must obey the orders of the military occupant. There is only one thing you should not do: take the oath of allegiance to Japan because, if you do, we will shoot you when we come back.”

MacArthur was now working around the clock to strengthen his defenses. He presented a face of calm to his exhausted staff, attempted to buoy Wainwright’s characteristic gloom, and adopted an air of confidence to Jean and their three-year-old son Arthur. The boy had a habit of following his father during MacArthur’s morning routines, with the two marching like soldiers through the penthouse. “Hup, two, three, four; hup, two, three, four,” MacArthur chanted, and Arthur’s legs went up and down as he followed behind his father. MacArthur was devoted to his wife and son, and it must have worried him that they might fall into Japanese hands. But he never mentioned the possibility; nor did he bother Jean with his concerns. Not only must he now manage the balky navy, but he also had to deal with Washington, where Roosevelt, Marshall, and the Joint Chiefs had decided that the United States would adopt a Germany-first policy. In other words, the bulk of American men and matériel would head to Europe, and not the Pacific.

Despite Marshall’s reassurances, MacArthur knew that Roosevelt’s primary focus was on keeping Russia in the war. The decision had been made in staff talks between the British and the Americans: The Allies would fight in Europe and stand on the defensive in the Pacific. The question of whether the strategy was sound was no longer an issue; Japan’s victories in early December had made the reinforcement of the Philippines impossible. “Do what you can for them,” Marshall had told Eisenhower. But it wasn’t much.

The Japanese plan to isolate the islands had worked—some supplies were arriving, but not nearly enough, and convoys bound for Manila were being diverted to Australia. The flow of cables between MacArthur and Marshall peaked in the days before the Japanese landings, with MacArthur authoring “big ideas” on how to fight the coming war. MacArthur is rarely given credit for his political abilities, but he could read a map as well as anyone. Within weeks of the Japanese attack, he countered the Germany-first policy by proposing one of his own. He sent Marshall a cable suggesting that the United States mount a surprise air attack on the Japanese home islands—a “master stroke” that would force Japan to pull back its air assets to defend the home islands. Several days later, MacArthur argued that everything should be done to bring Russia into the war against Japan. With Russia in the war, Japan would be required to strip its forces in the South Pacific. Once in the war, the Russians would make short work of the overextended Japanese and force their surrender, after which the Allies could take on the Germans.

The idea was big, and it appealed to Marshall, who took it to Roosevelt, who forwarded it to Joseph Stalin in Moscow. Not surprisingly, the Soviet leader was less than enthusiastic. The threadbare Red Army, freezing in its trenches or falling back pell-mell through the snow, was then barely holding on against the Germans. Opening a second front to fight the Japanese would only make things worse. When Winston Churchill heard of the proposal, he dismissed it out of hand.

MacArthur’s “big idea” cables fell off thereafter, as his attention turned to Homma. With Wainwright gathering his forces to fight the Japanese step-by-step back into Bataan, MacArthur cabled Washington, reviewing the odds he faced and ticking through the obstacles weighing in on him: “Enemy penetration in the Philippines resulted from our weakness on the sea and in the air. Surface elements of the Asiatic Fleet were withdrawn and the effect of the submarines has been negligible. Lack of airfields for modern planes prevented defensive dispersion and lack of pursuit planes permitted unhindered day bombardment.” Despite these extreme disadvantages, MacArthur remained optimistic, telling Marshall that he might be able to stop the Japanese if the Philippine Army would stand and fight. But would it? The answer to that question came within twenty-four hours of Homma’s landing, on December
23, when the 71st Division of the Philippine Army brushed up against Homma’s troops. The 71st arrayed itself behind a series of low ridges as American officers confidently barked out orders in the tropical heat. The fight was short and bloody, with the Japanese taking fire, hesitating, and then coming on like a rising tide. The 71st, as one U.S. officer noted, “fled to the rear in a disorganized mass.”

M
asaharu Homma’s plan was to implement a coup de main—sending his Luzon divisions slamming south against Wainwright, while a 15,000-man detachment landing at Lamon Bay in southeastern Luzon sprinted north into Manila. But Homma’s units were hamstrung from the moment they entered Philippine waters. The lead convoy missed its mark, dropping its soldiers into the roiling surf four miles from its intended target on the east side of Lingayen Gulf. Because of the poor weather, Homma’s heavy armor and artillery couldn’t land in the first waves, and Homma was unable to achieve surprise. His convoy had been spotted four days earlier, and guns from the 86th Field Artillery of the Philippine Scouts bombarded the transports as they disgorged their troops. At Baung, the Philippine Army’s 12th Infantry cut into the Japanese barges with .50- and .30-caliber machine guns, causing heavy casualties, but the Japanese kept coming, moving inland. Twenty-four hours later, Homma’s forces struck south toward Manila and soon thereafter MacArthur decided that Wainwright—and Major General George Parker’s South Luzon Force—would implement the delaying actions he had sketched out for them in the wake of the December 8 debacle. The American-led forces would strike at Homma in a series of fighting retreats before withdrawing into the Bataan Peninsula.