1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls

by Winston Groom

  In the meantime, Winston Churchill was paying his second visit to American shores. The week after Pearl Harbor he boarded the battleship Duke of York—a sad reminder, perhaps, that the Prince of Wales, his original transatlantic crossing vessel, now rested at the bottom of the sea—to meet Roosevelt in Washington to firm up strategy and boost spirits. It was a rough trip, taking nine days. The winter weather was atrocious; the ship had to be battened down most of the time and a number of sailors suffered broken bones from falls. Churchill, cooped up, restless and irritated, spent his time watching Rita Hayworth movies and reading C. S. Forester seafaring stories.11

  The prime minister had been invited to stay at the White House, alarming the army’s and navy’s chiefs of staff, who were concerned that such close proximity to Roosevelt might sway the American president to agree with some of what they considered Churchill’s screwy ideas.* What was actually agreed upon at this so-called Arcadia conference was that the United States would commit 90,000 troops to invade German-occupied North Africa in an operation that would be called Torch. In addition, some thousands of American soldiers would immediately be sent to keep the peace in rebellious Ireland, freeing up British troops there to go to the fighting fronts. Also, the Americans promised to increase their output of warplanes to 60,000 in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943, with commensurate increases in tanks, merchant marine transports, artillery, and so forth. The prime minister was much pleased.12

  On Christmas Day Churchill and Roosevelt attended services at the Foundry Methodist Church, where the Briton was greatly moved by a song he had never heard before, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” The next day at noon he strode into the U.S. Capitol to address the second joint session of Congress since America had entered the war. Churchill perfectly charmed his audience, opening with this remark: “I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way around, I might have got here on my own.”* Time and again he was interrupted by applause and foot stamping, but none more enthusiastic than when he alluded to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and snarled, “What kind of people do they think we are!” At the end of this stirring oration, his eyes flashing and glistening with tears, Churchill strode off the platform to the roar of a standing ovation, flashing his famous V for victory sign.13

  This goodwill visit by Churchill was crucial to the entire war effort. It must be remembered that Great Britain, at that time, was not well liked or trusted by many Americans, and had not been for a long while. The rupture of cordial relations between the two countries began before the American Revolution of 1776, and it took that war to throw off the oppressive yoke of King George III. Next came the War of 1812 during which the British set fire to the U.S. Capitol and the White House in addition to other reprehensible things on American soil. During the Civil War England tacitly sided with the Southern Confederacy, buying their cotton, selling them arms, and building them fast blockade-running ships. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came the great waves of German and Irish immigrants, who despised England to the core, and they and their descendants had embedded their notions into the fabric of society. When, in 1917, America finally entered World War I on the side of the British and French, there were much publicized disagreements over troop deployments; then after the war the British refused to pay the colossal debts owed the United States for war loans. Many Americans considered the British ingrates and pikers and, until just a few days earlier, believed they were trying to drag the United States into war only in order to save their far-flung empire.

  Now all had changed; if the Axis was to be defeated, Great Britain would by necessity play a critical role and cooperation with them was paramount. With the wildly favorable press and radio coverage of Churchill’s speech, his remarks went a long way in bringing the two nations together, a state of affairs that exists to this day.

  The situation in Singapore in the opening month of 1942 was grave. By January 5 a fresh division of Australians had arrived and Singapore breathed a sigh of relief: these men were no mere native colonials but a tough fighting bunch who could stop the Japanese. It did not happen; the Japanese pulled their same crablike flanking tactics on the Aussies and within two weeks General Arthur Percival, commander of the British Malay army, was forced to order a final retreat onto Singapore island itself.

  There disaster waited. As General Yamashita scanned the northern approaches to Singapore atop the watchtower of the great palace of the sultan of Johor, what he saw across the straits must have warmed his heart. No big guns were visible to oppose his invasion. Several days earlier, on January 31, the last of the British army had crossed over the causeway linking the island to the Malayan mainland, accompanied by the mournful tunes of a bagpiper. Then the causeway was blown up, but another blunder had been made. Not enough explosives were used and the resulting debris had settled to the bottom, lowering the water depth by several feet, so that at low tide even a short Japanese could wade across it.14

  In Singapore City itself a sort of panicky carnival atmosphere took hold. Singapore had been anglified for nearly a century and a half and was replete with cricket and rugby pitches, golf courses, racetracks, and such institutions as the famous Raffles Hotel. Many European families lived there, but who were now desperately trying to flee on any available ship or boat. Most did not make it; the liner Empress of Asia was sunk in the channel and the Japanese continued to bomb and strafe the capital every day. Casualties mounted and there was little for anyone to do but drink gin and hide from the attacking bombers. The streets were jammed with wild-eyed and drunken deserters and frenzied civilians struggling to get out. The Japanese warplanes seemed to particularly enjoy picking off small boats filled with people trying to make it south across the Strait of Malacca to the Dutch island of Sumatra. Fifty of these were sunk in a single day.

  In the midst of all this, General Sir Archibald Wavell arrived on the scene. He had just been placed in command of all British forces in the Far East and, in Singapore, was appalled by what he saw. Upon inspection of the north side of the fortress, where the Japanese army waited just half a mile across the strait, he found practically no artillery at all and not even a serious plan to repel an invasion. When he learned that the great fifteen-inch guns that faced the sea were set in concrete and could not be turned around, Wavell was both shocked and furious. He wired the news to Churchill, who became positively apoplectic and berated his chiefs of staff: “How is it that not one of you pointed this out to me at any time when these matters have been under discussion? This will produce the greatest scandal.” He went on to order, “The city of Singapore must be converted into a citadel and defended to the death. No surrender can be contemplated.”15

  These were hollow words. “Defeat-itis” had set in during all those bitter retreats down the long Malay Peninsula. Wavell got into shouting matches with his army commander, General Percival, and issued a stern directive: “Commanders and senior officers must lead their troops and if necessary die with them. Every unit must fight it out to the end and in close contact with the enemy.”

  Meantime, General Yamashita’s army was crossing the strait in hundreds of rubber boats. After a feint the previous day east of the causeway, on February 8 the Japanese opened up with a terrific barrage from four hundred artillery pieces on the opposite shore, setting fire to the oil-storage tanks at the naval base to keep the British from leaking the oil into the strait and setting it on fire. Then they began to land by the thousands in the mangrove swamps west of the causeway, which were only lightly defended by the exhausted Australians. The British seemed powerless to stop them and by midday the Japanese controlled nearly half of the twenty-seven-mile-wide island. Artillery and tanks were ferried over and more troops arrived.

  By late morning Yamashita himself arrived and sent to Percival what by any standard was a polite and reasoned appeal for him to give up: “In the spirit of chivalry we have the honor of advising your surrender.” It went on to catalog all th
e reasons why Percival should agree: army isolated and surrounded ... resistance futile ... fate of Singapore sealed ... danger to civilians. After complimenting Percival on “raising the fame of Great Britain by the utmost exertions and heroic feelings,” Yamashita closed by informing his opponent: “We do not feel you will increase the fame of the British Army by further resistance.” Percival turned him down.

  Five days later, while the British army consolidated itself into a tight little perimeter on the outskirts of Singapore City, a weird sort of calm imposed itself over the embattled citizens. Many stood in line at the cinema to see The Philadelphia Story. Others lined the bar at Raffles or other watering holes until the governor uncharitably ordered all liquor stocks destroyed to keep them from falling into Japanese hands. Chinese merchants cut off all credit to Europeans. The prevailing mood was expressed by some scrawled graffiti: “England for the English, Australia for the Australians, but Malaya for any Son of a Bitch who wants it.”16

  On Friday the thirteenth, a black day indeed, the Japanese pressed ever closer, at one point reprising their barbarity in Hong Kong by breaking into the military hospital at the edge of town and bayoneting the wounded in their beds. They even burst into an operating room, shoved the surgeons aside, and beat to death with rifle butts a solider undergoing an operation. Also as in Hong Kong the Japanese took the waterworks and shut off supply to Singapore’s nearly two million inhabitants. The end was clearly near.17

  Two days later Percival called a council of war and told his officers that he intended to ask for a truce. He had done all he could. Wavell, on nearby Java, reluctantly agreed, telegraphing him, “Whatever happens I thank you and all troops for your gallant efforts of the last few days.”

  Percival himself carried the big white flag of truce into the Ford Motor Company factory on the outskirts of the city, where the surrender ceremony had been arranged. Japanese reporters, photographers, and news-reel cameramen flooded the building. When Yamashita finally arrived his greeting was a far cry from the niceties of the note he had sent Percival a week earlier. “The Japanese army will consider nothing but surrender!” he told the British commander. Percival hedged; he wanted to construct a surrender document that would give his men and the citizens of Singapore the best possible terms. He asked for more time.

  Yamashita was unmoved and threatened to resume firing if Percival did not surrender immediately and unconditionally. Between the various poor translations by interpreters, Yamashita grew increasingly impatient. “There is no need for all this talk! I want a simple answer,” he screamed. “We want to hear ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ from you. Surrender or fight!”*

  Percival, red-faced and bloodshot on the worst day of his life, could barely speak, but finally he managed a weak, “Yes, I agree,” and signed the surrender document that was put in front of him. First, however, he asked Yamashita if he would guarantee protection of the women and children and British civilians on Singapore. The Japanese general so promised, but shortly afterward he went back on his word and allowed his troops to murder many thousands of Chinese living on the island.

  Thus ended the largest and most humiliating surrender in British history: some 130,000 soldiers, including recent reinforcements, became Japanese prisoners of war. Many of them were sent to prison camps in Burma and set to work building a Japanese railroad through the steaming, pestilent jungles, where they died by the thousands. Their story was told two decades later in a book, which was made into the Academy Award-winning David Lean film The Bridge on the River Kwai.

  Chapter Nine

  If the ordeal of Malaya and its fortress of Singapore was a British disaster, the Philippines proved to be an American calamity. Following Pearl Harbor the war had been rushed upon the Philippine command, and they were still months away from even basic preparedness. Naturally the Japanese did not wait for this. But unlike Pearl the Philippines had ample warning. A little past three A.M., December 8, 1941 (December 7 in Hawaii), the harsh words flashed out from Admiral Kimmel’s Pacific Fleet headquarters: “Enemy Air Raid Pearl Harbor. This Is Not a Drill.”

  The first authority to receive this shocking news was Admiral Thomas Hart, commander of the small U.S. Asiatic Fleet, which had been recently gathered in Manila from stations far and wide in anticipation of the outbreak of war. Hart, however, did not immediately share his information with General Douglas MacArthur, overall commander of the U.S. Far East forces, apparently on the assumption that the army had its own ways of finding out.

  It did. An alert army radioman with a shortwave tuner had been listening to music on a San Francisco commercial radio station when the announcer broke in with a wire service bulletin. He went screaming into the night to tell his boss, who soon got the news to MacArthur who, with his wife Jean and three-year-old son Arthur MacArthur IV, was sleeping in his luxurious penthouse atop the Manila Hotel. After dressing, the general asked his wife to bring him his Bible, which he read for a while before going off to his headquarters.1

  Admiral Hart was waiting for him there and after a lengthy conference he received MacArthur’s blessing to steam his fleet south toward Australia to save it from Japanese bombers. While this conversation was going on Lieutenant General Lewis Brereton, commander of the Far East Air Force, rushed in wanting to see MacArthur. Told by the chief of staff, General Richard Sutherland, that MacArthur was in conference, Brereton informed Sutherland that he wanted permission to send his thirty-five B-17 heavy bombers to attack the Japanese airfields on the island of Formosa (now Taiwan) some five hundred miles to the north. He said they could be ready to go at first light. Sutherland entered MacArthur’s office and when he returned a few minutes later it was with news that has caused controversy and finger-pointing ever since. MacArthur, Sutherland said, would not give permission to bomb Formosa because of the directive from Washington the previous week about the president wanting to “let Japan strike the first blow.”

  Well, wondered Brereton, hadn’t they just done so at Pearl Harbor? Good soldier that he was, however, Brereton went out to his headquarters and ordered his long-range bombers and fighters into the air to scout for any approaching Japanese invasion force and, also, to keep them off the ground in case of a surprise enemy attack. Brereton soon received word that radar had picked up flights of enemy planes approaching Luzon, the principal Philippine island, where Manila was located. At 9:15 he phoned Sutherland and again asked for MacArthur’s permission to attack Formosa. Again it was denied. Nearly an hour went by before Sutherland called again and said MacArthur had authorized a “reconnaissance mission” over Formosa to take pictures and locate enemy airfields. In another hour Sutherland called back saying MacArthur had finally authorized the Formosa bombing attack itself. Brereton recalled all his B-17s from patrol and ordered them to Clark Field, about sixty miles north of Manila, to refuel and load up with bombs.*

  Scarcely had these lumbering aerial behemoths landed than the Japanese arrived in force.* All thirty-six of the modern P-40 fighters, which had been aloft to scout for Japanese planes, had been recalled for fueling as well and were now sitting on the runway. Shortly after noon, while many pilots were in the mess hall having lunch, fifty-four Japanese high-level bombers attacked Clark Field, followed by seventy dive-bombers and fighters, which bombed and strafed everything on the field. The Japanese attack had been delayed by heavy fog on Formosa, otherwise the P-40s would have been in the air to greet them and the B-17s flying high and far away. It was an incredible stroke of bad luck for the U.S. Air Force, compounded by confusion, indecision, and blundering by a variety of military operatives, high and low. No less than three direct warnings of the incoming flight of Japanese planes had been sent to Clark Field; none got through. A teletype sent to Clark by coast watchers who had spotted the Japanese flight failed because the teletype operator, like the pilots, was having his lunch. A frantic phone call from a radar operator was taken by an unnamed lieutenant who promised he would get the word out but never did; a radio message was jammed by static
. The astonished Americans could plainly see the hundreds of Japanese bombs “glistening in the sunlight” as they hurdled toward them. Most of their ten-year-old antiaircraft ammunition failed to explode and when it did it was several thousand feet below the flying height of the bombers.2

  General Jonathan Wainwright had gone to his house near Clark air base to begin packing some personal items in anticipation of being moved out into the field. When the first bombs began falling he went out on the porch to see what was happening and reported that “The very air rattled with concussion.” In the midst of all this his Filipino houseboy came rushing out of the house, “his eyes as big as black marbles. In his frenzy,” Wainwright recalled, “he had put on my steel helmet.”

  “Mother of God, General, what shall I do?” the houseboy shouted.

  “Go and get me a bottle of beer,” Wainwright told him. “It seemed to help him,” the general said later. “I know it helped me.”3

  When it was over an hour later, most of Brereton’s Far East Air Force had been wiped out and several hundred airmen lay dead. Of the thirty-six P-40s, only four managed to get off the ground; the rest were blown to bits. The B-17s became gigantic infernos of aviation fuel where they sat. All the hangars and shops and stores and the headquarters were wrecked. Another Japanese attack on the airfield at Iba, forty miles to the east, was similarly surprised and another sixteen P-40s were destroyed, as well as the radio set and its operator. Brereton later called it “one of the blackest days in U.S. military history.”4

  The smoke had not yet cleared when Brereton’s phone rang. It was General Henry “Hap” Arnold in Washington, chief of the U.S. Army Air Force, who was hopping mad.