Ike toured various munitions companies and plants, including Beech Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas, which assured him that its planes could be modified for military use (Ike was more dubious).65 But without pesos to buy the planes and guns and mortars that the Philippine Army would need, the trip was largely an exercise in futility. He had toyed more than once with the idea of arranging for a new posting stateside, but finally decided to head back to the Philippines and MacArthur. He did not return to Manila until November 5, to find the Philippine Army training program in a shambles and his chief under siege from all sides, including from President Quezon and his inner circle.
The Philippine National Assembly had decided to cut defense’s share of the Commonwealth budget from 25 percent to 14 percent; while the number of those registering for the national draft was steadily dropping, from 155,100 in 1936 to fewer than 91,000 in 1940. The number of trainees completing the five-month active duty training was tumbling too, from 36,600 in 1936 to 29,500 in 1939—well below the 40,000 figure Ike and MacArthur had counted on. In some districts those summoned for service simply disappeared into the mountains.66
If there was one person who was not alarmed by what was happening, it seemed to be President Quezon. The Japanese offensive in China had sent shock waves through the Philippine upper class, Quezon included.67 MacArthur’s retirement from the army drained away whatever faith Quezon still had that the Philippines could defend itself on its own—or even that American help would ever arrive. Things came to a head that summer of 1938, as Dwight Eisenhower headed to Washington to present MacArthur’s case for more resources and support, and Manuel Quezon headed the opposite way, to Tokyo for talks with the Japanese government. Significantly, his military advisor did not go with him.
Officially on what was deemed a “vacation,” Quezon was in fact feeling out the chances of Japan’s leaving the Philippines off its list of future conquests, if its new president declared the country officially neutral. He came back reassured—but not if his military advisor’s defense plan was still being implemented. Bit by bit he began to hack away at its underpinnings. Within weeks he persuaded the National Assembly to reverse MacArthur’s plan to integrate his Philippine Army with the Philippine Constabulary, a move that slashed the army’s budget further. Throughout 1939, in fact, “Quezon continued to work at cross purposes with MacArthur.”68 He established a Department of National Defense separate from MacArthur’s authority as military advisor, setting off a bureaucratic turf war; he cut funding for ROTC training and public school military training (already under heavy criticism from liberal circles in the United States as well as the Philippines), eventually terminating the program altogether.
As the clouds of war steadily gathered in Europe over Danzig and Poland, and Japan began preparing to attack Swatow in July, the Philippines’ political elite, including Quezon, were more convinced than ever that only a policy of passivity combined with independence as soon as possible would keep them out of the path of destruction.
Yet MacArthur continued to soldier on, squeezing whatever he could from whatever resources he could find. He was focused, for example, on trying to get the Philippine air force off the ground, quite literally. He oversaw the organization of its first squadron, with twenty-one pursuit and observation planes, in early 1939, and began training Filipino pilots at the American air base at Clark Field. Eisenhower, in fact, became so interested in the fledgling air arm that he took up flying himself, and graduated with his pilot’s license at age forty-nine. Jimmy Ord was not so lucky. His death in late January 1938 had come on a training flight to Baguio with one of the Filipino airmen.69
MacArthur’s other interest was building up the Philippines’ coastal defense—no easy task when Luzon alone had 250 miles of beaches suitable for a Japanese landing. But MacArthur put much faith in his original plan for acquiring fifty patrol torpedo (PT) boats by 1946, and called in his ex-navy military advisor, Sid Huff, for a talk.
“Sit down, Sid,” he said, and then began immediately pacing the room, a cigarette dangling from his fingers.
“I want a Filipino navy of motor torpedo boats, Sid,” he said. “If I get you the money, how many can you get built in ten years?”
Huff remembered that the question felt “like a punch in the gut.” He stammered, “General, never in my life have I seen a torpedo boat.”
MacArthur waved the objection aside. “That’s all right, you will. But I want you to start work on plans for a navy. You’re a navy man and you should know what to do….Work on it. Let me know how you do.”
Outside, Huff realized he had just been given the assignment of creating a full-blown Philippine navy, starting with PT boats. He wondered if he had even done the right thing in taking the assignment. But “I began to think I could do it, perhaps because it was MacArthur who told me to do it.”70
It was a feeling that many on MacArthur’s staff would share over the years. MacArthur’s confidence was like a boost of vitamin D, making ordinary people believe they could do extraordinary things, even the impossible—and MacArthur often demanded exactly that.
In the end, only two PT boats would be purchased for the Philippine Navy, bought from the Norwegians. Efforts to build the boats in the Philippines were a flop. Yet it was MacArthur who would make the PT boat famous—American boats, not Filipino—on a dark March night miles off the coast of the Bataan Peninsula, in a moment of fear and dread but also nautical skill that cost an army its commander but ultimately saved a general for future victory.
The only other bright spot of that increasingly dismal year was the birth of Arthur MacArthur IV, seven pounds, eight ounces, on February 21, 1938.
There had been some worry that, because of Jean’s slight build, the birth might have to be cesarean. But the baby and mother came through fine; a friend wired Douglas, “I didn’t know you had it in you.” He wired back, “You know, I didn’t know it myself.” At almost sixty, he had chosen to become a father. It was a decision he never regretted. “With my little family I would be lonely no more.”71 Just as he indulged Jean’s every whim and showered her with affection and love, he would spoil his son, Arthur, with presents and attention. Together his son and wife would form a corner of private comfort in the midst of the growing storm.
—
On September 1, 1939, German tanks invaded Poland as the world war broke out in Europe. Quezon’s morale plummeted to rock bottom. He went to the National Assembly and told the stunned representatives of the Philippine people that there was no way the islands could be effectively defended “for many years to come.” In November he added dramatically: “The Philippines could not be defended even if every last Filipino were armed with modern weapons.”72 The only hope the Philippine president could see now for his country was neutrality and immediate independence, which he demanded again from the American Congress, with no result.
MacArthur continued to pretend that his relationship with Quezon was secure and that the Philippines would be in no danger once his defense plan was finished. “It would cost the enemy, in my opinion,” he told reporters, “at least a half million men as casualties and upwards of five billions of dollars to pursue such an adventure with any hope of success.” Besides, he said, “no rational reason exists why Japan or any other nation should covet the sovereignty of this country.”73
What he neglected to say was, no reason unless war broke out between the United States and Japan. Then a Japanese move to seize America’s most westward military base in the Pacific would be inevitable, especially a base that was so vulnerable and poorly defended. That is, unless MacArthur could somehow build up a credible deterrent in the meantime.
But time, as well as money, was running short. As 1940 began, the War and Navy Departments realized that war with Japan was a growing possibility. In April the Pacific Fleet was ordered to remain indefinitely in Hawaii.74 The previous summer Washington began revisions of War Plan Orange; planners admitted that the old assumption that the Philippines could hol
d out for six months until relief arrived was overly optimistic. “It is highly improbable,” they were forced to conclude, “that expeditionary forces will be sent to the Philippines in the early stages of an Orange war.” The best advice they could give any commander of the Philippine Department was to hold on tight and make do with what he had on hand. The same applied, by extension, to Field Marshal MacArthur and the nascent Philippine Army.75
Yet without explicit approval from Quezon and his new minister of national defense, MacArthur could not order munitions, enroll recruits, or sign contracts for new military construction. The projected budget for his army was cut again for 1940, by 14 percent from the 1939 figure; another round of spending cuts was coming in fiscal year 1941.76 The one hope MacArthur had left was help from America.
So far the United States had shipped him 1,220 three-inch trench mortars, 87,550 automatic rifles, 900 British-model 75 mm guns, 3,500 other 75 mm guns, 65,000 .30-caliber machine guns, and almost 200,000 Enfield rifles. Those numbers looked impressive—until one realized that they were meant to equip an army that had thousands of square miles to defend and that ammunition was in chronic short supply.77 MacArthur repeatedly urged the United States to send more, on the understanding that all such munitions and weapons were subject to immediate American recall if a national emergency demanded it. “The responsibility…for the defense of the Philippines,” he wrote, “as long as it remains an integral part of the United States, is federal and devolves upon the American government,” just as it would if New York or the District of Columbia were attacked.
Yet American forces in the Philippines were clearly inadequate to the task, and “until the basic plans of defense of the American government are known, no detailed, intelligent program for the civil or military population of these Islands can be made.”78
But no detailed plan from the States was forthcoming, and no arms either. In the summer of 1940 the U.S. government finally began mobilizing for war, as munitions orders poured into factories, plants, and shipyards. Yet every new airplane, every new tank and machine gun and artillery piece, was going to be needed by the U.S. Army itself, to prepare for the war it was expecting in Europe, not the Philippines. The Philippine Department could expect little more than scraps from the table—and MacArthur the scraps of the scraps.79
“From every angle,” writes historian Carol Petillo, “the Field Marshal of the Philippine Army found himself disappointed, and under heavy criticism.”80 Early in 1940 President Quezon even asked the new American Commissioner for the Philippines, Francis Sayre, to send MacArthur back to the States. Startled, Sayre asked the president to put the request in writing. Quezon hesitated, then backed down. But it was a sign of how thoroughly he had lost trust in his friend and military advisor.81
It wasn’t just Quezon who had let MacArthur down. In late 1939 after Germany and the Allies settled into war, Eisenhower asked MacArthur that he be relieved of duty in the Philippines so he could return to the States. They wound up having a bruising interview in MacArthur’s office.
“In my opinion the United States cannot remain out of this war for long,” Ike said. “I want to go home as soon as possible. I want to participate in the preparatory work that I’m sure is going to be intense.”
MacArthur made it clear that he considered Eisenhower’s decision a mistake. You’ve spent four years here in the Philippines, he said; the work they were doing was far more important than taking up some post as a lieutenant colonel in the army.
Eisenhower reminded MacArthur that he had already missed one war, spending the First World War as an instructor at Camp Meade in Maryland and then in Pennsylvania. He was determined not to miss this one.
President Quezon was more demonstrative in his effort to retain Ike’s services. He offered to tear up Eisenhower’s current contract with the Philippine government and to let him write in any pay amount he wanted.82 But it wasn’t money that was at issue. He and MacArthur were already being paid far more than officers in the U.S. Army could expect to make. MacArthur’s salary stood at $3,000 a month; Ike was making $980 a month, while an American major general made $666.83 The issue was that he had lost faith in the mission, and in his former mentor.
There was a farewell luncheon at the Malacañan Palace for Ike, Mamie, and their son John. Then the Eisenhower family headed for the Manila pier. Ike and MacArthur spoke before he boarded the ship that would carry them to Hawaii. “We talked of the gloominess of world prospects, but our foreboding turned toward Europe—not Asia.”84 Eisenhower sailed on to take up duties at Fort Lewis in Washington State, before becoming chief of staff for the Third Army under Major General Walter Krueger. MacArthur remained in the Philippines, without an army, without money, without trust from the president who had hired him or the one (Franklin Roosevelt) who had let him leave for virtual exile in the Philippines.
In March he wrote to a friend stateside: “Conditions in the Far East are in a state of flux. A man would be a fool or a knave who pretended to predict with accuracy what the future holds…I have been doing everything that I can during the last four years to strengthen this very weak outpost…Much progress has been made but nothing compared to what I had visualized.”85 His one remaining hope was that the U.S. Navy would go ahead with plans to build a new naval base on the island of Guam, which could be used to reinforce the Philippines in case of war. But in February 1939, Congress turned down the $5 million request. The closest base for supporting the Philippines remained Pearl Harbor, more than 5,000 miles away.86
Yet in many ways, as MacArthur and Eisenhower had seemed to agree, the possibility of war seemed to have passed the Philippines by. Japan was busy consolidating its gains in China; the major fighting had shifted to Europe and Germany, where Nazi panzer divisions swiftly overran Belgium and France, forcing France’s capitulation on July 22 and a British evacuation from Dunkirk. Planners in Washington were now convinced that Germany posed a more immediate and dangerous menace than Japan; Admiral Harold Stark was pushing for a forward strategy for the navy in the Atlantic and a far more defensive posture in the Pacific.87
The new commander of the Asiatic Fleet, Admiral Thomas Hart, found this out when he arrived in Manila in October. Tommy Hart had been a close friend of MacArthur’s navy brother Arthur, and he and Douglas had known each other for forty years. He was able to tell Douglas that with the exception of his heavy cruiser flagship USS Houston, the fleet he had inherited consisted of World War One–era vessels, fit for not much more than coast guard duty. “All my ships are old enough to vote,” he used to joke.88
MacArthur, however, refused to give in to doubt or despair. “I am holding myself in readiness,” he told Theodore H. White when the young, bespectacled correspondent for Time stopped off in Manila in December on a tour of military installations in the Far East. He found the general looking hale and hearty at nearly sixty-one. MacArthur may have been dressed casually in his gray bathrobe with the West Point A stitched on the back, but the conversation was deadly serious, about the future of Asia and the certainty that war with Japan was coming. White, who had been in China, had to agree, much to MacArthur’s surprise and delight.
“It was destiny that brought us together, White, destiny!” he exclaimed. “By God, it is destiny that brings me here now.”
MacArthur had one final prediction for the Time correspondent. “I will command the American expeditionary force in the Far East when war comes,” he said. Even White had to wonder about that one. When he had stopped by the office of the new commander of the Philippine Department, Major General George Grunert, he had been told by Grunert’s press officer not to bother interviewing MacArthur.
“He cuts no more ice in the U.S. Army than a corporal,” the man had said contemptuously.89
Yet in less than six months the ice would begin to break.
CHAPTER 13
WAITING FOR THE ENEMY
This is a call of duty I cannot fail.
—DOUGLAS MACARTHUR
At n
ine o’clock in the morning on October 24, 1941, U.S. Army Private Paul Rogers stepped out onto the deck of his troopship and gazed at the mountains flanking Manila Bay.
“There was a sudden swoosh and a roar,” he remembered, as two fighters came out of nowhere and swept over the deck from stem to stern.
Soldiers ducked and ran for cover. The planes weren’t hostile, however. They were American P-36s engaged in a little stunt flying, as they rolled up in a steep climb and then came back amidships, “shaking the ship under us, the wind from the props blowing off our caps.” Then they returned to fly on either side of the ship, their wingtips almost touching the bulwarks, before abruptly climbing and disappearing into the sky.1
The ship soon passed Corregidor Island, its massive concrete gun emplacements standing out clearly in the sunlight, and then docked that evening in Manila. An army band played a welcome salute as the American soldiers marched down the gangplank.
“Rogers,” someone shouted.
“Here,” he answered. It was a sergeant.
“Step over here. You’re going up to General MacArthur’s headquarters.”
Paul Rogers was from Iowa and when his draft board called him up in August, he had volunteered for service in the Philippines. It sounded interesting and exotic, and he had turned down the chance for a deferment to go. “Son, I admire your courage,” the recruiting sergeant had said. Neither of them knew how true those words would end up being.
On the way out on the army transport Tasker Bliss, Rogers had been pressed into service as stenographer for a shipboard court-martial because he knew shorthand. That in turn led Colonel Clyde Selleck to put his name down on the Detached Enlisted Men’s List, Headquarters Philippine Department, which meant he would be performing special duties when he arrived in the Philippines. Once they docked, Rogers learned to his astonishment that he was now official stenographer for the new commander of the United States Army Forces Far East, General Douglas MacArthur himself.
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