Douglas MacArthur

by Arthur Herman

  He did not like to admit it, but that contingency was looking more real every day, especially when the Filipino soldiers under his command were clearly not up to the job. In fact, the very day he received his fourth star from Washington, December 20, the Japanese staged a landing on Mindanao, near Davao—the city with the substantial Japanese colony, but also home to the Philippine 101st Infantry Division.

  Corporal Mays was a machine gunner on Davao who had been seconded to the 101st from the U.S. Thirty-first Infantry, in order to stiffen the Philippine troops’ fighting morale. As the Japanese came ashore shortly before dawn in four large landing boats, “packed like sardines poured into a can,” he and the other Americans guarding the harbor realized that they were on a futile mission. Mays opened up as the Japanese boats got within two hundred yards. “I leveled off all four of them,” but the Japanese kept coming and Mays and his Filipino gun crew fell back along with the other troops—eventually getting a ride with an American lieutenant in his Oldsmobile sedan while Japanese planes buzzed overhead and the piers and other buildings caught fire.

  Asked by his commanding officer about casualties, Mays answered, “It’s hard to say. So many ran.” Out of the 1,900 men in his regiment, he figured, there were only 200 still around when they reorganized—and of those missing, not more than 200 had been killed or wounded.48

  Needless to say, the Japanese secured Davao.

  On the evening of December 21 a weary MacArthur sent a radio message to Washington:

  Aggressive attempts at infiltration increasing both north and south. Enemy air raiding over Luzon, Cebu, and Mindanao. Indications point to progressive building of forces. His naval units move with complete freedom which makes it possible for him to concentrate in force at one or at many points.

  The bulletin concluded with a request that the navy “make some naval threat” to force the Japanese to pull back. Secretary Stimson showed the bulletin to President Roosevelt and Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet Admiral Ernest King. All three shook their heads and agreed that something should be done, but nothing was done.49

  Then MacArthur got the worst news of all. Forty-eight hours earlier, the submarine Stingray had spotted a large convoy of Japanese troop transports, escorted by several heavy cruisers, fifty miles off the coast of north Luzon.

  They were headed straight for Lingayen Gulf.

  In fact, the Japanese landing force under Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma included eighty-five troop transports, together with two battleships, six cruisers, and two dozen destroyers.50 In the predawn hours of December 22 some 12,000 Japanese soldiers began landing on the beach, while the battleships and cruisers pounded the shore. A few artillery rounds were fired as the landing craft neared the beach, none of which hit their targets; four B-17s passed overhead, strafing and firing on the boats as they tossed in the surf. But they had no bombs to drop. Those had been dropped on Davao, far to the south. They were reduced to being helpless spectators to the debacle now unfolding.51

  Facing Homma’s troops were four Filipino divisions—the Twenty-first, the Seventy-first, the Eleventh, and the Ninety-first—and a battalion of Philippine Scouts backed by a few tanks. The Scouts fought bravely, even charging Japanese tanks on horseback; the other Filipinos fired a few shots and then dropped their rifles and ran. The Seventy-first Division simply disintegrated as a fighting unit. They “were never organized,” their commander later commented, “never adequately equipped, and the training was so meager” that their collapse was foreordained.52

  By 10:30 the Japanese had secured the beaches and were moving inland, toward Route 3, the cobblestone road that led directly to Manila.53

  That afternoon a grim-faced MacArthur heard the first reports on the course of the fighting in Lingayen Gulf—or more accurately, nonfighting. Sutherland heard him mutter, “What an opportunity for submarines!” But the three American submarines operating in the gulf—Stingray, Saury, and Salmon—had fired torpedo after torpedo into the massed Japanese ships only to have them fail to explode, thanks to the Mark XIV torpedo’s defective detonators.54 In the end, only two transports were sunk, while swarming Japanese destroyers chased the subs out of the area.

  MacArthur had also hoped to persuade Admiral Hart to mine the gulf before withdrawing his ships, but Hart had done nothing. Instead, he had to sit helplessly as—two weeks into the war and before most of his troops had fired a shot—the campaign for the Philippines was virtually decided.

  That afternoon MacArthur sent his aide Sid Huff into Manila to buy presents for his wife and son. It was three days before Christmas, but MacArthur told Jean, “We must pretend it’s Christmas Eve.” Jean opened the boxes with scarves, dresses, and embroidered blouses.

  “Sir Boss, they are beautiful,” she exclaimed. “Thank you so much.”

  She carefully rewrapped them and put them away in her closet.

  She would never see them again.55

  —

  This was because MacArthur’s mind was already made up. He spoke to General Henry Casey about the demolition of installations and bridges to the north of the city, and at 3:20 he ordered that a call be made to the staff on Corregidor ordering them to prepare the island for becoming his headquarters.

  MacArthur then made two fateful decisions that would determine the direction of the rest of the campaign—and haunt him for years to come.

  The first was to declare Manila an open city starting on the day after Christmas.56 The second was to abandon his beach defense plan, on which he and his army had focused all their efforts over the past year, and revert to War Plan Orange. In short, all his forces, including Wainwright’s, would now withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula for a last stand.

  MacArthur’s decision to declare Manila’s status as an open city—meaning his troops would not use the city for military purposes and therefore the Japanese should not bomb or attack it—came from the best humanitarian motives, but its initial result was to trigger confusion, not to say panic. For tens of thousands of Manila residents, including American civilians, it meant their war was effectively over, without their having seen a single Japanese soldier. For the military personnel in the city, it induced a mad scramble to pack up and leave—either to join the forces headed for Bataan or to join MacArthur on Corregidor.

  One of the most disconcerted by the announcement was Admiral Hart. He and his staff had cached barges of fuel, torpedoes, and other supplies all around the Manila area, in order to keep his submarines running. Now all that would have to be abandoned, along with the navy’s piers. He polled his staff about the wisdom of remaining in the Philippines; everyone agreed that without Manila it was pointless. On Christmas Day Hart handed over command of what was left of his Asiatic Fleet to Admiral Francis Rockwell, and left aboard the submarine Shark.57

  MacArthur himself was still in his office supervising the destruction of the army’s storage depots and storage tanks. Sutherland reminded him of a nearby warehouse containing war supplies—but also where some 4,000 books of his father’s library were stored.

  MacArthur’s face was expressionless. “Blow it,” he said.58

  For the next two days explosions took place all around Manila, even as Japanese planes continued to rain death and destruction from the sky, bobbing and weaving over the city. Anxious crowds roamed the streets, while shopkeepers boarded up their store windows and others tried to escape into the mountains, or simply sat and wondered what would happen next. Looters began breaking into warehouses along the waterfront, as the possibility of law and order vanished—until the Japanese came.

  At the Malacañan Palace, Quezon’s private secretary, Jorge Vargas, and Judge Jose Laurel said their good-byes to the Philippine president. “Keep your faith with America,” he told them, his voice choking and his eyes brimming with tears. “You two will deal with the Japanese.” Then he stood outside, quietly awaiting the arrival of MacArthur’s Packard.

  MacArthur was saying his own goodbyes. One was to General Brereton. His Air
Force commander told him he had ordered all remaining planes, except four P-40s, flown out to Darwin. There was no point in keeping them in the Philippines anymore. They could do nothing to prevent further Japanese landings. MacArthur said he understood.

  There was an awkward moment, then MacArthur and Brereton solemnly shook hands.

  “I hope you will tell the people outside what we have done and protect my reputation as a fighter,” MacArthur said.

  Brereton’s answer was prompt, and heartfelt.

  “General, your reputation will never need any protection.” Then he turned and he was gone.59

  Probably no one person had done more damage to MacArthur’s chances in the Philippines than Brereton, by allowing his planes to be caught on the ground on that fateful December 8. Yet MacArthur never once attacked Brereton for the events of that day, not then or later. Our planes “were completely overwhelmed by the enemy’s superior forces,” he wrote in a press release in 1943. “I attach no blame to General Brereton or other members of the command for the incidents of the battle. Nothing could have saved the day for them.”60

  —

  When Brereton left, MacArthur cleared his desk as he always did before going home, then told an orderly to pick up his personal belongings and take them to the courtyard. There was a growing bonfire of papers as the sun was setting, while trucks were being loaded for the trip to Corregidor.

  MacArthur stepped out of his office into the anteroom. “Rogers,” he called abruptly. His stenographer, now a corporal, jumped up and found MacArthur looking around at the many mementos of his Philippine years, first as a lieutenant, then as brigadier general, and finally as military advisor, all which would now have to be left behind.

  Then MacArthur’s eye fell upon a staff in the corner, with a red pennant with four white stars. It was the pennant he had flown from his car when chief of staff.

  He pointed. “Rogers, cut off that flag for me.”

  Flustered, Rogers didn’t have scissors or even a knife. So when MacArthur repeated the order, he painstakingly untied the thongs and rolled it up, handing it to his general.

  “Thank you.” MacArthur tucked it under his arm. He sighed and turned to Sutherland. “Well, Dick, I guess it’s time to go. There isn’t anything left to do here.”61

  Down in the courtyard were two Packard sedans, their engines panting in the darkness. MacArthur and Sutherland stepped into one, with two privates as guards and escorts following. Rogers climbed into the second, alone, and had to time to admire the plush seats and pull-out bar as they moved out into the deserted street.

  They stopped briefly to pick up Jean and little Arthur and his ayah, a stern-faced Chinese lady with the strangely onomatopoeic name of Ah Cheu. They then proceeded to the pier, where they met President Quezon and Commissioner Sayre and a hundred other passengers waiting for the steamer Don Estaban to take them to the Rock. Jean had only one suitcase with her, a relic from her traveling days. It still sported a faded travel sticker: GRAND HOTEL—YOKOHAMA.62

  As they stood waiting they were surrounded by the constant sound of explosions. Ammunition dumps and fuel depots were being blown all around the city. The air around them smelled of burned cordite and gasoline. Arthur grabbed his mother’s hand and whimpered, “I want to go home.”

  Suddenly a figure in a naval uniform stepped out of the gloom. He extended his hand to MacArthur.

  It was Admiral Hart. He was there to tell MacArthur that he was handing over command to Rear Admiral Francis Rockwell and leaving on his last remaining warship, the submarine Shark. For MacArthur it must have been an awkward moment, exchanging words with the man who he believed had let the Japanese land in Lingayen Gulf without lifting a finger—and had generally let him and his troops down. But even after the Don Estaban pulled up along the dock, they continued to talk in low, earnest voices. Then Hart saluted and, like Brereton, was gone.63

  The passengers trudged up the gangplank, MacArthur being the last. He took a final glance back at Manila before stepping on deck. But there was a delay as a truck pulled up, unloading the Philippine government’s supply of gold and silver bullion.64

  At last they set off. Everyone was standing shoulder to shoulder on the crowded steamer. There wasn’t even room for the general to pace. Behind them Manila was bathed in light and smoke, and explosions—while the sky, Paul Rogers remembered, was filled with stars. Off the port bow was a bright glow, as the piers of Cavite continued to burn.

  It was Christmas Eve. Some officer started to sing, “Silent Night.” At first no one joined in. Then MacArthur and Jean and others in their party took it up, and they continued to sing one carol after another for the rest of the journey.65

  For MacArthur and everyone else on board, it was a desperate journey into the complete unknown.

  Somewhere ahead lay Corregidor, the fortified island that few on the Don Estaban had ever visited, and that now was blacked out and invisible in the darkness.

  CHAPTER 15

  WHEN MEN MUST DIE

  Some officers consider the whole thing already lost.

  —SGT. PAUL ROGERS’S DIARY, JANUARY 8, 1942, ENTRY

  Never in history was so large and gallant an army written off so callously.

  —DOUGLAS MACARTHUR TO COL. WARREN CLEAR, FEBRUARY 4, 1942

  Evacuating Manila and declaring it an open city was the first of MacArthur’s fateful decisions on December 23. The other was to abandon Rainbow Five, which had centered on defending Manila and Subic Bay from the landward side, and revert to War Plan Orange.

  In some ways the decision was already made for him, with the revised version of Orange, designated War Plan Orange Three, issued in July 1941.1 It made the principal mission for American—and by extension Philippine—land forces to deny a Japanese invader use of Manila Bay, by holding Corregidor and the Bataan Peninsula. Although army planners may not have agreed with MacArthur that the Philippines was “the key to the Pacific,” they understood that if the Japanese could operate supplies and fleets in and out of Manila, they would have a huge advantage in denying American forces access to the western Pacific—and a tremendous jumping-off point for pushing their forces southward toward Australia.

  War Plan Orange Three involved a simple and limited mission. But implementing it now, after MacArthur had dispersed his troops across Luzon, required one of the most difficult maneuvers in warfare: a fighting retreat and simultaneous withdrawal, by not one but two forces, Wainwright’s North Luzon Force and Major General George Parker’s South Luzon Force, now combined into Bataan Force. Either phase could quickly degenerate into a rout, especially if the troops involved lost heart or their commanders failed to maintain contact with each other’s moves, or failed to maintain a schedule based on pinpoint timing.

  Changing plans in this way involved no hasty decision on MacArthur’s part. It was clearly on his mind the minute he learned of the first Japanese landings, and implicit in his warnings to Quezon and Sayre to be prepared to evacuate to Corregidor. On the 22nd, in fact, he had alerted General Marshall of his intention to revert to WPO-3, and Marshall approved.2

  It was also a plan well known to everyone involved. When headquarters fired off the message on December 23, “WPO-3 is in effect,” everyone knew what to do. A series of five defensive positions would be held, to delay the Japanese advance along the central Luzon plain while Bataan itself made ready for defense. To buy extra time, the revised plan used Wainwright’s men, backed by 192nd and 194th Tank Battalions made up of National Guard units, to hold off the Japanese north of the city of San Fernando where Route 8, the main highway into the Bataan Peninsula, started, until January 8, while Parker’s South Luzon Force would head west and north to San Fernando and then cut south to Bataan. The Calumpit Bridge over the Pampanga was the all-critical juncture: it had to be held at all costs until the last of Parker’s men had gotten across.

  On December 24 the Twenty-first Division started its withdrawal.3 By 4:00 A.M. on Christmas Day most had reached
Aguilar, although it was not until afternoon that most had reached North Luzon Force’s first defensive line, D-1. Army trucks, soldiers, animal-drawn carts, civilian cars, and thousands of Philippine civilians followed in their wake.

  The term “defensive line” was a misnomer. The positions that MacArthur, his staff, and officers on the ground had sketched out on their maps actually stretched for miles over a wide variety of terrain—farther, in fact, than their thin forces could defend against determined attack. Each line was to be occupied before dawn and held during the day; then the exhausted troops would pull back under the cover of night to the next line, and the entire process would start again.4

  Meanwhile, a mad scramble was on to get supplies that had been moved out to support the beach defenses during MacArthur’s original plan back into Bataan, by truck, rail, boat, even oxcart. Many officers, however, knew that many of the supplies would never make it.

  One of the biggest depots on Luzon was Fort Stotsenburg near Clark Field. As part of the evacuation, its nearly 300,000 gallons of gasoline as well as high-octane aviation fuel had to be blown up—and tons of food, clothing, and military supplies abandoned. Meanwhile huge stockpiles of food set aside in the central Luzon plain, including more than one million pounds of rice, could find no transport and had to be left behind.5 Even more valuable stockpiles of ammunition fared no better.

  Reverting to War Plan Orange Three made strategic sense. But the men defending Bataan were going to find themselves short on food, supplies, and ammunition even before the battle started.

  —

  At 8:30 P.M. the Don Estaban finally chugged to a halt at Corregidor’s North Dock.

  The passengers, including MacArthur and his party, disembarked from the boat in inky darkness. Corregidor’s commanding officer, Major General Moore, was there to meet him. Their destination was the 1,400-foot-long, 30-foot-wide Malinta Tunnel that American engineers had dug into the rock of Malinta Hill, rising 400 feet above the sea. In the eerie gloom cast by blue mercury vapor lights they followed the railroad track running down its main shaft past the tunnel’s twenty-five 400-foot-long lateral branches, along with another network of tunnels that would serve as the island’s field hospital.