PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post - MacArthur: Good for America or Bad for America?

retmil46 · #14 03-15-2011, 10:48 PM

Mac pretty well screwed the pooch the first six months of the war in the Phillipines - he earned the "Dugout Doug" nickname the soldiers fighting there gave him.

If you can find a copy of them, "Eagle Against the Sun" and "Plan Orange" give a good summation of how badly he screwed up.

First off, even with nearly a day's warning, he still managed to let nearly all of his air force get caught on the ground and shot to hell, instead of dispersing them to outlying fields and conducting immediate B-17 raids against Japanese air fields on Formosa to prevent such an occurrence, as per long-standing war plans (ie, Plan Orange).

Under Plan Orange, which the army and navy had been revising and tweaking for over 40 years at that point, the plan had been that once war was imminent the army would move lock stock and barrel - all possible supplies, ammo, food, aircraft, equipment, and personnel - into the Bataan Peninsula and turn it into a 25 mile by 25 mile fortified bastion, that could hold out for a year or more if need be, until the navy and a relief force could fight their way across the Pacific - and let the Japanese come to them and batter themselves bloody trying to take it. The position of the Bataan Peninsula, along with Corregidor and the other fortified islands in the entrance, would prevent the Japanese from being able to use Manila Bay as a base for their fleet until one of two things happened - either they conquered Bataan and the fortified islands, or the U.S. Navy and a relief force arrived.

Couple years before the war actually started, old Mac decided he knew better - with his own air force, he decided he was going to try and defend every inch of territory and every island, instead of concentrating his forces, and try to stop the Japanese on the beaches whereever they landed. Several problems with that - first, his troops, particularly the Filipino Scouts, were not that well equipped and trained - even the regulars still had mostly WWI vintage equipment. Even if he hadn't managed to get his air force shot to hell on the first day, it was mostly composed of obsolescent aircraft. Being an island, the Japanese could pretty much land when and where they wanted, and did land in multiple locations.

By the time it became clear his strategy wasn't working and he decided to revert to the original plan and fall back into the Bataan Peninsula, there was no time to stock up - such that his troops ended up being short of food, ammo, and everything else.

Even with that, by the time Bataan surrendered, the Japanese had nearly shot their bolt as well - exhausted and short of supplies themselves. If Mac had followed the original war plan, such that his troops had been better supplied and in better shape, and could have launched a counterattack after letting the Japanese wear themselves out, he could have delivered them a serious defeat and upset to their war plans.