American Caesar

  During 1941, however, opinion about air power began to shift on the highest levels of the American military establishment. In February the War Department’s general staff vetoed an Air Corps suggestion that Luzon be reinforced by heavy bombers. Then, during Roosevelt’s Atlantic Charter meeting with Churchill in August, the British reported that Boeing B-17s—“Flying Fortresses”—were performing superbly against the Germans. Two weeks later nine of the heavy bombers were flown from Hawaii to Manila, proving that MacArthur could be reinforced by air. The War Department reasoned that if enough B-17s and P-40 fighters could be sent to him, Japanese hawks might be dissuaded from invading the islands. Air Corps chief Hap Arnold, in his words, then ordered that “all possible B-17s be sent to the Philippines as soon as they could be made available.” MacArthur ordered expansion of landing strips at Nichols Field, on the outskirts of Manila; at Clark Field, sixty-five miles to the north; and at Mindanao’s Del Monte Field, five hundred miles to the south. By the first week in December the General would have 207 planes (76 more than the Hawaii command), of which 74 would be bombers. Arnold was even preparing to send Hawaii’s twelve B-17s to MacArthur. Aircraft bound for Luzon were leaving California every day now. By early 1942, Stimson believed, Philippine air strength would be enough to discourage the Japanese. Every night, he wrote in his diary, he was praying for “maximum delay.”84

  George Marshall, feeling euphoric, held an extraordinary secret press briefing for seven Washington correspondents on November 15. War was imminent, he told them, but the American situation in the Philippines was excellent. Tanks and guns were arriving there hourly, and, most important, MacArthur had been given “the greatest concentration of heavy bomber strength anywhere in the world.”* Not only could he defend the islands; he was prepared to launch stunning raids on the Japanese homeland, setting the “paper” cities of Japan afire. One newsman pointed out that B-17s lacked the range to bomb Tokyo and return to Clark Field. That was no problem, Marshall replied. Revealing a total misunderstanding of Stalin’s mind, the Chief of Staff replied that the Russians would gladly permit American airmen to use Vladivostok as a base.85

  Less than two weeks earlier, MacArthur had received his air commander, Major General Lewis H. Brereton, whom Captain Allison Ind has described as “a square-rigged, stout-hulled believer in action.” Like Stimson, Brereton kept a diary, and in it he later scribbled that after checking in at the Manila Hotel he telephoned the penthouse, reported his arrival to MacArthur, and was told to “come up immediately.” Jean and three-year-old Arthur were at the hotel swimming pool; the General was in his bathrobe with the army “A” on it, preparing to dress for dinner at Commissioner Sayre’s home. He was, Brereton wrote, “eager as a small boy to hear all the news.” Whacking the airman on the back, he threw his arm around his shoulder and said, “Well, Lewis, I have been waiting for you. I knew you were coming and I am damned glad to see you. You have been the subject of considerable discussion between myself, George Marshall, and Hap Arnold. What have you brought for me?”86

  Brereton’s briefcase, which he had left at Manila’s army headquarters for safekeeping, contained a secret letter from Marshall. MacArthur briefly considered sending for it, then changed his mind. “Come to my office at eight o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said. When Brereton appeared there the next day, Sutherland was present. MacArthur tore open the envelope marked “For the Eyes of General MacArthur Only.” After reading it, Brereton noted, “he acted like a small boy who has been told that he is going to get a holiday from school. He jumped up from his desk and threw his arms around me and said, ‘Lewis, you are as welcome as the flowers in May.’ He turned to his chief of staff and said, ‘Dick, they are going to give us everything we have asked for.’ ”87

  Actually they weren’t. Approving his fight-on-the-beaches strategy, the letter promised tanks, planes, and infantry—enough, it seemed, to assure the safety of the islands—but everything was based on the assumption that hostilities wouldn’t break out until the following April. That had been MacArthur’s prediction, and Marshall concurred. Brereton, who would be responsible for air defense, was less sanguine: “The very clearest of ideas existed in General MacArthur’s mind as to what needed to be done. The fact remains, however, that there was neither equipment nor money nor manpower organized and available for the immediate 100-percent implementation of the program required. It was a question of improvising all along the line. . . . There were no spare parts of any kind for P-40s, nor was there so much as an extra washer or nut for a Flying Fortress. There wasn’t a spare motor for either fighter or bombardment planes. There were few tools of any kind available with which an advance depot could begin rudimentary repair and maintenance.”88

  Brereton’s most singular mission in MacArthur’s service came a week later. He was a key officer. His time was precious. How could it best be spent? Given the state of the archipelago’s airfields, he should have made improvement of them his first task. Only two airports could accommodate heavy bombers. The runways at Nichols Field needed lengthening. Runways near the beaches at Aparri and Vigan in northern Luzon, and at Legaspi in southern Luzon, could be used only for emergency landings. Except at Clark Field, there were no antiaircraft weapons. Brereton was troubled: “Conditions were disappointing. The idea of imminent war seemed far removed from the minds of most. Work hours, training schedules, and operating procedure were still based on the good old days of peace conditions in the tropics. There was a comprehensive project on paper for the construction of additional airfields, but unfortunately little money had been provided prior to my arrival. The construction necessary had to be accomplished through civilian and government agencies of the Philippine Commonwealth.”89

  But instead of setting Brereton to work correcting all this, MacArthur, goaded by Washington to touch base with future allies, sent him off on an extraordinary airborne odyssey. In less than three weeks the airman zigzagged between Manila, Rabaul, Port Moresby, and Australian fields at Townsville and Melbourne. He flew 11,500 miles, and when he returned he was told not to bother repacking; on December 8 he would be off again on a 5,733-mile journey to Djakarta, Singapore, Rangoon, and Chungking, where he would confer with Claire L. Chennault, Chiang Kai-shek’s air adviser. The implications of these long treks were lost on the U.S. Navy, refighting the Battle of Jutland, and on the U.S. Army, reliving the Argonne. It appears to have struck no one in Manila or Washington that if American aviators could cover these vast distances, the Japanese could, too.90

  Brereton’s absence was to exact a terrible price. Because he was elsewhere, it was Friday, November 21, before he urged MacArthur to move their B-17s from Clark Field to Del Monte, well beyond the range of Japanese fighters. The General told Sutherland to see that this was done. Brereton, preparing for his second trip, was unaware that only half the Flying Fortresses had been flown south. In his memoirs MacArthur would write: “I never learned why these orders were not promptly implemented.” It was, of course, his job to know, and he must be faulted for his ignorance. At this stage in his career he was still unaware of the possibilities in the sky. But it was part of his genius that at his age he could still learn.91

  Two flags flew over his penthouse—those of the United States and of the Philippine commonwealth—and his loyalties, as winter approached, were divided between them. He was a serving officer of the U.S. Army, a distant cousin of the American President. At the same time he was the Philippine president’s compadre and the first chief of the emerging nation’s armed forces. As a world power, the United States was committed to restraining Japanese aggression. But the Filipinos hadn’t much more stake in the coming conflict than the Swiss had in the European war. At West Point it had sounded so simple: duty, honor, country. But which country? His situation was not unlike that of those medieval Germans who, after trying to take their own lives, discovered that the penalty for attempted suicide was death. Having made his commitment in Manila, he was trapped. There was no way out for him, no light
at the end of his tunnel. He was in checkmate.92

  He was also surrounded. Japanese guns were pointed at him from every direction. They held Indochina to the west, the islands the Versailles treaty had mandated to them to the east, Formosa and the Chinese coast to the north, and the waters to the south. MacArthur was not concerned about his own safety. His record in France had demonstrated that he was absolutely fearless. But now he was responsible for a wife, a son, and an army, and over fifteen million Filipino civilians. He would have been inhuman if he had not prayed that the Japanese would bypass these lovely islands and treat them as neutrals. As he explained it after the war to Dr. Louis Morton, the official army historian, the Philippines, “while a possession of the U.S., had, so far as war was concerned, a somewhat indeterminate international position in many minds, especially the Filipinos and their government.” George Marshall, suspecting his dilemma at the time, warned him that he should move against the enemy when “actual hostilities” commenced, rather than await a declaration of war. The Japanese drive into China, he reminded him, had not been preceded by a formal declaration. Tokyo had a long history of launching surprise attacks. To give MacArthur complete freedom, the Chief of Staff authorized him to fly reconnaissance missions beyond Philippine waters. Yet when the British asked the General to send a B-17 over Camranh Bay—where, they rightly suspected, the Japanese were massing forces for invasions of Siam and Malaya—MacArthur replied that his War Department orders prohibited him from complying.93

  It scarcely mattered. The huge Nipponese convoys could not escape detection. Merchant ships sighted them, and so did P-40s on routine patrols of the South China Sea. The future looked very bleak. In Washington peace talks between Secretary Hull and two Japanese diplomats had broken down. Hull had told them that the administration wouldn’t unfreeze Japanese assets until Japan evacuated China and Indochina, withdrew from the Tripartite Pact, and signed a multilateral nonaggression covenant. The Japanese demanded that the United States abandon China, end its naval expansion in the western Pacific, and urge the Dutch to provide Tokyo with raw materials from the East Indies. The negotiations had reached an impasse. The secretary was convinced that the envoys were stalling. He told Stimson, “I have washed my hands of it, and it is now in the hands of you and [Secretary of the Navy Frank] Knox—the Army and the Navy.” On November 24 Washington radioed all Pacific commanders that a “surprise aggressive movement in any direction, including an attack on the Philippines or Guam,” was a possibility.94

  Three days later, with Marshall out of town, Stimson learned that a large Nipponese expeditionary force was sailing from Shanghai. He suggested to the President that a “final alert” be sent to MacArthur, telling him to be “on the qui vive for any attack.” Roosevelt agreed, and the War Department cabled the General:

  NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE JAPANESE APPEAR TO BE TERMINATED TO ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES WITH ONLY THE BAREST POSSIBILITIES THAT THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT MIGHT COME BACK AND OFFER TO CONTINUE PERIOD JAPANESE FUTURE ACTION UNPREDICTABLE BUT HOSTILE ACTION POSSIBLE AT ANY MOMENT PERIOD IF HOSTILITIES CANNOT, REPEAT CANNOT, BE AVOIDED THE UNITED STATES DESIRES THAT JAPAN COMMIT THE FIRST OVERT ACT PERIOD THIS POLICY SHOULD NOT, REPEAT NOT, BE CONSTRUED AS RESTRICTING YOU TO A COURSE OF ACTION THAT MIGHT JEOPARDIZE YOUR DEFENSE PERIOD95

  It seems clear. MacArthur thought it ambiguous. An overt act where? Against an American warship? A warplane? Any U.S. possession? Was the Philippine commonwealth, no longer a colony and soon to become independent, considered American soil? Grasping for straws, he appears to have seized this one. Yet he didn’t ask Washington for clarification. He replied that “everything is in readiness for the conduct of a successful defense,” with measures taken for ground security and air reconnaissance extended in cooperation with the navy. Then the pendulum within him swung again. Brereton asked permission “to conduct high-altitude photo missions of southern Formosa,” particularly in the region of Takao, a large Japanese base from which the first signs of action were anticipated. MacArthur, Brereton says, “directed that, in view of the War Department instructions to avoid any overt act, he did not consider it advisable to conduct photo missions over Formosa, and that reconnaissance in cooperation with the Navy would be limited to ‘two-thirds of the distance between North Luzon and Southern Formosa.’ ”96

  Commissioner Sayre and Admiral Hart had also received war warnings from Washington on November 27, and that afternoon the three men conferred in the commissioner’s office. Sayre later recalled that they had grown “more and more apprehensive of attack.” The General, on his feet as usual, prowled around the room like a caged animal. In Sayre’s words, “Back and forth, back and forth, paced General MacArthur, smoking a black cigar and assuring Admiral Hart and myself in reassuring terms that the existing alignment and movement of Japanese troops convinced him that there would be no Japanese attack before spring. Admiral Hart felt otherwise.” Hart was right. The day before, a conference of Nipponese officers had met aboard Vice Admiral Ibou Takahashi’s flagship Ashigara to make final preparations for the invasion of the Philippines. General Masaharu Homma had been ordered to conquer the archipelago in sixty days. And at the very hour that Hart, Sayre, and MacArthur were meeting, the task force which would devastate Pearl Harbor was already on the high seas.97

  The next day Brereton noted in his diary the receipt of a flash from Hap Arnold: “The present critical situation demands that all precautions be taken at once against subversive activities. Take steps to: protect your personnel against subversive propaganda, protect all activities against espionage, and protect against sabotage of your equipment, property, and establishments.” The same instructions were being radioed to Hawaii; Washington seemed to be worrying more about fifth columnists than Japanese aircraft. On Oahu, John Toland has written, the planes “were all tightly bunched together wing tip to wing tip for security against saboteurs at Hickam, Bellows and Wheeler Fields.” With MacArthur’s approval, Brereton did the same thing. The day after that—Sunday, November 30—the General changed his mind about the timing of the coming onslaught and put Corregidor on full alert. Ominous reports were piling up on his desk. He later wrote: “I prepared my meager forces, to counter as best I might, the attack that I knew would come from the north, swiftly, fiercely, and without warning.”98

  The momentum was building. On Monday, December 1, the day Arnold ordered that all Hickam’s B-17s be flown to the Philippines, unidentified aircraft were sighted near Clark Field. Tuesday at dawn a Japanese reconnaissance plane was seen over Clark, and one of MacArthur’s two radar sets, at Iba Field, eighty-five miles northwest of Manila, tracked other strange planes off the Luzon coast. Colonel Harold H. George, leader of Brereton’s interceptor command, said: “It’s my guess they were getting their range data established—possibly a rendezvous point from Formosa.” Wednesday they appeared again, at daybreak, and George said dourly: “They’ve got all they need now. The next time they won’t play. They’ll come in without knocking. ’”99

  They didn’t—yet. Thursday Brereton’s P-40s began nightly patrols over Luzon and spotted a Nipponese formation, estimated at between nine and twenty-seven bombers, within twenty miles of the Lingayen Gulf beaches. In his diary Brereton wrote: “Presumably they were making trial flights to familiarize themselves with the air route.” On Friday, when Britain’s Vice Admiral Sir Tom Phillips arrived from Singapore to confer with MacArthur and Hart over strengthening his forces, Iba’s radar picked up more blips, and fifty miles beyond the shore P-40s encountered Zeros which turned northward when they realized that the American fliers had discovered them.100

  Saturday MacArthur ordered guards doubled at airfields, more patrolling of the Philippine coast by pursuit planes, all posts manned twenty-four hours a day, and the dispersal of aircraft on the ground. (They remained lined up and in full view.) Iba picked up fresh blips, prompting Brereton to call a staff conference. An observer commented: “His eyes were hard and set. His jaw muscles bunched at the sides of his f
ace. He said but a few words. War was imminent.” That afternoon Sir Tom—who had four days to live—sailed for Malaya. He left empty-handed; the Americans could spare neither men nor weapons. MacArthur held an off-the-record press conference. He told the newsmen that war was coming, but according to Clark Lee, who was present, the General now “thought the attack would come sometime after January 1.”101

  Sunday, December 7—it was December 6 in Hawaii—dawned fine and clear. Late that afternoon unidentified planes again appeared over Clark Field. That afternoon the Americans learned that President Roosevelt had personally appealed to Hirohito in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid war. The situation, Brereton scrawled in his diary, seemed “hopeless.” In Washington George Marshall learned from intercepted messages that the Japanese envoys were going to hand Hull an ultimatum in a few hours. Tokyo had also ordered the two diplomats to destroy their code machine. Marshall wrote out a dispatch in his own hand, relaying news of this to MacArthur and to Lieutenant General Walter Short, his commander in Hawaii. It was typical of the luckless relationship between Marshall and MacArthur that this vital information went astray. The Chief of Staff left his War Department office without making certain that it had been sent. Radio communication with the Pacific had broken down, and a signal officer phoned it to Western Union. It arrived too late.102

  In older tropical homes built by Europeans and Americans you can still find typhoon rooms. Built before the principles of architectural stress were fully understood, these thick-walled chambers, each constructed in the center of the ground floor, sheltered the inhabitants of a home until a storm had passed them. There are men who intuitively adopt such compartmentalization in their thought processes, whose minds have typhoon rooms into which they retire during crises. MacArthur had one, and he was there now. Sutherland noticed it; so did Jean. Arthur didn’t, because when he toddled into his father’s bedroom each morning the General continued to jump to attention, march around the bed, produce a toy, and sing while shaving. But there was a distant look in his eyes. He seemed withdrawn, given to long silences with everyone except his son. And he was always on his feet, treading back and forth, his hands in his hip pockets, shoulders slightly hunched, a cigar jutting from his teeth like a weapon.