Resolved to make the enemy pay for every yard of the peninsula, MacArthur directed a series of piecemeal struggles from Malinta. On the day after his visit to Bataan, Homma launched the first major Nipponese attack and drove a wedge into the Fil-American line. The defenders, grouped in two corps, yielded ground stubbornly and then counterattacked. Disease had decimated the Japanese ranks, too. Indeed, at one point MacArthur had more than three times as many effective men as the foe. The Allies regained five miles in one day; the General seriously considered a drive to recapture Manila but abandoned it when he realized that he would be thrown back into Bataan again. In his words, “It was Japan’s ability to continually bring in fresh forces and America’s inability to do so that finally settled the issue.” By dawn on January 24 he had fallen back on his last defensible line. With that withdrawal, he radioed Washington, “all maneuvering possibilities cease. I intend to fight it out to complete destruction.” His forces were dug in behind one of Bataan’s thoroughfares, the Pilar-Bagac trail bisecting the peninsula. He cabled Marshall: 1 HAVE PERSONALLY SELECTED AND PREPARED THIS POSITION AND IT IS STRONG.78
His blue-denimed Filipino troops never lost faith in him, never called him “Dugout Doug,” and revere him to this day. American infantrymen were less respectful. Savagely they told one another that the Vs they had chalked on their steel helmets stood, not for “Victory,” but for “Victims.” Weary of scanning the skies for B-17s and P-40s that never came, of looking for the “mile-long convoy” of supplies and reinforcements that they had believed lay just over the horizon, they wrote caustic doggerel which became epitaphs for their brave stand. One stanza went:
We’re the battling bastards of Bataan:
No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no nephews, no nieces,
No rifles, no planes, or artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn.79
Another, directed at the General and sung to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” went:
Dugout Doug MacArthur lies a-shakin' on the Rock
Safe from all the bombers and from any sudden shock
Dugout Doug is eating of the best food on Bataan
And his troops go .starving on. . . .
Dugout Doug, come out from hiding
Dugout Doug, come out from hiding
Send to Franklin the glad tidings
That his troops go starving on!80
Those were precisely the tidings he was sending to Roosevelt and to everyone else in the Washington military establishment who would listen to him. Troubled by enemy leaflets charging that the United States was abandoning the men on Bataan, Captain Ind crossed to Corregidor and showed them to Sutherland. The chief of staff shoved a bulky file of radiograms toward him and said in his clipped, flat way: “Just in case you have some idea that we’re not trying, look at this—and this—and this!” Ind wrote: “My heart sinks with each new tissue thumbed over before my eyes. Appeal after appeal has gone forward. . . . General MacArthur has left no possibility unexploited.” MacArthur had already seen the Japanese pamphlets and advised the War Department that something must be done to offset this “crescendo of enemy propaganda” which was being used with “deadly effectiveness.” He warned: “I am not in a position here to combat it.”81
He had begged for carrier raids, for transports bringing reinforcements, for freighters with supplies (“the actual tonnage requirements are not large”), for submarines carrying cargoes of ammunition, and for aircraft to be flown in from Dutch and British possessions before those bases fell to the Japanese. He begged for “just three planes, so I can see. You can’t fight them if you can’t see them. I am now blind.” To Marshall he said: “Request you coordinate with navy so that orders may be issued to bring convoy through. I will furnish all available information on situation here with particular emphasis on air.” Sayre joined him in pointing out to Washington that the issue was not just military, that there was a political obligation to save a people who had trusted the United States. Unless these warnings were heeded, the General then radioed, he would “unhesitatingly predict” that “the war will be indefinitely prolonged and its final outcome will be jeopardized.” He urged that his views be presented to the “highest possible authority”—the President—and added: “From my present point of vantage I can see the whole strategy of the Pacific perhaps clearer than anyone else. “ He felt that there was “not sufficient understanding in allied councils of the time element in the Pacific, “ that they did not “have unlimited time to defeat Japan,” that if the enemy consolidated his gains in Malaya and Java he would have enough raw materials and bases to withstand a “war of blockade and attrition.”82
All these points were arguable, and MacArthur himself was to demonstrate that the last of them was flawed. But Washington answered none of them at the time. Instead the General and those around him were given every assurance that immediate relief was on the way. Stimson cabled Quezon: “Your gallant defense is thrilling the American people. As soon as our power is organized we shall come in force and drive the invader from your soil,” At the request of the administration, Mike Elizalde broadcast good news from the Potomac to his fellow countrymen: “The United States is one hundred percent with us in our struggle against the invader. All officials here are straining every sinew to support the battle line. My countrymen, you are fighting for freedom and independence. You are fighting for our future. God speed; help will be forthcoming.”83
Among the most heartening messages to MacArthur were those from George Marshall. In the words of a Marshall biographer, his “encouraging cables . . . listing the weapons and equipment intended for the Philippines raised the hopes of MacArthur and his staff.” That is putting it mildly. The General was notified that 125 P-40s and 15 B-24s were aboard ships sailing westward; he was not informed when the vessels were diverted to Australia. The Chief of Staff told him: “We are doing our utmost . . . to rush air support to you. . . . President has seen all of your messages and directs navy to give you every possible support in your splendid fight.” In a January radiogram Marshall informed MacArthur that Roosevelt, Churchill, and their combined staffs were
looking toward the quick development of strength in the Far East so as to break the enemy’s hold on the Philippines. . . . Our great hope is that the development of an overwhelming air power on the Malay Barrier will cut the Japanese communications south of Borneo and permit an assault in the Southern Philippines. A stream of four-engine bombers, previously delayed by foul weather, is en route. . . . Another stream of similar bombers started today from Hawaii staging at new island fields. Two groups of powerful medium bombers of long range and heavy bomb-load capacity leave next week. Pursuit planes are coming on every ship we can use. Our definitely allocated air reinforcements together with British should give us an early superiority in the Southwestern Pacific. Our strength is to be concentrated and it should exert a decisive effect on Japanese shipping and force a withdrawal northward. . . . Every day of time you gain is vital to the concentration of the overwhelming power necessary for our purpose. Furthermore, the current conferences in Washington . . . are extremely encouraging in respect to accelerating speed of ultimate success.84
Other persuasive words reached MacArthur from his commander in chief. In a special broadcast to the people of the Philippines on December 28, the President declared that “the resources of the United States, of the British Empire, of the Netherlands East Indies, and of the Chinese Republic have been dedicated by their people to the utter and complete defeat of the Japanese warlords.” Then he cabled Quezon: “I can assure you that every vessel available is bearing . . . the strength that will eventually crush the enemy and liberate your native land.” He continued: “The people of the United States will never forget what the people of the Philippines are doing these days and will do in the days to come. I give to the people of the Philippines my solemn pledge that their freedom will be retained and their independence established and
redeemed. The entire resources in men and materials of the United States stand behind that pledge.”85
MacArthur and Quezon were jubilant, though one word puzzled them: “redeemed.” They decided that it had been garbled in transmission, that Roosevelt must have meant “protected.” With that change, they made the message public. Official Washington noted the alteration, but did not correct the men on Corregidor. Indeed, in American newspapers, as on the Rock, FDR’s cable was interpreted as a promise that the siege of Luzon would be swiftly lifted. The next morning’s New York Times carried the eight-column headline: ROOSEVELT REASSURES THE “GALLANT” FILIPINOS. The deck read: ALL AID PROMISED / PRESIDENT SAYS FREEDOM OF THE PHILIPPINES “WILL BE REDEEMED” / PLEDGES PROTECTION / NAVY SAYS OUR FLEET IS NOT DESTROYED AND WILL HELP DEFENSE. After interviewing William D. Hassett, Roosevelt’s secretary, the Times reported: “Some comment was aroused by the President’s use of the phrase to ‘redeem’ the freedom of the Philippines, which might be interpreted to mean that their temporary loss was expected. But Mr. Hassett summarily rejected all suggestions that the message would be regarded as any kind of a valedictory over the defenders of the Philippines.” Correspondents were referred to a broadcast by Sayre that same day: “Help is surely coming—help of sufficient adequacy and power that the invader will be driven from our midst and he will be rendered powerless ever to threaten us again. “ In the next day’s Times Steve Early was quoted as saying that he saw “nothing in the President’s statement that would justify an interpretation that Mr. Roosevelt was preparing the nation for the loss of the Philippines. “ Early was again asked whether the word “redeem’ might hint that U.S. relief might not arrive before the archipelago had fallen. He replied: “No, I shouldn’t think so. I saw nothing in the statement to justify that.”86
When FDR died three years later, the General muttered to Bonner Fellers, an officer on his staff: “So Roosevelt is dead: a man who would never tell the truth when a lie would serve him just as well.” If that was uncharitable, it was also a sign of the immense chagrin he had felt when dueling with the master of intrigue. On Corregidor, Roosevelt’s optimism had aroused the optimism in MacArthur, and the two positives produced a negative: a cruel vow, sent from Corregidor to Bataan, that prayers for relief would be answered. On January 15 the General wrote a message to his fighting men and ordered that every company commander read it to his troops. He declared: “Help is on the way from the United States. Thousands of troops and hundreds of planes are being dispatched. The exact time of arrival of reinforcements is unknown, as they will have to fight their way through Japanese . . . . It is imperative that our troops hold until these reinforcements arrive.” The next day he sent further instructions to all troop commanders, calling upon them to display “that demeanor of confidence, self-reliance, and assurance which is the birthright of all cultured gentlemen and the special trademark of the army officer.” He believed, as he wrote afterward, that “a brave effort was in the making.”87
By the third month of the war there was no more talk from the War Department about convoys headed toward Manila. Tom Connally, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that “from a military point of view, the Philippines have long been regarded as a liability rather than an asset,” and Arthur Krock wrote after a visit to the White House that the siege of Luzon could not be raised unless U.S. ships entered Manila Bay, which was ruled out by the Japanese blockade. “Truth,” John Hersey then wrote, was coming to the men in the Philippines in “mean little doses.” After the war another correspondent asked MacArthur if he had really believed that help had been on its way to the beleaguered Rock. He replied: “By God, I did believe it! . . . I went over those messages since to see how I could have gotten that impression. And, do you know—those messages didn’t say yes, but they didn’t say no. They are full of meanings which could be interpreted two ways. I see now that I may have deluded myself.”88
In his Reminiscences he writes mildly: “A broadcast from President Roosevelt was incorrectly interpreted, because of poor reception in the Philippines, as an announcement of impending reinforcements.” This is surprisingly generous, for by then the General had read Churchill’s memoirs and knew that as early as Christmas of 1941, before he assured the Filipinos that “every vessel available’ was bearing down on the islands, Roosevelt and Stimson had privately told the British prime minister that they had written off the Philippines as a lost cause. (“There are times,” Stimson said, “when men have to die.”) Actually MacArthur’s feelings about the whole wretched business were anything but charitable. The pilot light of paranoia still glowed within him, and this was strong fuel for it. But he liked to pick his enemies. He chose to ignore FDR’s deceit. Instead he directed his anger toward Marshall and the rest of that “Chaumont crowd.” They had never liked him. In France they had worked behind desks while he had been with the men, risking his life in the trenches. Now they were fighting the new war in Washington offices far from the green hells of Corregidor and Bataan. And they had been recently joined by a rising officer who would be to World War II’s European Theater of Operations (ETO) what Pershing had been to the AEF. The new man was MacArthur’s former aide, Dwight D. Eisenhower.89
Eisenhower had won his brigadier general’s star the previous autumn, during maneuvers in Louisiana, but it was his Philippine experience which had brought him to George Marshall’s attention. The Chief of Staff hadn’t seen the archipelago since leaving Manila as a first lieutenant in 1915. After Pearl Harbor he needed the advice of a senior officer who had been there recently. Ike, the obvious choice, was summoned by a phone call to Fort Sam Houston and appointed deputy chief of the War Plans Division. On Sunday, December 14, when he reported to the War Department, Marshall described the developing situation on Luzon to him and said: “What should be our general line of action?” The brigadier asked for a few hours to think, was granted them, and returned to say: “General, it will be a long time before major reinforcements can go to the Philippines, longer than the garrison can hold out with any driblet assistance, if the enemy commits major forces to their reduction.” He said: “Our base must be in Australia, and we must start at once to expand it and to secure our communications to it.” The Chief of Staff said: “I agree with you. Do your best to save them.” Ike decided to start with the Pensacola convoy, which would reach Brisbane on December 22.90
That made sense. So did his second recommendation, that MacArthur stay on Corregidor and go down fighting with his troops. Neither of them, however, made good politics. The gallant defense of Bataan and the General’s dramatic communiques were capturing the imagination of the country, including its President; hence the encouraging cables to Corregidor. The White House and the War Department were raising false hopes in the doomed Philippines, but they weren’t guilty of malice. They wanted desperately to rescue the invested garrison. Even as their minds told them it was impossible, their hearts insisted that they try. In one breath Marshall had ordered Ike to start the Australian buildup and then, in the next, had said, “Do your best to save them”—as though the two weren’t mutually exclusive. Hap Arnold was saying that with a few squadrons of bombers and fighters MacArthur could regain control of the air over the Philippines—as though masses of U.S. infantry wouldn’t be needed to capture and hold airstrips. Roosevelt sent this memorandum to Secretary of the Navy Knox on December 30: “I wish that War Plans would explore every possible means of relieving the Philippines. I realize great risks are involved but the objective is important”—as though he himself hadn’t considered diverting the Pensacola and her flock of transports to a British port. Even Stimson, in one of his less Spartan moods, suggested that reinforcements weren’t reaching MacArthur “because the navy has been rather shaken and panic-stricken after the catastrophe at Hawaii”—as though the only problem in losing eight battleships was that it dampened the admirals’ aggressive spirit.91
Admiral Stark flatly rejected an army proposal that carriers bring aircraft with
in flying distance of Corregidor’s little airport. Admiral Kimmel took the same line, saying, “The loss of battleships commits us to the strategic defensive until our forces can be built up.” Little could be done without their help, but Marshall and his staff were determined to try. Any attempt to take the pressure off MacArthur would have to be launched from one of three widely separated bases: Hawaii, India, or Australia. The navy’s attitude eliminated Hawaii. India was out; the British, on the run in Burma, would be lucky if they held Calcutta. That left Australia, Eisenhower’s choice. Two men were sent to supervise the Allied effort there: Lieutenant General George H. Brett, an Air Corps officer with an excellent record as an administrative and supply man, and Pat Hurley, MacArthur’s old friend, who was designated U.S. ambassador to New Zealand. Meanwhile Roosevelt authorized Brereton, who was already in Australia, to spend ten million dollars chartering tramp steamers which would try to run the Japanese blockade of Luzon.92
“The story of the attempt to break through the Japanese blockade,” Louis Morton has written, was “one of heroic efforts and final failure.” For Brereton, already haunted by memories of the Clark-Iba fiasco, it meant further humiliation. Few freighter captains could be talked into making the trip at any price. With those who were, with banana boats hired from the United Fruit Company, and with converted World War I destroyers, Brereton, and then Brett and Hurley, tried to move the mountains of food, ammunition, and medical supplies which were piling up on Brisbane’s Dalagata Pier. Many of the boats were never seen again; most of the others were diverted by skippers cowed by the increasing number of Japanese warships. The fate of the Pensacola convoy was typical. Stimson noted in his diary that word of its safe arrival in Australia was the “one bright spot” in an otherwise gloomy day. The two fastest ships in it were dispatched northward, and one of them, the Coast Farmer, reached Mindanao’s Gingoog Bay. MacArthur, jubilant, radioed that this proved that “the thinness of the enemy’s coverage is such that it can be readily pierced along many routes including direct westward passage from Honolulu.” But Gingoog was six hundred miles from Corregidor. The ship was too large a target for Japanese guns to go any farther. The cargo had to be shifted to the inter-island steamers El Cano and Lepus, and transported onward by other local craft. Of the ten thousand tons brought by the Coast Farmer, only a thousand tons, enough to last MacArthur’s tightly rationed garrison for four days, was actually unloaded on Corregidor’s South Dock. Some of it was carried by a Filipino volunteer, the captain of the steamer Legaspi. Two PT boats led him through the minefields around the island. Both MacArthur and Quezon were there to wring his hand as he stepped ashore, and the General, the captain later said, was “crying like a baby” over the spectacle of a native of the islands “risking his life for his country.” On the return trip the Legaspi ran aground and was destroyed.93