Nope. They had been on high alert and just happened to be caught on the ground refueling. They were bunched up because Clark Field was little more than an airstrip without dispersal areas.
He didn’t fail to have his troops ready for the North Korean invasion of South Korea?
Why not go ahead and blame MacArthur for losing China? Truman is the one that was pulling U.S. forces out of South Korea and not paying attention to Communist provocations.
And he didn’t overextend his lines and fail to prepare for the Chinese counterattack?
At the time, he was fighting the Korean War and was just a few square miles from completing the mission. North Korea was finished. The war would be over once a few remaining square miles of North Korean territory had been mopped up.
Once China invaded, it became an entirely new war, something few historians have pointed out. In processing intelligence reports of a Chinese buildup behind the Yalu, MacArthur may have overestimated Truman and assumed that if the Chinese attacked, Turman would have interpreted it as a brand new war between the U.S. and China. In the meantime, Mao probably had assurances from Stalin that Truman had no intention of widening the conflict.
“He didn’t fail to have his troops ready for the North Korean invasion of South Korea?”
Cutbacks in defense spending were so severe that he was not given the funds for training.
His chief intelligence officer had staked everything on his analysis holding that the NKs would not attack. He deceived McA.
Yes, I agree that these things were ultimately his responsibility, but consideration of the reasons for these failings can be illuminating.