[CougarGA7]

• Despite having received word of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at 2:30 in the morning, MacArthur's B-17s at Clark Field were still on the ground at 12:20 pm when Japanese aircraft attacked the airfield. Two squadrons of B-17s and a squadron of P-40s were destroyed on the ground. General Lewis Brereton had been trying to get authority to launch these aircraft against Japanese bases on Formosa, but could not get in to see MacArthur being told by his chief of staff, General Richard K. Sutherland, that the general was busy.

• Japanese bombers launch their first attack on Wake Island. Wake is commanded by Navy Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham, and is defended by the First Marine Defense Battalion consisting of 450 men under Major James P.S. Devereux. Additionally, marine fighter squadron, VMF-211 under Major Paul A. Putnam was armed with 12 F4F-3 Wildcats.

• Heydrich's staff telephones those invited to the meeting at Wannsee scheduled for the next day to inform them that the meeting is postponed indefinitely. This was due to the entrance of the United States into the war after the Japanese attack the previous day.

[PAR35]

If Sutherland was making decisions on his own, instead of fronting for MacArthur, he should have been shot for treason. Not only did he do the wrong thing, he prevented others from doing the right thing. It would have turned out better if he’d been drunk in a brothel.