MacArthur is the American military man most hated by the left and the left has done more to smear and rewrite his history than any other general. MacArthur had forewarning and did act on it by ordering operational fighters and bombers into the air.
he lost most of his planes ON THE GROUND.
Most planes were lost on the ground but that's probably where they were most useful. Air fields in the Philippines were not large enough to permit dispersal and by leaving worn out and obsolete aircraft on the ground, their pilots and crews were saved.
Much has been written about the number of aircraft destroyed on the ground on Dec 8, 1941 but very rarely is mention ever made that of the generally cited 300 planes in the Philippines, the vast majority of destroyed aircraft were obsolete, worn out and were best left on the ground as decoys.
On Dec 7 in the Philippines, there were 54 operational P-40E's, 18 P-40B's and 18 P-35's. The P-35's listed as operational were effectively useless due to worn out engines, worn out .30 cal machineguns, light armor and no self sealing fuel tanks but of the 18 P-35's that were listed as operational, only a few of them actually made it into combat with the others having to return to base or be abandoned due to mechanical problems.
One of the P-40 squadrons had just arrived and the engines had not yet been broken in nor guns sighted but were never-the-less listed as operational. Of the freshly arrived P-40's, only a few of them made it from scramble into combat due to brand new unbroken engines blowing out. Many American pilots would fire their guns for the first time against Japanese aircraft.
None of the fighters, P-40 or P-35 had oxygen for the pilots. Lack of oxygen limited use to about 15,000 feet. Even the P-40E's would not have lasted very long because the Japanese bombers could fly much higher than the American fighters and bomb airfields with impunity.
The 34 B-17's in commission on Dec 7, had gunners that had never even fired a machinegun. Furthermore, they didn't even have tailgunner positions.
Previous commentary on Gen. MacArthur has all been critical. Thanks for pointing out some intriguing mitigating factors. It reminds me of the suggestion that the USN was better off being completly surprised by the Pearl Harbor attack than getting a day or so warning so they could go out and meet the foe.
Politics has nothing to do with it. MacArthur’s conduct of the 1941-1942 Philippines campaign was abysmal.
Even though he knew war was coming, he did not take enough steps to prepare his command. Specifically, the failure on his part to move supplies to Bataan at he start of the war, or even before the war when tensions increased. He did not start moving supplies until well after the war started, a critical failure on his part that led to the early defeat of the USAFFE forces on Bataan.
Logistics is the key to winning a war, and MacArthur’s utter disdain for it cost his troops dearly.
In addition, he:
...instead of following prewar plans, he tried a “fight them on the beaches strategy” that his troops were simply not capable of implementing.
... did not place his forces on a full alert after receiving the war warning in late November of 1941. Instead he continued to operate on mostly a peacetime basis. B-17s that were due to move to Del Monte field on Mindanao stayed on Luzon so that a party could be thrown for them. Not acceptable with war imminent. The aircraft at Clark should have been dispersed, the auxiliary fields should have been completed faster. But MacArthur had convinced himself that war was not coming until spring, despite all evidence to the contrary.
...accepted secret cash payments from the Philippine government (for services before the war) that was inappropriate for him to accept while his troops were fighting, starving and dying on Bataan and while a large chuck of the Philippines was already under enemy occupation.
... he painted himself as a hero of Bataan when he made exactly one visit to the peninsula during the siege. And generally used US Army resources to promote himself instead of the troops under him.
MacArthur failed to prepare his command for war and failed to use his forces properly after war started.
Had another competent commander been in charge, the Philippines would have held out longer (possibly 9 months to a year) and would have drawn in significantly more troops derailing Japanese plans elsewhere.
I wish my laptop wasn’t down right now (waiting for a new cooling fan), its hard to do anything from my wife’s computer, otherwise I would go into this in more detail and may still after I have my computer back.
I will say that the left doesn’t have a lot of trouble demonizing MacArthur because he really was that incompetent. Many of the items I’ve looked at on the man has nothing to do with the left’s attempts to smear the man because it is primary source material. No analysis, just the documentation that was generated at the time he made the missteps he did.
Just for example, I know I have mentioned that MacArthur received a tidy little payoff from President Quezon as things were quickly going south in January 1942. MacArthur was paid to his personal account from the Philippine treasury, $500,000 dollars. The motivation for the president of the Philippines to do this was most likely due to the protection MacArthur could allot to Quezon and his family even if Japan took over the entirety of the Philippines (Which when the money was ordered transferred on January 3rd this was already pretty evident).
This can all be traced to primary documentation and has nothing to do with a leftist smear campaign.
The order to give MacArthur the money is called Executive Order #1 and can be found in the personal papers of Manuel Quezon in the Philippine National Library. A trail of how that money moved afterwards can be found in National Archive files including Files of Division of Territories and Island Possessions, “9-7-4 Banking,” Legislative and Natural Resources Branch, as well as a thank you letter from Quezon to MacArthur that mentions Executive Order #1 from February 20, 1942 that’s located in Record Group 10, VIP files, MacArthur Memorial Bureau of Archives, Norfolk, VA.
I could go on but I have to run up to the university now sans laptop. grrr!!!!!