....General Douglas Mac Arthur should have been removed from command....he HAD forewarning of an attack of the Philippines, acknowledged the situation but got caught with his pants down and his planes on the ground....he lost most of his planes ON THE GROUND....and only kept his command as he had garnered some sort of popularity with Washington...
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.