I haven’t read this particular book but in Max Hasting’s book Retribution about the last year of the War in the Pacific he states that the entire Philippines Campaign was a pointless waste of life that did nothing to shorten the war. Of course he is contemptuous of Macarthur’s generalship overall.
Scott points that Roosevelt and chiefs wanted to bypass the Philippines and conquer Formosa instead since it would have been a good staging point for our bombers and troops to invade Japan.
MacArthur used every trick in the book at the July 1944 Hawaii conference to twist Roosevelt chiefs arms to invade and free the Philippines even though it could have been bypassed.
There has been a lively debate about the subject with merit on both sides.
I think Hastings is wrong. The Philippines was the next logical target after New Guinea. We needed a staging area to support an invasion of the Home Islands. Okinawa isn't big enough. Plus, the populace was friendly and we wouldn't have to guard our back. Another plus was that we recovered American territory and fulfilled a promise made. Finally, having a naval base on the Philippines cut Japanese access to supplies from S.E. Asia and the East Indies for good.
The Navy plan was to bypass the Philippines and invade Formosa to use as our base to invade the China coast and possibly the Home Islands. Formosa would have been an even bigger bloodbath on much more defensible terrain. The notion of engaging the Japanese army in China was wrong for many reasons.
In hindsight, we didn't need the Philippines or, for that matter, Okinawa. But in 1944 none but a tiny group of people knew about the atomic bomb and even they didn't know if it would really work. No, we were planning an invasion of the Home Islands, a gigantic undertaking to place and support at least 1 million men in Japan, with casualties in the first wave estimated to be 100%. We needed a big base to support such a vast undertaking.
Finally, about McArthur's generalship. It was bad. His defense of the Philippines was incompetent. But, the Philippines campaign was fought by Krueger, who did know what he was doing. And he was smart enough to give Dugout Doug all the credit.
The thing about McArthur’s campaign is at the time those decisions were made within the context of a two year experience where we had seen the Japanese fight for every inch of island and to every last man in many cases. We saw massive fire bombing after strategic bombing have no effect on the Japanese resolve.
We had no ability to foresee the effectiveness of the Atomic Bomb and it took two before they capitulated.
“Of course he is contemptuous of Macarthur’s generalship overall.”
Contemptuous of the premier military genius of the 20th century. Sounds like Dunning Kruger to me.
To bypass the Philippines would have been to leave the Filipino people to the tender mercies of the Japanese. I doubt that any of us would want that for ourselves.