[zek157]

Despite warning, the planes were destroyed on the ground.

McArthurs legacy is overrated.

[yarddog]

One of those things everyone seems to know which is false.

McArthur had established a line of watchers with radios, several days before. Since it was new, they were getting some false reports.

McArther ordered the planes to stay in the air just to keep from being hit on the ground. As they were getting low on fuel, they had to land. They had gotten one report of Japanese planes but kept waiting for confirmation which never came.

As luck would have it, they hit just as the planes were refueling.

[rintintin]

his legacy is overrated.“

Spectacular achievements mixed with spectacular blunders

WWI daring and leadership was awesome. Island hopping victories in WWII were brilliant. Inchon landing in Korea was brilliant, against all odds and advice

[Zhang Fei]

[Despite warning, the planes were destroyed on the ground.

McArthurs legacy is overrated.]

---

The Japanese attacks occurred *9* hours after Pearl Harbor. That’s not a very long time. Just what was the history of near simultaneous attacks that the Japanese mounted? Had there been anything like that previously? Did anyone think the Japanese, whose recent history was of applying the coup de grace to tottering empires (China and Russia) in fairly small-scale wars was capable of these slashing maneuvers across many thousands of miles at once? In fact, was it thought conceivable that such maneuvers could be conducted at all, let alone by the Japanese?

I’m inclined to think this represents a serious case of presentism as well as Monday morning quarterbacking. I’d be surprised if anyone at that time thought the Japanese were capable of near-simultaneous attacks at far-flung locations. This distance between Pearl Harbor and the Philippines is over 5,000 miles. The attack on the Philippines came 9 hours after Pearl Harbor. Was this something that *anyone* thought the Japanese were capable of doing? Wasn’t it the predominant view that the Japanese were incapable of flying aircraft competently? Was the US at the time capable of such simultaneous attacks? Why would they expect the Japanese to be? What was MacArthur’s fuel and spare parts situation? Could he afford to waste fuel and spare parts on recon in force missions when he might be cut off from resupply for the duration of the war?

---

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/12/countdown-pearl-harbor-attack-twomey-anniversary/
[If you read the American magazines and newspapers in 1941, it’s amazing how the Japanese were considered a funny, curious people, who were technologically inept. They were supposedly physiologically incapable of being good aviators because they lacked a sense of balance and their eyes were not right. It was even believed that the Japanese were bad pilots because, as babies, they would be carried on the backs of their big sisters and got bounced around, so their inner ear was knocked askew. [Laughs]

Kimmel also didn’t have a sense of the looming power of aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers were only about 20 years old as a weapon. It was hard to imagine how much damage could be inflicted if 350 planes suddenly arrived from the sea, because that had never happened before. Nobody had put together a fleet with so many aircraft carriers at one time as the Japanese did on December 7.

We have to remember that in that day and age there were no satellites peering down, revealing all. So when the Japanese set sail on November 26, 1941, we did not know that. In their journey 3,000 miles across the Pacific, they never encountered a commercial ship, a search plane, a warship, and were never seen from above. It was the essential ingredient of their plan. They had to achieve surprise. If they didn’t, everything would have failed.

I don’t think there will be another Pearl Harbor because the ability to detect movement of armed forces is so much better, not just with satellites but also with listening devices and the ability of nations to suck up the radio transmissions of their opponents.]

[fso301]

Despite warning, the planes were destroyed on the ground. McArthurs legacy is overrated.

If you knew the actual history, you would have posted that.

The Japanese attack force was delayed ~6 hours due to bad weather on Formosa.

US fighters had been up all morning patrolling for them. Finally, they had to return to Clark to about midday to refuel. The Japanese just happened to show up as the refuelling was in progress.

A few fighters had already been refuelled and managed to take off. The gods of war just happened to favor Japan that day.

[Bommer]

McArthurs legacy is overrated.

Agreed. I never saw the allure of dugout doug, while Patton never fled from fights, captured more land, liberated more people and loss less men and killed more of the enemy, than Dougs island hopping, yet guess who get the higher rank and gets fired for being in subordinate to the commander in chief?

[fso301]

McArthurs legacy is overrated.

Only because your information about him comes from leftist sources.