The Road to War

By John Wukovits

Admiral William F. Halsey had never seen such destruction. Making matters worse, the harm had been inflicted on his beloved Navy inside one of its strongholds—the Pacific bastion of Pearl Harbor. Steaming into the harbor aboard the carrier Enterprise on December 8, 1941, taking in what the Japanese had done with a clenched jaw, Halsey saw the battleship Utah lying on the bottom—in the same berth he would have occupied with his carrier had he been in port a day earlier.

The sight of mangled ships and floating bodies chagrined the old warrior. As a nearby officer watched, Halsey scanned the harbor in silence, then muttered heatedly, “Before we’re through with ‘em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell!”

Although what Halsey witnessed was a stunning surprise, the burning vessels and shattered aircraft—to say nothing of the charred bodies littering the harbor—were the culmination of a string of events that had begun many years earlier.

As early as the late 1800s, American politicians proclaimed that it was the nation’s “manifest destiny” to expand beyond its continental borders into the Pacific. They enviously viewed the lucrative natural resources of the Orient and intended to establish and maintain an economic presence in the region. American manufacturers also wanted to have a ready market for the huge volume of goods their factories churned out.

Following the successful conclusion of the war with Spain in 1898, the U.S. gained possession of the Philippine Islands, some 1,400 miles southwest of Japan. Rich in resources, such as oil and rubber, the Philippines also offered superb sites for military bases. Dispatching a garrison army to occupy the subjected nation the U.S., without openly declaring so, conveyed to Japan that it was not they who would achieve mastery in the Pacific.

In December 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt increased the American presence in the Pacific by ordering the Navy to steam through the region as part of its circumnavigation of the globe. In doing so, he intended to send a message to Japan that the United States would defend its Pacific interests, especially the Philippines. Unfortunately for Roosevelt, once the Navy left Pacific waters, he had no military tool with which to stop any aggressive Japanese moves. Congress was reluctant to start an expensive arms race and until it approved the money needed to add ships to be stationed in the area, U.S. policy in the Pacific would exist without the means to enforce it.

In the eyes of many Japanese, taking a lead position in the Pacific guaranteed the nation’s survival, while to accept an inferior status would relegate her to the backwaters of world rankings.

Unlike the expansive United States, the island nation of Japan faced geographical limits on the space available for its growing population. About 80 million people lived in Japan in the 1920s, in an area comparable to the size of the state of Montana—which had a population of less than one million. The most crowded nation on earth, Japan had to seek land beyond her borders in order to grow. When expansionists studied the nearby areas, most eyes turned west toward the Asian mainland and China.

Japan already had to import much of its raw materials and food products. Its people could cultivate only a certain percentage of the national need, and to fill the rest the nation’s leaders had to look elsewhere. Japan imported nearly 70 percent of its zinc and tin, 90 percent of its lead, and all of its cotton, wool, aluminum, and rubber.

When they sought raw materials from Asia, Japanese leaders clashed with European interests. Japan needed rubber, tin, and bauxite from Burma and Malaya, but those nations were controlled by Great Britain. Indochina’s vast rubber plantations contained valuable material, but France held sway in that country. The most eagerly sought product, oil, existed in bountiful amounts in the East Indies, but the Dutch maintained a stranglehold on the region. Everywhere Japan turned, a European nation appeared to block the path to its future.

Yearning for dominance in the Pacific, the Japanese felt that they, not Great Britain or any other European country, deserved preeminence in the area. Japan had already built a potent military and asserted its interests in the region, even fighting a war with China over supremacy in Korea in 1894. Even though its well-trained soldiers easily defeated the Chinese, Japan’s interest in gaining more living space on the mainland was thwarted by Russia, which brokered a peace agreement that gave Japan the tiny island of Formosa, off China’s coast.

Ten years later Japan exacted revenge on Russia. The Czarist-led country tried to expand its influence into Manchuria, a region north of Korea, by building a railroad through the country. Japan countered this threat to its interests in Korea and Manchuria by unleashing a surprise naval attack on the Russian Far East Squadron as it lay at anchor in Port Arthur, Manchuria, on February 8, 1904. Japanese troops then landed and swept north to seize the city of Mukden.

The rest of the world took notice in May of that year when the Japanese Navy soundly defeated the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. For the first time an Asian nation had bested a European power, and both Great Britain and the United States realized that Japan could pose a threat to their own interests.

The successes reinforced the idea that Japan’s destiny lay in the Pacific and on the Asian mainland. Japanese leaders masked their intentions by proclaiming that, as the only Asian nation to rise to the status of world power, it, not the European nations or the United States, had an inherent right to rule in the region. This attitude placed Japan in direct opposition to similar interests expressed by the U.S.

The decade of the 1920s saw both a reduction in military weaponry and an escalation of harsh feelings between America and Japan. The isolationist attitudes that swept the U.S. caused government leaders to support arms limitations even though they remained uneasy about Japan’s aggressive stance in the Pacific.

Money drove the world’s major naval nations to Washington in 1921 to discuss restraints on building ships. Most countries could not afford an escalating naval arms race, and over a three-month period they formulated an agreement to halt naval construction. The document’s final version stipulated that Great Britain would retain 22 capital ships (battleships and cruisers) and the United States 18— keeping them virtually equal in power—while Japan reduced its battle fleet to 10. A 10-year hiatus in naval construction meant that the superiority given the United States and Great Britain would remain in force for an entire decade, but Japanese leaders, facing world support for the conference, acceded to its demands.

The Washington Naval Conference slowed the arms race, but it embittered the Japanese, who believed that the U.S. and Great Britain only wanted to keep Japan in an inferior position in the Pacific and excluded from status as a world power. They departed Washington determined to address the wrongs inflicted on them.

Other events in the U.S. contributed to Japan’s growing resentment. Although built on the principles of equality and fair play, the United States government had a deplorable history of bigotry toward the Japanese and Japanese-Americans. In 1907 the school board in San Francisco, California, refused to allow Japanese children to attend school. Six years later the California state legislature passed a law prohibiting Japanese from owning land, and in 1924 Congress passed a biased immigration law. Japan was so enraged by this 1924 law that on the day it took effect in the U.S., the Japanese government declared a national day of humiliation.

Japanese rumblings in the Pacific unnerved people in the United States, who had frequently referred to Asians as the “yellow peril.” At first the Chinese, and then the Japanese, were seen as threats to the white-dominated rule that had existed in the Pacific and throughout the world. The Japanese were not to be trusted, and their desire to expand beyond their borders was to be viewed with alarm.

Other actions in the 1920s were seen as an affront to the Japanese. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 condemned war as a course of action, which to the Japanese meant that those in control—Great Britain and the United States—would remain in control. The London Naval Treaty of 1930 forbade the construction of any new battleships before 1937, which the Japanese viewed as another step by Western powers to retain superiority. People in Japan, especially younger, more radical Army officers, considered the different peace agreements as a betrayal of Japan’s interests by moderate politicians. They looked to their military to correct the situation.

The military commanded enormous respect from the population in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. When a young man reached the age of 17, he entered his two years of service with a party hosted by the residents of his hometown. School children collected coins in a drive to finance the construction of a battleship, and it was deemed an honor to serve the emperor.

Rigorous training instilled discipline and an aversion to surrendering. Instructors taught trainees that loyalty to one’s unit, faith in commanding officers, and spirit would defeat any foe, no matter how well-armed it might be. Attacking, even in circumstances that produced ghastly casualties, was preferred to surrendering or pulling back. Men trained 14 hours a day, six days a week, under the watch of dictatorial officers who answered complaints with punishment. Soldiers would embark on marches of 25 miles wearing gear that weighed two-thirds of their own body weight, then run the final mile to prove they still had reserves of strength.

A soldier’s life belonged to the emperor, and to suffer defeat or surrender was considered an insult to the emperor and brought shame to the soldier’s family. His behavior was governed by the ancient samurai tradition known as Bushido, which meant “Way of the Warrior.” The samurai were honored fighters in Japan’s history, and soldiers of the Imperial Army were expected to emulate them. “Duty is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather,” reminded one dictate. A soldier could attain no higher glory than to die in battle.

Japanese militants who urged immediate expansion onto the Asian mainland were held in check by more moderate forces and by the fact that the Japanese economy depended heavily on the United States for products. The stock market crash of 1929, which ushered in the Great Depression, altered the situation. Military extremists castigated moderates for giving away too much military might in the 1920s peace accords and for refusing to exploit China. They clamored for a new policy that would emphasize conquest and expansion.

The Japanese military held such immense power because it controlled the fates of those factions in power. The army and navy each had one minister in the Japanese cabinet, and if they did not agree with current policy they could hamstring a government by recalling the ministers and bringing the regime to a standstill.

From early 1936 on, militarists gained more influence. Politicians justifiably feared for their lives if they supported a position unpopular with the Army or Navy. In the 1930s, four government officials were assassinated by the military and two coups were attempted.

An alarmed American ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, warned Washington that the Japanese militarists were gaining strength every day and that they intended to expand into China and other areas of the Pacific. He told his superiors, “Whatever way it falls out, one thing is certain and that is that the military are distinctly running the government and that no step can be taken without their approval.”

The army and navy supported diverse plans for Japanese expansion. The army wanted to focus on Russia and northern China—land targets—while the navy claimed a water advance into Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and Pacific islands would be better because of the rich natural resources available. In 1936, faced with two radically different plans from groups that could easily dissolve the government, Japan’s cabinet refused to take a stand and gave permission for both plans. This decision set in motion a chain of events that could only result in conflict with either Great Britain or the United States, or with both.

The initial aggressive moves that culminated in World War II in the Pacific occurred on September 18, 1931, when a bomb exploded along the Japanese-controlled South Manchuria Railway near Mukden, Manchuria. Units of the Japanese Army had been stationed in Korea since the Russo-Japanese War to protect Japanese interests. Officers of the Kwantung Army, as it was called, immediately launched an invasion to overrun all of Manchuria, which they quickly gobbled up and renamed Manchukuo. The Army command ignored orders from the Tokyo government to halt the invasion, partly because they believed the civilian officials had meekly given away so much military might in the 1920s peace accords with European nations.

Once the government officials realized the Kwantung Army was easily overrunning Manchuria, many of them adopted a different stance. They praised the military for its performance and encouraged Japanese citizens, plagued by crowded conditions in the home islands, to emigrate to the area.

Other nations, including the U.S., condemned the invasion. When the League of Nations refused to recognize the puppet state of Manchukuo, Japan withdrew from the organization in 1933 and continued to exploit her new possession. Since many nations were in the midst of battling economic problems stemming from the 1929 Wall Street crash, they did not consider using military force to halt the aggressive moves. Japan, as well as German dictator Adolf Hitler and Italian leader Benito Mussolini in Europe, noticed this refusal to take action and embarked on bolder courses of action as the decade unfolded.

A more serious incident occurred on the Asian mainland on July 7, 1937, when Japanese soldiers opened fire on Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking, China. Who fired first is unclear, but the Japanese Army used the incident as justification to unleash a huge offensive against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Army. Within weeks the Japanese Army had pushed Chiang’s poorly trained and under-equipped forces toward the interior of China, leaving many key coastal cities open to the Japanese.

The Chinese leader steadfastly refused to negotiate with the Japanese, even though his troops were faring poorly. In October 1938, he withdrew farther into China’s vast interior, moved the country’s capital from Peking to Chungking, and created an alliance with his Communist opponent, Mao Tse-tung. The two bitter enemies, battling for control of their homeland, united in the common cause of repelling the Japanese.

The Japanese reacted swiftly and brutally. Although their forces stalled at Shanghai, where Chinese forces fought for three months and inflicted 40,000 casualties, the Japanese Army quickly overran other major cities. Peking, Tientsin, Hankow, Chenchow, and Canton fell one after another, with angry Japanese troops exacting brutal vengeance at each site, where raping and killing civilians by the thousands.

The worst carnage had unfolded in December 1937, at Nanking, where Japanese troops embarked on an orgy of killing and rape. Soldiers used thousands of civilians for live bayonet practice and set fire to whole groups of men, women, and children. A war crimes tribunal later determined that 20,000 women between the ages of 11 and 76 had been raped, and more than 200,000 Chinese murdered.

One American who was present wrote on Christmas Eve that Nanking “is a city laid waste, ravaged, completely looted, much of it burned. The victorious army must have its rewards—and those rewards are to plunder, murder, rape, at will, to commit acts of unbelievable brutality and savagery. In all modern history surely there is no page that will stand so black as that of the rape of Nanking. It has been hell on earth.”

The United States protested these criminal acts against a nation with which they shared sentimental bonds, developed by American missionaries who had long worked in China. Since no nation was willing or able to mount military action to deter the Japanese, the critical words achieved nothing. The Japanese continued to plunder China at will.

In Japan, Ambassador Grew cautioned Roosevelt that the nation rode a risky path by attacking Japan verbally without appropriate military force to back up the words. Like Winston Churchill warning the democracies in Europe about the rise of Hitler, Grew urged his nation to build a military machine capable of maintaining order in the Pacific. Otherwise, Grew added, “one side or the other would eventually have to eat crow.” Roosevelt agreed with his ambassador, but embroiled in rescuing the devastated American economy from the Depression, he unfortunately could do little to stop the Japanese.

The events in China pushed the U.S. and Japan further apart. The Japanese believed that the United States had no right to interfere in Asian matters, and the U.S. was stunned at the brutality with which the Japanese treated fellow Asians. More and more, the two viewed each other as bitter foes.

Relations worsened in December 1937 when Japanese aircraft attacked the U.S. gunboat Panay as it was removing the last of the American embassy staff from the besieged town of Nanking. The American commander ordered everyone into the lifeboats and they took shelter in the high reeds along the Yangtze River. Although the sinking Panay was clearly marked by American flags, the Japanese pilots continued their assault. Two American sailors and one Italian journalist were killed in the attack, which was filmed by a news reporter.

America reacted angrily to the news, and for a moment the two nations appeared on the verge of warfare. Roosevelt knew that he could do little to assert American power in China, and thus did not want to start hostilities. The Japanese government, embroiled in China and fearful that the U.S. would cut off shipments of valuable scrap iron and oil to Japan, hoped to avoid direct conflict with the United States at any cost. With neither side eager to fight, a peaceful solution emerged. Roosevelt demanded that Japan offer a public apology and pay more than $2 million in damages. Tokyo agreed, and Roosevelt accepted the explanation that the Japanese pilots had incorrectly identified the Panay as a Chinese boat. Although hostilities were deflected, the affair soured relations between the U.S. and Japan.

Even before the Panay incident, Roosevelt was convinced that, sooner or later, there would be war with Germany or Japan. Beset with economic problems and leading a nation that wanted to avoid overseas entanglements, Roosevelt had to adopt a cautious approach in awakening his countrymen to the existing dangers and in which he could slowly build America’s military might.

With the Panay as justification, Roosevelt asked for and received from Congress a 20-percent increase in funds for the Navy to build fleets in both the Atlantic and Pacific. In addition to asking that American munitions and aircraft manufacturers stop bargaining with Japan, he reduced the amount of important exports—scrap iron, oil, cotton, etc.—the U.S. was sending them.

In October 1939, Roosevelt changed the Pacific Fleet’s home base from San Diego, California, to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Roosevelt intended for these moves to send a message to the Japanese that the United States opposed their actions in Asia and would react even more strongly in the future.

When Hitler overran Western Europe in the spring of 1940 and threatened to knock Great Britain out of the war, Congress appropriated more money for the military. Shipbuilders increased their output, and aircraft manufacturers strove to produce 50,000 aircraft. In September 1940, Congress passed the first peacetime draft in the nation’s history in an attempt to expand the armed forces.

The United States also reexamined its military strategy in light of recent events. For years the nation had been guided in the Pacific by War Plan Orange, which assumed the Japanese would strike the U.S. in the Philippines. The plan called for U.S. troops stationed in the Philippines to hold out until the American fleet could arrive. Since the military did not yet possess enough men or ships to maintain simultaneous operations in both the Atlantic and Pacific, Roosevelt’s top military advisers concluded Hitler was the greater threat to American security and that the military focus should be in the Atlantic. In the event of war, American forces in the Pacific would try to hold U.S. possessions until Hitler had been defeated. Then the focus would switch to Japan. Even if they lost the Philippines, U.S. leaders believed they had to first meet the challenge posed by Hitler.

Roosevelt had one more reason to implement this “Germany first” strategy. He feared that German scientists were close to perfecting an atomic bomb, a concern that worsened when German forces defeated France and gained possession of a famed French nuclear physics lab. Should Hitler attain an atomic bomb before the United States, he could act almost at will.

One officer who argued against abandoning the Philippines, was General Douglas MacArthur. A distinguished soldier from an eminent military family, MacArthur claimed that given sufficient time, he could build American and Filipino forces to the point where they could successfully repel a Japanese attack. The former Army chief of staff contended that by spring 1942 he could field 200,000 trained Filipino troops bolstered by one American division. His optimistic opinion swayed his superiors, who named him commander of forces in the Philippines in July 1941. From then on, MacArthur engaged in a race to construct a potent military presence before the Japanese struck.

Most military strategists dismissed the notion that the Japanese would launch an attack against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Although they developed a plan to cover the eventuality, few believed it would occur. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall told Roosevelt in May 1941 that Pearl Harbor was “the strongest fortress in the world. Enemy carriers, naval escorts and transports will begin to come under air attack at a distance of approximately 750 miles. This attack will increase in intensity until within 200 miles of the objective, the enemy forces will be subject to all types of bombardment closely supported by our most modern pursuit. An invader would face more than 35,000 troops backed by coast defense guns and antiaircraft artillery.” This optimistic evaluation would shortly be tested and found wanting.

Although small numbers of American troops filtered to various U.S. possessions in the Pacific, the country did not possess enough forces to pose a deterrent to the Japanese. Only 400 Marines and Navy personnel defended Wake Island; the same number guarded Guam. Most of the Navy’s 347 warships steamed in Atlantic waters. Should Japan attack, it was not likely that American troops could do anything but fight as long as they could, and then surrender. A glimmer of hope emanated from the Philippines, but MacArthur needed until at least early 1942 to be adequately prepared.

Top American military planners held one ace—Army and Navy codebreakers had cracked Japan’s diplomatic code. From 1935 to 1939 they intercepted and read most of the messages that passed from Tokyo to overseas embassies. The Japanese switched codes in March 1939, but American codebreakers, aided by the theft of secret material from the Japanese embassy in Washington, D.C., cracked the new code and learned of Japanese intentions before they acted. Called “Magic,” this cryptographic operation provided valuable information throughout the war and helped influence the outcome of some of the most crucial battles.

Intercepts informed the U.S. of Japan’s advance into French Indochina. Since Hitler had defeated France and the Netherlands and Great Britain appearing to be on the brink, Japan saw an opportunity to seize European possessions in the Pacific and gain control of their valuable resources. In September 1940, the Japanese signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. The agreement bound each party to declare war on any nation that joined the war against one of the three. The three hoped this alliance would deter the United States from entering the conflict.

Japan then applied pressure on a weakened France to allow them to place troops in Indochina. While the Japanese claimed that the forces were necessary to protect their southern flank in China, Japan was actually interested in obtaining Indochina’s vast natural resources and possessing a base from which to push southward against British-held Burma and Malaya.

When Japanese troops moved into Indochina in July 1941, Roosevelt cut off all trade with Japan, including oil. He promised to maintain the embargo until Japan withdrew from both China and Indochina and renounced the Tripartite Pact. Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo replied, “We sent a large force of one million men, and it has cost us well over 100,000 dead and wounded, their bereaved families, hardship for four years.” He answered that they could not now repudiate such sacrifices.

In light of Roosevelt’s order to stop the flow of oil, Japanese leaders could follow one of two paths. They could reach a settlement with the United States and reopen the supply line, or they could continue their present policy of overseas expansion and risk war. Since they held only enough oil and supplies to last for 18 to 36 months, the leaders had to determine which course to adopt and how best to implement it.

The Japanese military then had to settle a dispute between the Army and Navy over the direction of a possible attack. The Army wanted to mount an invasion to the north against long-time enemy Russia. The Navy, needing a continuous supply of oil to fuel the fleet, hoped to swing southward toward the oil-rich Dutch East Indies. When the German Army pushed deep into the Soviet Union and tied up millions of Stalin’s forces, the Japanese government decided that they had enough time to hit south, consolidate their new possessions, and still be ready for a spring 1942 offensive against the Soviet Union. The plan was to sweep down the Malay Peninsula and attack Hong Kong, Malaya, Burma, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, while other segments invaded American forces in the Philippines.

Japan assumed that the only military force of significance in the Pacific, the American Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, would steam toward the relief of the soldiers fighting in the Philippines. The Japanese Navy planned to station submarines along the route to attack as the U.S. Navy passed by, then destroy the remnants in the Philippines area in a great naval slugfest between opposing battleships.

Japanese military leaders never intended to completely subdue the American foe. Instead, they hoped to set up such a potent defensive perimeter around their new acquisitions that, rather than engage in a protracted Pacific struggle at a time when Hitler posed a serious threat, the U.S. would negotiate for peace. As Tojo said, “America may be enraged for a while, but later she will come to understand.”

Japan believed she had the necessary military might to pull off such a complex operation spread out over long distances. About 350,000 British, American, and Australian troops, many poorly trained, manned outposts in the Pacific. Some 90 warships and 1,000 aircraft supported them. Japan could count on 2.4 million well-trained troops, many of whom had been battle tested, supported by 7,500 aircraft and 230 warships.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, however, insisted that the only hope of victory against an industrial giant such as the United States lay in a successful preemptive strike at the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Yamamoto prevailed, and on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft fell upon the unsuspecting fleet at Pearl Harbor and hit other Navy and Army Air Corps installations on the island of Oahu, inflicting tremendous damage and loss of life. The fighting capability of the U.S. armed forces in the Pacific was crippled.

On December 8, in Washington, D.C., in words that have resonated through the years, Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” When Congress overwhelmingly passed the resolution, the United States was at war. For the first time in many months, Churchill thought that victory lay within the Allies’ grasp and went to bed and slept “the sleep of the saved and the thankful.”

The American military tried to rebound from catastrophe. Eight congressional and military boards concluded that the Pacific Fleet Commander, Admiral Kimmel, and Army Commandant Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, had been negligent in their duties and they were relieved of their posts. In an effort to raise morale, a Navy message to troops at Pearl Harbor said, “You will have your revenge. Recruiting stations are jammed with men eager to join you.”

At the same time Japanese aircraft blitzed Pearl Harbor, other Japanese units advanced toward Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and other Pacific islands. In the first of three huge military operations, the Japanese Army planned to move through Malaya, then split into two groups and swing west into Burma and east toward the Dutch East Indies. From Formosa, other units would strike American forces in the Philippines, while the Japanese Navy steamed in the Pacific to seize control of Guam, Wake Island, and the Gilberts. Once they accomplished these moves, the Japanese intended to construct a defensive barrier behind which they could exploit the resources of Asia and the Pacific. By the time the United States recovered sufficiently from Pearl Harbor to mount a counteroffensive, which the Japanese predicted would take at least 18 months, their forces would be so firmly ensconced behind the defensive barrier that they could not be dislodged.

On December 9, Japan quickly took Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands against minor opposition. The next day, 5,400 Japanese attacked the 427 Marine and Navy personnel stationed at Guam, 1,500 miles east of Manila. Although the men battled heroically, they were forced to surrender within one day.

Five hours after Pearl Harbor, more than 200 Japanese aircraft approached American military installations in the Philippines. Since news of the Pearl Harbor attack had already flashed around the world, the Japanese aviators expected stiff resistance from American fighters and antiaircraft guns.

In a surprise more astonishing than Pearl Harbor, there was very little. Japanese planes destroyed American bombers and fighters neatly arranged in rows on the ground. With this second major blow to American forces stationed in the Pacific, MacArthur, the commander of Allied forces in the Philippines, lost much of his air capability.

MacArthur now scrambled to assemble a defensive stance to confront the inevitable Japanese land assault. He commanded more than 100,000 soldiers, but less than a third were experienced veterans. The remainder were newcomers to the Philippines or Filipino soldiers who had received little training.

MacArthur predicted that the Japanese would land at Lingayen Gulf 120 miles north of Manila. He intended to place most of his men along the southern shore of Lingayen Gulf, fight as long as possible, then withdraw to the south into the Bataan Peninsula and wait for reinforcements from the United States.

On December 22, a force of 43,000 Japanese soldiers under Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma landed at Lingayen Gulf, but farther north than MacArthur expected. Meeting little opposition, the Japanese Army raced behind MacArthur’s surprised soldiers and began closing in from the rear. At the same time, a second invasion force landed 70 miles south of Manila at Lamon Bay and headed toward the capital. MacArthur had no choice but to order a hasty retreat into the Bataan Peninsula to avoid being trapped by the two forces.

Barely 20,000 soldiers were healthy enough on Bataan to oppose the Japanese. When Homma renewed his offensive, the Americans and Filipinos could not hold out. After a five-hour bombardment on April 3, fresh Japanese reinforcements, backed by artillery and armor, punched holes in the thin American defensive line. The Americans and Filipinos maintained the line long enough to evacuate 2,000 men and 104 nurses to the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay, but continued resistance was futile. On April 9, roughly 12,000 American and 63,000 Filipino soldiers on Bataan laid down their arms on orders from Maj. Gen. Edward P. King, Jr.

The Western powers, who only six months ago had ruled much of the Far East and the Pacific, were now reduced to the trapped garrison on Corregidor. Japan had triumphed everywhere else, and would soon add one more conquest.

For one month Japanese artillery bombarded Corregidor around the clock to weaken the defenders for the final attack. During the night of May 5-6, Japanese forces crossed over from Bataan, fought through the minor resistance existing at the beaches, and spread throughout the island. Realizing that the end had come, Maj. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright surrendered his forces. When the Japanese threatened to continue the killing unless Wainwright ordered the surrender of all American troops in the Philippines, not just those on Corregidor, Wainwright issued the directive. He feared that unless he agreed the Japanese would exact their anger on the wounded and the nurses in Malinta Tunnel’s hospital. Some Americans stationed elsewhere in the Philippines complied with Wainwright’s order, but many fled into the jungle to continue resisting.

Just before the surrender, Army Signal Corps Private Irving Strobing radioed Pearl Harbor, a recording of which was aired three weeks later on a radio program. “The jig is up. Everyone is bawling like a baby. They are piling dead and wounded in our tunnel. I know now how a mouse feels. Caught in a trap waiting for guys to come along and finish it up. My name is Irving Strobing. Get this to my mother, Mrs. Minnie Strobing, 605 Barbey Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. My love to Pa, Joe [brother], Sue [sister], Mac, Garry, Joy and Paul. Tell Joe, wherever he is, go give ‘em hell for us. God bless you and keep you.”

On May 6, Wainwright cabled Roosevelt: “With broken heart, and head bowed in sadness but not in shame, I report to Your Excellency that today I must arrange terms for the surrender of the fortified islands of Manila Bay. With profound regret and with continued pride in my gallant men, I go to meet the Japanese commander. Good-bye, Mr. President.”

With the collapse of resistance in the Philippines, the Japanese controlled the Pacific from Hawaii to the Far East. Only in Australia did the Allies maintain a slim hold.

The U.S. Navy had been manhandled at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army had been forced out of the Philippines, and the U.S. Marines had surrendered at Wake Island and Guam. The British lost much of their fleet as well as their two major possessions in the Far East, Singapore and Hong Kong. After 300 years, the Dutch lost the Indies. The only news that energized the American public, the electrifying defenses at Wake Island and Bataan, resulted in additional defeats.

Just when things seemed their worst, events in the first week of May 1942 cast a glimmer of hope. The U.S. Navy, aided by radio intelligence, started to turn the tide. At the Battle of the Coral Sea, a Japanese invasion force was turned back from Port Moresby on the island of New Guinea. Weeks later, the epic Battle of Midway would change the balance of power in the Pacific permanently.

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John Wukovits is a military expert specializing in the Pacific theater of World War II. He is the author of many books and numerous articles. He lives in Michigan.

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