agracer said:
YZ250 said:
Smeghead4761 said:
MacArthur can be mentioned among the worst - initial defense of the Philippines
To blame MacArthur for the defense of the Philippines is wrong. I'm curious what your reasons are.
Because he sat on his ass for 12+ hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, left provisions in place for the Japanese when they invaded instead of moving them, and was an all around narcissists.
Maybe not the worst, but by far the most over rated.
He did delay in taking action but it wasn't 12+ hours. He received word at 0330. A state of war was declared. He had been talking to Sutherland and had talked to Washington at 0530. He didn't talk to Brereton until 1010. What do you think he should have done in your "12+ hours"?
Provisions were ordered to be taken and anything that couldn't be taken to Bataan was ordered destroyed by MacArthur. There is controversy here as Lt. Col. Alexander at Fort Stotsenburg said that very little of value was left behind whereas General Drake said only a portion had been removed. But nothing was intentionally left behind and there was a shortage of vehicles in the Philippines even with the commandeering of civilian vehicles. None of this or his personality caused the fall of the Philippines. December was a bad month for everybody. What about the rest of the war?
Now how do you feel about the build up due to MacArthur? He didn't take command until the end of July 1941 but once he did he requested a ton of supplies and equipment. At that time the army only had 22,532 men. By December he had added 120,000 Filipinos. In August, the only modern aircraft they had were 31 P-40Bs. He got 35 B-17s, 104 tanks, 40 105mm guns, 1,100,000 gallons of fuel, 500,000 C rations, hospital equipment, 50 P-40s with more to come, 6 radar sets were on there way, he set up and early warning system. Much more was to come. He also requested supplies for the Filipinos but most was rejected. This included helmets, anti-aircraft machine guns, Garand rifles, mortars, engineering equipment, signal equipment etc…