I've always been interested in WWII and have read a lot on it over my life.

One thing that always bothered me was why the Japanese were so successful early on in the war - or to flip that, why the US was (or seemed) so complacent early in the war.

Did it really take Pearl Harbor to see what the Japanese were up to?    And Pearl Harbor seemed to be successful only b/c of the compounded mistakes make by multiple military commanders.  
- very limited scouting and picket warnings, absence of long range recon
- not dispersing planes to avoid sabotage
- so many capital ships in one place with very predictable patrolling
- ignoring the warning radar signal - even though it was new it had been in use in Britain successfully for a year at least
- ignoring the British action in Italy against ships, thinking Pearl was too shallow for torpedoes so removing torpedo nets
- not being on higher alert even though the US had broken the Japanese code giving strong hints of a strike, such as diving the area into Zones and wanting exact ship locations

Why did the Philippines fall so easily?   Why surrender so many men to die in the Bataan Death March?  I'm really assuming that Gen Wainright didn't except the prisoners to be treated so harshly.  So many Filipinos and Americans died on that march.   Why did the US forces wait so long to evacuate to strong points such as Corregidor?   The most excellent harbors in the east were there, and obvious targets.

It seems the US military really underestimated the Japanese Forces so much initially and to the detriment of so many men?

Hindsight is 20/20 but the mistakes seem so many, it is almost depressing.    Was the military/intelligence structure too large to be effective in communicating and hypothesizing accurate ideas among themselves?

What are your thoughts?

I though it was common knowledge the US wanted into the war.

"Suprise and violence of action"

We most definitely knew that war was imminent, but war was not declared yet, and no one had used an aircraft carrier the way the Japanese did at that point


Pearl harbor was too shallow for the Japanese torpedoes, but the Japanese developed a work around

B17's were coming in on that day, so it was assumed that the radar was picking them up

As for the Philippines, see the first 5 words in my post


Once we got organized,  we pretty much got straight to kicking ass

Japan was  already on a war footing and was already at war with China.  The U.S. was just gearing up (we started construction on new ships already) and the navy was more concerned with the U-boat threat and assisting the Royal Navy.

BTW, the USN War College already knew the Philippines could not be held and that it would take two years to build a support fleet so the Pacific Fleet could even reinforce or relieve that place.  That's why the U.S. Asiatic Fleet was only a token force.  They were just enough to show the flag but not strong enough to defend its assigned area.  It had only one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, some destroyers, submarines and PT boats.

MacArthur didn't care and got reinforcements which wound up as PoWs.

FPNI

McArthur reinforced Corrigador to make it very expensive to capture but he understood the lessons of the first Philippine missions:  If the supply chain is cut the fort is eventually lost.

The Japanese had naval superiority in the western pacific.  They had been building up for years.  The attack on pearl succeeded in delaying our ability to challenge them for over 2 years.  
That gave them some breathing room for a short time.

They knew eventually we would challenge them in the Pacific.

The US was actively preparing for war in the Pacific. One of the reasons Husband Kimmel replaced Oscar Richardson as CINCPAC was the fact he was an aggressive fighting admiral, and Nimitz initially turned down the offer.  Midway and Wake had their defenses augmented with fighter planes. But the strategic imperative remained Germany first. Also the largest concentration of 4 engine strategic bombers in the world outside of Europe, was located at Clark airfield in the Philippines.

Despite what people think, the cryptological intelligence did not state where hostilities would commence. In fact the messages to the Japanese envoys in Washington made no mention of hostilities at all.

As far as the Philippines falling so easily, remember that country is an archipeligao  that contains several thousand islands over thousands of square miles. The US defended the strategic points. Bataan and Corregidor held out for 5 months with only minimal resupply by US submarines. With the majority of Pacific Fleet`s capital ships sunk or seriously damaged, the loss of the Philippines was a foregone conclusion. According to War Plan Orange, they were to fight a defensive action until Pac Fleet arrived with reinforcements after having defeated the IJN.

Thanks to MacArthur`s megalomania and racial bias of most Americans, we underestimated the capability of the Imperial Japanese forces. The Japs also got a lucky break in that their initial air strikes from Formosa(Taiwan) were delayed by bad weather. The US Air Force planes which had been airborne awaiting an early morning raid had landed to refuel. General Bereton , the air  force commander had not developed a dispersal plan, and so his force was destroyed on the ground. MacArthur was also initially delusional in thinking the raid on Pearl Harbor was done by a cabal in the Japanese military much like the invasion of Manchuria. Only Admiral Thomas Hart, commander of the Asiatic fleet, had dispersed his forces out of range of the Japanese air forces. The Philippines were the expected flashpoint for a US-Japanese war since 1898. The Army commanders should have done a better job.

As for the deaths on the Bataan Death March, the Japanese did not expect the number of prisoners and hadn`t prepared for them. The US and philipino troops were in poor physical condition due to the starvation rations they were subsisting on. Coupled with the traditional  Asian disdain for POWs, there were going to be deaths.

Pearl was bad.  Wake was a disgrace.

Ray

That is an incredibly complex question to address in the space of an internet forum posting, yet there have been some good points made by other folks already.

Running the risk of gross oversimplification, the Japanese were able to run rampant in the Pacific because of a shortage of US resources, especially in the early parts of the war, and the fact that the theater had secondary priority.

First, we can take a look at Pearl Harbor.  There have been any number of investigations and conclusions and reports and books regarding the attack.

We can take a look at the official findings, from the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack:



"CONCLUSIONS WITH RESPECT TO RESPONSIBILITIES

1. The December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor was an unprovoked act of aggression by the Empire of Japan. The treacherous attack was planned and launched while Japanese ambassadors, instructed with characteristic duplicity, were carrying of the pretense negotiations with the Government of the United States with a view to an amicable settlement of differences in the Pacific.

2. The ultimate responsibility for the attack and its results rests on Japan, an attack that was well planned and skillfully executed.  Contributing to the effectiveness of the attack was a powerful striking force, much more powerful than it had been thought the Japanese were able to employ in a single tactical venture at such distance and under such circumstances.

3. The diplomatic policies and actions of the United States provided no justifiable provocation whatever for the attack by Japan on this Nation. The Secretary of State fully informed both the War and Navy Departments of diplomatic developments and, in a timely and forceful manner, clearly pointed out to these Departments that relations between the United States and Japan had passed beyond the age of diplomacy and were in the hands of the military.

4. The committee has found no evidence to support the charges, made before and during the hearings, that the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, or the Secretary of Navy tricked, provoked, incited, cajoled, or coerced Japan into attacking this Nation in order that a declaration of war might be more easily obtained from the Congress. On the contrary, all evidence conclusively points to the fact that they discharged their responsibilities with distinction, ability, and foresight and in keeping with the highest traditions of our fundamental foreign policy.

5. The President, the Secretary of State, and high Government officials made every possible effort, without sacrificing our national honor and endangering our security, to avert war with Japan.

6. The disaster of Pearl Harbor was the failure, with attendant increase in personnel and material losses, of the Army and the Navy institute measures designed to detect an approaching hostile force, to effect a state of readiness commensurate with the realization that war was at hand, and to employ every facility at their command in repelling the Japanese.

7. Virtually everyone was surprised that Japan struck the Fleet at Pearl Harbor at the time that she did. Yet officers, both in Washington and Hawaii, were fully conscious of the danger from air attack; they realized this form of attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan was at least a possibility; and they were adequately informed of the imminence of war.

8. Specifically, the Hawaiian commands failed-

(a) To discharge their responsibilities in the light of the warnings received from Washington, other information possessed by them, and the principle of command by mutual cooperation.

(b) To integrate and coordinate their facilities for defense and to alert properly the Army and Navy establishments in Hawaii particularly in the light of the warnings and intelligence available to them during the period November 27 to December 7, 1941.

(c) To effect liaison on a basis designed to acquaint each of them with the operations of the other, which was necessary to their joint security, and to exchange fully all significant intelligence

(d) To maintain a more effective reconnaissance within the limits of their equipment.

(e) To effect a state of readiness throughout the Army and Navy establishments designed to meet all possible attacks.

(f) To employ the facilities, materiel, and personnel at their command, which were adequate at least to have greatly minimized the effects of the attack, in repelling the Japanese raiders.

(g) To appreciate the significance of intelligence and other information available to them.

9. The errors made by the Hawaiian commands were errors of judgment and not derelictions of duty.

10. The War Plans Division of the War Department failed to discharge its direct responsibility to advise the commanding general he had not properly alerted the Hawaiian Department when the latter, pursuant to instructions, had reported action taken in a message that was not satisfactorily responsive to the original directive.

11. The Intelligence and War Plans Divisions of the War and Navy Departments failed:

(a) To give careful and thoughtful consideration to the intercepted messages from Tokyo to Honolulu of September 24, November 15, and November 20 (the harbor berthing plan and related dispatches) and to raise a question as to their significance. Since they indicated a particular interest in the Pacific Fleet's base this intelligence should have been appreciated and supplied the Hawaiian commanders for their assistance, along with other information available to them, in making their estimate of the situation.

(b) To be properly on the qui vive to receive the "one o'clock" intercept and to recognize in the message the fact that some Japanese military action would very possibly occur somewhere at 1 p. m., December 7. If properly appreciated, this intelligence should have suggested a dispatch to all Pacific outpost commanders supplying this information, as General Marshall attempted to do immediately upon seeing it.

12. Notwithstanding the fact that there were officers on twenty-four hour watch, the Committee believes that under all of the evidence the War and Navy Departments were not sufficiently alerted on December 6 and 7, 1941, in view of the imminence of war."

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pha/congress/part_5.html



Yet, there were accusations of whitewashing and coverups for political purposes even at the time of the report:



"THE MINORITY PEARL HARBOR REPORT

We, the undersigned, find it impossible to concur with the findings and conclusions of the Committee's report because they are illogical, and unsupported by the preponderance of the evidence before the Committee.  The conclusions of the diplomatic aspects are based upon incomplete evidence.

We, therefore, find it necessary to file a report setting forth the conclusions which we believe are properly sustained by evidence before the committee.

...


DIFFICULTIES FACING THE JOINT COMMITTEE AND INCOMPLETENESS OF THE RECORD

When all the testimony, papers, documents, exhibits, and other evidence duly laid before the Committee are reviewed, it becomes apparent that the record is far from complete. The Committee did not have an opportunity to cross-examine any of the high civil executive principals in the Pearl Harbor affair. President Roosevelt and Secretary Knox had died before the Committee was created. Harry Hopkins, who was intimately and officially associated with President Roosevelt, died shortly after the Committee began its work. The health of Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of State Hull prevented the Committee from getting the full benefit of their knowledge, except for the information they voluntarily furnished.

It is extremely unfortunate that the Roberts Commission Report was so hasty, inconclusive, and incomplete. Some witnesses were examined under oath; others were not. Much testimony was not even recorded. The Commission knew that Japanese messages had been intercepted and were available, prior to the attack, to the high command in Washington. The Commission did not inquire about what information these intercepts contained, who received them, or what was done about them, although the failure of Washington to inform the commanders in Hawaii of this vital intelligence bears directly on the question of whether those commanders performed their full duties. Mr. Justice Roberts testified before this Committee:

"I would not have bothered to read it (the intercepted Japanese traffic) if it had been shown to us (Tr., Vol. 47, p. 8836):"

If it were necessary to do so, detailed examples of the many shortcomings of the Roberts Commission could be set forth. The duty of our Committee to examine the entire subject afresh does not require an extended criticism of the Roberts Report.

It should be noted, however, that Justice Roberts had sufficient legal experience to know the proper method of collecting and preserving evidence which in this case involved the highest interests of the Nation. The facts were then fresh in the minds of key witnesses in Washington. They could not then have been ignorant of their whereabouts at important times or have forgotten the details of events and operations. No files would have been "lost" and no information would have been distorted by the passage of time. The failure to observe these obvious necessities is almost as tragic to the cause of truth as the attack on Pearl Harbor itself was a tragedy for the Nation.

...

CONCLUSIONS OF FACT AND RESPONSIBILITY

1. The course of diplomatic negotiations with Japan during the months preceding December 7, 1941, indicated a growing tension with Japan and after November 26 the immediate imminence of war.

2. By November 7, 1941, President Roosevelt and his Cabinet had reached the unanimous conclusion that war tension had reached such point as to convince them that "the people would back us up in case we struck at Japan down there (in the Far East)." They then took under consideration "what the tactics would be" (Tr., Vol. 70, p. 14415). Unless Japan yielded to diplomatic representations on the part of the United States, there were three choices on tactics before the President and the Cabinet; they could wait until Japan attacked; they could strike without a declaration of war by Congress; or the President could lay the issue of peace or war before Congress (Tr., Vol. 70, p. 14415 ff.).

3. So imminent was war on November 25, that the President in a conference with Secretary Hull, Secretary Knox, Secretary Stimson, General Marshall, and Admiral Stark, "brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps (as soon as) next Monday" (December 1); and the members of the conference discussed the question "How we should maneuver them (the Japanese) into the position firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves" (Tr., Vol. 70, p. 14418).

4. Having considered without agreeing upon the proposition that message on the war situation should be sent to Congress, the President and the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the Navy, pursued from November 25 to December 7 the tactics of waiting for the firing of "the first shot" by the Japanese.

5. The appropriate high authorities in Washington had the organization for working in such close cooperation during the days immediately prior to the Japanese attack on December 7 that they had every opportunity to make sure that identical and precise instructions warranted by the imminence of war went to the Hawaiian commanders.

6. Through the Army and Navy Intelligence Services extensive information was secured respecting Japanese war plans and designs by intercepted and decoded Japanese secret messages, which indicated the growing danger of war and increasingly after November 26 the imminence of a Japanese attack.

7. Army and Navy information which indicated growing imminence of war was delivered to the highest authorities in charge of national preparedness for meeting an attack, among others, the President, the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy, and the Chief of Staff and the Chief of Naval Operations.

8. Judging by the military and naval history of Japan, high authorities in Washington and the Commanders in Hawaii had good grounds for expecting that in starting war the Japanese Government would make its surprise attack on the United States.

9. Neither the diplomatic negotiations nor the intercepts and other information respecting Japanese designs and operations in the hands of the United States authorities warranted those authorities in excluding from defense measures or from orders to the Hawaiian commanders the probability of an attack on Hawaii. On the contrary, there is evidence to the effect that such an attack was, in terms of strategy, necessary from the Japanese point of view and in fact highly probable and that President Roosevelt was taking the probability into account-before December 7.

10. The knowledge of Japanese designs and intentions in the hands of the President and the Secretary of State led them to the conclusion at least 10 days before December 7 that an attack by Japan within a few days was so highly probable as to constitute a certainty and, having reached this conclusion, the President, as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, was under obligation to instruct the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to make sure that the outpost commanders put their armed forces on an all-out alert for war.

11. The decision of the President, in view of the Constitution, to await the Japanese attack rather than ask for a declaration of war by Congress increased the responsibility of high authorities in Washington to use the utmost care in putting the commanders at Pearl Harbor on a full alert for defensive actions before the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941.

12. Inasmuch as the knowledge respecting Japanese designs and operations which was in the possession of high authorities in Washington differed in nature and volume from that in the possession of the Pearl Harbor commanders it was especially incumbent upon the former to formulate instructions to the latter in language not open to misinterpretation as to the obligations imposed on the commanders by the instructions.

13. The messages sent to General Short and Admiral Kimmel by high authorities in Washington during November were couched in such conflicting and imprecise language that they failed to convey to the commanders definite information on the state of diplomatic relations with Japan and on Japanese war designs and positive orders respecting the particular actions to be taken-orders that were beyond all reasonable doubts as to the need for an all-out alert. In this regard the said high authorities failed to discharge their full duty.

14. High authorities in Washington failed in giving proper weight to the evidence before them respecting Japanese designs and operations which indicated that an attack on Pearl Harbor was highly probable and they failed also to emphasize this probability in messages to the Hawaiian commanders.

15. The failure of Washington authorities to act promptly and consistently in translating intercepts, evaluating information, and sending appropriate instructions to the Hawaiian commanders was in considerable measure due to delays, mismanagement, non-cooperation, unpreparedness, confusion, and negligence on the part of officers in Washington.

16. The President of the United States was responsible for the failure to enforce continuous, efficient, and appropriate cooperation among the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Staff, and the Chief of Naval Operations, in evaluating information and dispatching clear and positive orders to the Hawaiian commanders as events indicated the growing imminence of war; for the Constitution and laws of the United States vested in the President full power, as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, to compel such cooperation and vested this power in him alone with a view to establishing his responsibility to the people of the United States.

17. High authorities in Washington failed to allocate to the Hawaiian commanders the material which the latter often declared to be necessary to defense and often requested, and no requirements of defense or war in the Atlantic did or could excuse these authorities for their failures in this respect.

18. Whatever errors of judgment the commanders at Hawaii committed and whatever mismanagement they displayed in preparing for Japanese attack, attention to chain of responsibility in the civil and military administration requires taking note of the fact that they were designated for their posts by high authorities in Washington-all of whom were under obligation to have a care for competence in the selection of subordinates for particular positions of responsibility in the armed forces of the United States.

19. The defense of Hawaii rested upon two sets of interdependent responsibilities: (1) The responsibility in Washington in respect of its ultimate knowledge of diplomatic negotiations, widespread intelligence information, direction of affairs and constitutional duty to plan the defense of the United States; (2) the responsibility cast upon the commanders in the field in charge of a major naval base and the fleet essential to the defense of the territory of the United States to do those things appropriate to the defense of the fleet and outpost. Washington authorities failed in (1); and the commanding officers at Hawaii failed in (2).

20. In the final instance of crucial significance for alerting American outpost commanders, on Saturday night, December 6, and Sunday morning, December 7, the President of the United States failed to take that quick and instant executive action which was required by the occasion and by the responsibility for watchfulness and guardianship rightly associated in law and practice with his high office from the establishment of the Republic to our own times.

21. The contention coming from so high an authority as President Truman on August 3, 1945, that the "country is as much to blame as any individual in this final situation that developed in Pearl Harbor," cannot be sustained because the American people had no intimation whatever of the policies and operations that were being undertaken."

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pha/congress/minority.html

Largely because of this asshole:

And now for a brief look at the Philippines....

That campaign is certainly an interesting study, and we will never know the full truth of the campaign since so many of the defenders died, and the records of their actions were lost forever. It is a study of last minute preparations (amounting to too little, too late), desperate heroism, and bad leadership decisions which frittered away a lot of the advantages the defenders had.

The Philippines had been reinforced, and were continuing to be reinforced, with full readiness projected as of mid-1942.  The large concentration of bombers was placed there in lieu of a naval flleet, the plan being that in the absence of strong naval defenses, the Japanese would be leery of invading Luzon while it was under the defensive umbrella of heavy bomber forces.  Field Marshal MacArthur (yes, he had accepted that rank in the Philippine Army) made changes in the defensive dispositions on Luzon instead of the planned concentration at and defense of Bataan and Correigidor.  These changes necessitated changes in logistics, thereby making supplies unavailable to the defenders as they later went back to the original plan.  Of course, the destruction of the B-17 fleet was unconscionable, and though there was a lot of finger pointing, there was no real investigation of what happened there.  The evisceration of the Pacific Fleet left it unable to further reinforce the PI, and the defenders were left alone to fight with what they had, as long as they could.

Now, to flesh out my quick synopsis of the situation, we will look at some historical sources and analysis:


First, some quotes from the Army's Center of Military History booklet, Philippine Islands.

an online copy is at--- http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/pi/PI.htm




"Although the United States had maintained military forces, including a substantial number of indigenous units, in the Philippines since their annexation in 1898, the islands were largely unprepared for hostilities with Japan. This unpreparedness was the result of several factors. As a signatory of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922, the United States had agreed, in exchange for limitations on Japanese shipbuilding, to halt construction of any new fortifications in its Pacific possessions. For the Philippines this meant that only the islands near the entrance to Manila Bay, principally Corregidor, were well protected. Similarly, the act to grant the Philippines commonwealth status in 1935-with independence scheduled for 1946-meant that the defense of the islands had to devolve gradually on the Philippine government despite its limited resources. Reflecting these realities, the U.S. Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan ORANGE, last updated in April 1941, limited defense of the islands to Manila Bay and critical adjacent areas. If attacked, the U.S. Army garrison was expected to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula, a tongue of land on Luzon forming the northwestern boundary of Manila Bay, and to the island of Corregidor. The plan did not envision reinforcement or relief of the Philippine garrison. With a small army committed to continental defense and a general agreement that in the event America went to war it would adopt a defeat-Germany-first strategy, the U.S. military had reluctantly concluded that the Philippines must be sacrificed if the Japanese attacked."  pp 3-4




"While the diplomats continued discussing the matter, General MacArthur again proposed that the U.S. Army cancel War Plan ORANGE and commit itself to an ambitious program of building a bastion of American power in the Philippines. Chief of Staff George C. Marshall finally approved plans to give top priority to reinforcing and equipping MacArthur's command, a program that MacArthur estimated could be in place by April 1942.

Although the Philippine garrison had been significantly reinforced by 1 December, it remained perilously inadequate for the task at hand. Its strength stood at 31,095 men, a 40 percent increase in four months. Initial National Guard reinforcements from the United States-the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment and the 192d and 194th Tank Battalions-had arrived at the end of September. Although these National Guard units had been hastily mobilized and were insufficiently trained, they brought with them some modern equipment, including 108 M3 tanks, the first to reach the Philippines. But War Department planners gave little consideration to the enormous logistical problems involved in building up and supporting large forces in the far Pacific. The burden placed upon military shipping to carry out the task proved overwhelming, and the critical shortage of cargo space delayed all shipments.

It was the significant development in air power that made an extended defense of the Philippines thinkable. On 3 November Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton had arrived to take command of the newly activated Far East Air Force. By 1 December the Philippine Islands boasted the largest concentration of U.S. Army aircraft outside the continental United States. Many of these aircraft were the best the Army had to offer, including 107 P-40 fighter aircraft and 35 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. Yet the Philippines still lacked critical maintenance and repair facilities and enough airfields to permit the proper dispersal of aircraft. Further, an inadequate air-raid-warning service and antiquated antiaircraft artillery left the growing air forces vulnerable to enemy raids."  pp. 5-6




"The duty officer at U.S. Asiatic Fleet headquarters in Manila first received word of the Pearl Harbor attack at 0230 on 8 December 1941, but a full hour passed before Brig. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, MacArthur's chief of staff, heard the news from commercial broadcasts. He immediately notified MacArthur and all commanders that a state of war now existed with Japan. MacArthur ordered his troops to battle stations.

Despite this warning, when the Japanese pilots of the 11th Air Fleet attacked Clark Field nine hours later, they caught two squadrons of B-17s lined up on the field and a number of American fighters just preparing to take off. The first wave of twenty-seven Japanese twin-engine bombers achieved complete tactical surprise and destroyed most of the American heavy bombers. A second bomber strike followed while Zero fighters strafed the field. Only three P-40s managed to take off. A simultaneous attack on Iba Field in northwest Luzon was also successful: all but two of the 3d Squadron's P-40s were destroyed. The Far East Air Force lost fully half its planes the first day of the war.

The Japanese success in the Philippines hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor has sparked controversy with much finger-pointing that has endured to this day. General Brereton later wrote that he repeatedly sought permission before the attack to launch his B-17s against the Japanese aircraft in Formosa, but General Sutherland denied his requests and also denied him access to MacArthur. MacArthur later insisted that he was unaware of Brereton's request, adding that such a move would have been ill conceived anyway because USAFFE lacked intelligence concerning likely targets. For his part Sutherland claimed that he had ordered Brereton to transfer his bombers away from Clark Field to the relative safety of Mindanao to the south; Brereton countered that he could not have fully complied with the order because of the impending arrival of a new bombardment group from Hawaii. Officers stationed at Clark Field later disagreed about whether their installation had even received warning of the approaching aircraft as the attack was about to start." p.8




"...Meanwhile, Admiral Thomas C. Hart withdrew most of his U.S. Asiatic Fleet from Philippine waters following Japanese air strikes that inflicted heavy damage on U.S. naval facilities at Cavite on 8 December. Only submarines were left to contest Japanese naval superiority.

The Army Air Forces stubbornly opposed the diversionary landings despite damaging Japanese strikes against Nicholas Field near Manila on 9 December. Two B-17s attacked the Japanese ships offloading at Gonzaga on Luzon. Other B-17s with fighter escort attacked the landings at Vigan. In this last coordinated action of the Far East Air Force, U.S. planes damaged two Japanese transports, the flagship Naga, and a destroyer and sank one minesweeper. These air attacks, however, could not significantly delay the Japanese assault.

By neutralizing U.S. air and naval power in the Philippines in the first forty-eight hours of the war, the Japanese had gained a position never anticipated in USAFFE plans. Defense of the Philippines now relied solely on its ground forces, which at the time had no lines of supply or escape."  p.10




"The long-awaited main attack began early on the morning of 22 December as the 43,110 men of General Homma's 14th Army entered Luzon's Lingayen Gulf. The 48th Division and elements of the 16th Division, with support from artillery and 80 to 100 tanks, landed at three points along the east coast of the gulf. A few B-17s flying from Australia attacked the invasion fleet, and U.S. submarines harassed it from the adjacent waters, but with little effect. General Wainwright's poorly trained and poorly equipped 11th and 71st Divisions (PA) could neither repel the landings nor pin the enemy on the beaches as outlined in USAFFE's defense plan. The remaining Japanese units of the 48th and 16th Divisions landed farther south along the gulf, linking up with the other Japanese forces for the march south. The 26th Cavalry (PS), advancing to meet them, put up a strong fight at Rosario but, after taking heavy casualties and with no hope of sufficient reinforcements, was forced to withdraw. By nightfall, 23 December, the Japanese had moved ten miles into the interior of the island. The next day 7,000 men of the 16th Division hit the beaches at three locations along the shore of Lamon Bay in southern Luzon where they found General Parker's forces dispersed and unable to offer serious resistance. They immediately consolidated their positions and began the drive north toward Manila where they would link up with the forces advancing south toward the capital for the final victory.

MacArthur realized that the USAFFE defense plan had failed. On 26 December he notified his commanders that Plan ORANGE was now in effect, thereby reactivating the old prewar plan to defend only Bataan and Corregidor indefinitely. If nothing else the revival of Plan ORANGE threw the Japanese off their tight schedule."  pp. 10,13




"MacArthur's task was to move his men with their equipment and supplies in good order to their defensive positions. He charged General Wainwright's North Luzon Force with holding back the main Japanese assault and keeping the road to Bataan open for the use of the South Luzon Force. To achieve this, Wainwright deployed his forces in a series of defensive lines.

Under Wainwright and Parker the American and Philippine withdrawal to Bataan proceeded quickly and in remarkably good order, given the chaotic situation. A particularly precarious phase came when Wainwright's North Luzon Force connected with Parker's South Luzon Force near the town of San Fernando. Here, both forces had to pass through a single intersection and down one narrow road to reach the peninsula. Although the Japanese failed to take advantage of their air superiority to attack the defenders at this vulnerable choke point, Wainwright was alarmed by the slow movement of the retreating South Luzon Force. He ordered his men to stand firm at San Fernando. The tenacity of the 3d Battalion of the 21st Division (PA), in particular, allowed the Americans and Filipinos to hold this defensive line until 30 December before withdrawing to their final defensive position prior to entering the Bataan Peninsula. The bulk of the South Luzon Force had passed through San Fernando by 2 January, and the rear guard of the American forces followed into Bataan on the 6th. Meanwhile, on the night of 24-25 December, MacArthur had moved his USAFFE headquarters and the Philippine government to Corregidor.

The hasty withdrawal forced the retreating units to leave most of their supplies and equipment behind. At this point the awful consequences of the shifts in USAFFE defense plans became clear. To support MacArthur's plan for a defense of the entire island chain, supplies had been dispersed from their original depots in Bataan and Corregidor to support the units of the North and South Luzon Forces. Now with trucks in short supply, roads congested, and time short, resupply of the Bataan and Corregidor strongholds was impossible. The resulting lack of food, ammunition, weapons, and medical supplies would prove to be the critical factors in the subsequent operation. "  p. 15




"Plan ORANGE assumed the 80,000 troops and 26,000 civilians in Bataan would resist for at least six months. In such circumstances the search for food quickly became as urgent a problem as resisting the enemy's assaults. All personnel in Bataan were immediately placed on half rations. In an area where a healthy, active man requires 3,500 to 4,000 calories a day, the hardworking defenders were rationed to 2,000. "  p. 16




"In March the Japanese received individual replacements to fill out the 16th Division and the 65th Brigade in addition to units of the 4th Division, just arrived from China. Meanwhile, the defenders' health steadily eroded and with it their morale. Rations, already cut by 500 calories a day, were now further reduced to 1,000 calories. The Bataan jungle and the starvation diet fostered disease, and malaria took a particularly heavy toll on the men. In the hasty retreat, the medical supplies which could have alleviated the suffering, particularly the quinine required for treating malaria, had been left behind. At the end of March, Parker estimated the combat efficiency of his troops at 20 percent, and Wainwright reported that 75 percent of his men were unfit for duty. The Japanese kept the pressure on the Americans and Filipinos with harassing artillery fire and infiltration raids.

The steady deterioration of the American position forced President Roosevelt to order MacArthur to move to Australia. On 12 March the commander and his USAFFE staff departed Corregidor by submarine, leaving Wainwright in command. MacArthur left behind orders that Wainwright's men were "to fight as long as there remains any possibility of resistance."

The expected Japanese attack finally began on 3 April after a sustained aerial and artillery bombardment. The strongest enemy push, spearheaded by the 4th Division and the 65th Brigade, was directed against Sector D on the II Corps' left flank. The exhausted, malnourished, and dispirited defenders soon gave ground, and the entire line began to crumble. In thirty-six hours the Japanese succeeded in breaching the American line. Command and control in II Corps quickly broke down as troops retreated under heavy air attack.

The destruction of II Corps left I Corps outflanked and it too retreated. There was, however, little space left to retreat. General King, the I Corps commander, soon concluded that continued resistance would endanger the hospital and service areas without any tactical gain, and on 8 April he resolved to surrender. King deliberately did not inform Wainwright, whose orders prohibited surrender, of his decision. King met with Maj. Gen. Kameichiro Nagano on 9 April to arrange terms for the whole Luzon force. King was unable to negotiate terms for all of the forces on Bataan, however, and defending units surrendered unconditionally to individual Japanese units. With Bataan completely in their hands, the Japanese turned their attention to Corregidor.

The fall of Bataan gave the Japanese an excellent location from which to shell Corregidor and a staging area for their assault on the island. It also left them with thousands of prisoners to move out of the area to clear the way for future operations. Accordingly, the weakened defenders were force-marched sixty-five miles north through the peninsula to Camp O'Donnell, a former Philippine Army camp. About 600 Americans and between 5,000 and 10,000 Filipinos died on what has become known as the "Bataan Death March." Although extreme malnutrition, disease, and simple bad planning on the part of their captors deserve the major blame, the deliberate and arbitrary cruelty of some of the guards led to many of the deaths and immeasurably increased the suffering of those who managed to survive.

The forces on Corregidor Island had weathered the blockade better than those on Bataan. They had proportionately more supplies, an extensive tunnel system affording protection from artillery and aerial bombardment, safeguards against enemy infiltrators, and more disease-free surroundings. Nevertheless, by April the defenders were also showing the effects of prolonged siege. Although fortifications and gun emplacements had withstood the bombardment, the island's installations in the open-such as barracks, warehouses, water tanks, and the power plant-were highly vulnerable."  pp. 18-20




"For all the courage and resourcefulness of the Philippine defenders, their fate was sealed when the Japanese crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on 7 December and virtually destroyed U.S. air power in the Philippines a few hours later. It remains difficult even today to account for such a tremendous loss of aircraft on the ground a full thirteen hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The devastation of the fleet left the Philippine forces isolated in the heart of the Japanese-dominated Pacific. With adequate air cover the Allies might have been able to break through the Japanese blockade and at least partially resupply the defenders with convoys from Australia. But without the fleet or covering air units, it was only a matter of time. Cut off from all support and heavily outnumbered by a determined enemy, the American and Filipino units faced annihilation or surrender.

The predictable fate of the Philippine garrison and MacArthur's stature as the symbol of the resistance, however, should not obscure the mistakes made in the campaign. The decision to defend the whole island chain was questionable from a military standpoint. The United States was committed by mid-1941 to an Atlantic-first strategy and could not pour into the Philippines the resources required to make the islands secure. The prewar Plan ORANGE that called for a limited defense of the strongly fortified positions around Manila Bay was more in keeping with the global strategy adopted in 1941. MacArthur's ambitious USAFFE plan and the defense measures that he and the War Department were able to put in place by 8 December perhaps had some value as a deterrent to Japanese aggression, but they were insufficient to meet an invasion when that deterrence failed.

The most damaging effect of MacArthur's plan was the dispersal of supplies from the Bataan and Corregidor strongholds. Once the invasion came, the resulting chaos and the poor communications system made it impossible to re-create adequate depots to supply the fighting troops. Although the Philippine garrison held for just short of the planned six months, adequate supplies might have sustained a longer defense and would certainly have eased the suffering of the men on Bataan. Moreover, it is imperative to meet an invasion in the first critical hours before a beachhead is established, but MacArthur held his best troops, the Philippine Division, in reserve in the center of Luzon. The division was consequently unable to reach the landing sites in time to repulse the invaders, although it was in position to assist in the retreat to Bataan.

The position of MacArthur's forces on the eve of battle suggests that he was in a sense trying to follow both his new defensive plan and Plan ORANGE. It could be argued that his orders combined the least compatible elements of both. But in the larger view, neither plan really held out any hope for defeating the Japanese aggressors. The fact that the campaign in the Philippines showed so clearly that the United States was unprepared for war in December 1941 was perhaps its most important lesson."  pp. 21-22

After looking at Pearl Harbor and the PI battle, we can examine the lack of resources in the Pacific Theater and the low priority they had for reinforcements.

First, we can look at the NWC's Graybook, a good source of knowledge about the Pacific War.

https://usnwcarchive.org/items/show/849


From the Briefed Estimate as of 10 December:


"1.  With the losses we have sustained, it is necessary to revise completely our strategy of a Pacific War.  The loss of battleships commits us to the strategid defensive until our forces can again be built up.  However, a very powerful striking force of carriers, cruisers and destroers survive.  These forces must be operated boldly and vigorously on the tactical offensive in order to retrieve our initial disaster.  The Chief of Naval Operations has furnished us with a brief estimate of the present situation as it is known to him and has modified our basic War Plan to agree with this new estimate.  The important tasks assigned the Pacific Fleet in this revised plan are briefed below:

(a) Protect sea communications of Associated Powers.
(b) Support the Army in the defense of Hawaii, Samoa, Midway, Johnson and Palmyra in category "D".
(c) Raid enemy sea communications.
(d) Defend Wake in category "C".
(e) Protect territory of Associated Powers in the Pacific Ares East of 180 Longitude and prevent extension of enemy power into Western Hemisphere.
(f) Cover Coastal Frontier Forces.

2.  In order to approach the general problem and arrive at a general plan of operations, we may condense the above assigned tasks into one broad mission as follows:

WHLE PROTECTING THE TERRITORY OF THE ASSOCIATED POWERS EAST OF 180 BY DESTROYING HOSTILE EXPEDITIONS AND WHILE ENSURING ALLIED SEA COMMUNICATION IN THE PACIFIC BY COVERING AND ESCORTING, TO DEFEND THE HAWAIIAN AND OUTLYING ISLAND BASES IN ORDER TO RETAIN A SECURE BASE FOR FURTHER EXTENSION OF OUR NAVAL CONTROL.

3.  This mission is the immediate mission.  It is strategically defensive but an appreciation of the general world situation clearly demands that the action and dispositions required to carry it out must be boldly effective.

...

23.  The general considerations guiding our course of action must be the purpose of our mission - to retain a secure base for further operations and extension of our control.  To do this, we must both prevent further raids on Oahu, while building up its means of defense against aircraft.  This latter is an Army responsibility, but we must further it by insuring arrival of reinforcements, particularly aircraft and AA defense.  At the same time, our deployment must be governed by necessity for covering our territory and allied communications as wel as for the interception and damaging of enemy raiding forces.  If we damage the raiding forces every time they enter the area, preferably before, but certainly after an attack, the raids will become smaller and fewer and eventually cease.  We can then project operations of our own from a secure base.

24.  We cannot intercept raids or contribute to defense of Oahu from the West Coast, therefore we must maintain striking forces in the area, accepting the existing weakness of Peaal Harbor AA defense, but overcoming it by keeping our forces at sea.  Carriers, cruisers and destroyers must, therfore, replenish and get what relaxation they can, at Pearl with a possibility of periodic return to Coast as reinforcements are received.  As security of Pearl is increased it will be possible to afford further rest and upkeep periods there.

25.  Since attacks must come from the westward, and as long as we hold the Midway, Johnston, Palmyra line probably from the area north of the Hawaiian chain, they should usually be disposed north and west of Oahu.  In such areas they not only cover Oahu but are in a favorable position for supporting Midway, can be promptly moved toward the Aleutians, or to intercept a force moving toward or away from our West Coast.

26.  Protection of sea communications; defense of outling bases, particularly Wake and Samoa, and protection of far flung territory requires a wide dispersal of forces.  Defense of Oahu requires concentration sufficient to detect and overcome the force sent against it.  The two requirements are diametrically opposed in their distribution.  Our forces are limited.  We must so distribute and dispose them as to inflict maximum damage on the enemy, while minimiziing our own losses.

27.  Forces basing on Pearl not immediately essential for combat work must be reduced to a minimum.  This is particularly true as to battleships, which should be returned to the Coast".


As we can see, they had limited resources and a lot ot tasks to accomplish.  I did not include the sections on appreciation of enemy courses of action, but at the time, there was great worry over a return enemy visit to Hawaii.  Ships were fully tasked in their defensive tasks, and also with escort operations from the West Coast to Hawaii and points beyond.

The reinforcements were going to be slow to arrive.  Germany First was the plan.

For example, we can look at the results of the Arcadia Conference, Dec 41-Jan 42.


"The general strategic policy for operations in the Far Eastern theatre which has been agreed upon by the United States and British Chiefs of Staff is as follows:-

a. To hold the Malay Barrier, defined as the line Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and North Australia, as the basic defensive position in that theatre and to operate sea, land, and air forces in as great depth as possible forward of the Barrier in order to oppose the Japanese southward advance.

b. To hold Burma and Australia as essential supporting positions for the theatre, and Burma as essential to the support of China, and to the defense of India.

c. To reestablish communications through the Dutch East Indies with Luzon and to support the Philippines' Garrison.

d. To maintain essential communications within the theatre.

...

2. Our basic strategic concept is to maintain initially the strategic defensive in the Southwest Pacific Theatre. The present strength of forces in that area is insufficient to maintain that defensive position.

After providing immediate reinforcements for defense, and as additional forces become available, it will become possible to undertake offensive operations and ultimately to conduct an all-out offensive against Japan. Accordingly, although our operations in the near future must be primariIy for defense, they should be so conducted as to further our preparations for a future offensive."

Pdf of Arcadia Conference


Army and Navy leadership were also concerned with defense of the coasts, and with defense of Panama, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the Americas.  There were just too many demands for the available men and supplies, and something had to give way.

See Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare- 1941-1942, another Army CMH for more details of the various plans and assumptions that went behind these plans.

http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/001/1-3/index.html

One good excerpt from pp 80-82:


"About one o'clock in Washington on the afternoon of 7 December the first news of the attack on Pearl Harbor reached the War Department. The news came as a shock, even as the attack itself had come. It caught by surprise not only the American people at large, who learned of the attack a short while later, but also their leaders, including the very officers who had earlier been so much concerned over the possibility of just such an attack. One explanation is that these officers and their political superiors were momentarily expecting the Japanese to use all, their forces against the weakly held British and Dutch positions in the Far East (and probably, but not certainly, against the Philippines). They were undoubtedly pondering the hard decisions they would have to recommend and make if this should happen. For this and perhaps for other reasons they had made no special effort to review the intelligence available and had paid no special attention to what the Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii were doing. As they soon found out, the Japanese task force had also caught those commanders unprepared and had accomplished its destructive mission almost unopposed, leaving a great part of the U. S. Pacific Fleet sunk or disabled in Pearl Harbor. At the same time the southward advance of Japanese forces began as expected. During the afternoon and evening, news came in of Japanese forces moving into Thailand, bombing Singapore, and landing in Malaya. This news, coming in conjunction conjunction with the news from Hawaii—the successive reports of casualties and damage suffered by the fleet at Pearl Harbor and by Army and Marine air units—presented the American high command, not with the anticipated crisis in domestic and foreign politics but, instead, with an unexpectedly acute crisis in military operations.

The immediate fear of the War Department  was that the Japanese might launch another carrier force against some important strategic target—the naval installations at Pearl Harbor (which were still intact), the aircraft factories on the west coast of the United States, or the locks of the Panama Canal. The War Department could do little to make these targets less vulnerable to air attack in the near future, but Marshall was determined that he and his staff should not do less than they could, merely because they could do so little. The Army's war plan RAINBOW 5 went into effect, insofar as it related to Japan, with the notification, on 7 December, to MacArthur and other commanders by the War Department that hostilities had commenced and operations would be governed by RAINBOW 5 as far as possible. During the first week of war, though there were many other affairs that demanded and shared his attention, General Marshall spent several hours daily at Army staff conferences and Joint Board meetings that were mainly taken up with measures to reinforce Hawaii, Panama, and the west coast. The movements to which he was most attentive were quite small—the movement of antiaircraft guns and six regiments of antiaircraft artillery to the west coast, the movement to Hawaii of thirtysix heavy bombers (by air) and (by train and ship) of ammunition, 110 pursuit planes, and some 7,000 men with their unit equipment. In addition the War Department ordered ammunition, air warning equipment, eighty pursuit planes, nine heavy bombers, and 16,000 men sent to Panama as fast as possible, and two pursuit groups and large ground forces (including two infantry divisions) to the west coast. It was an enormous job for the War Department as then constituted to keep track of these hurried movements, especially movements of munitions. Marshall insisted that his immediate subordinates "follow up" on them, especially the very officers upon whom he also relied for plans and recommendations on strategy—Arnold, Gerow, and the members of their staffs.

Behind their immediate fear of air raids on vital installations was the knowledge that the Japanese had forestalled American plans to bring American military strength in the far Pacific up to that required to carry out American foreign policy in the Far East. The Far Eastern Air Force in being, though forewarned, was still by no means equipped, trained, or organized to defend an outpost so far from the United States and so near to Japan. The results of the first Japanese raids of 8 December on the Philippine Islands were a convincing demonstration. They left MacArthur with only seventeen heavy bombers and fewer than seventy pursuit planes.  His air force, already half destroyed, was scarcely more of a threat to Japanese operations than the submarines and inshore patrol left behind in the Philippines by Admiral Hart's Asiatic Fleet. The Japanese were free not only to land in the Philippines but also to move forces southward into the Netherlands Indies with every chance to isolate the Philippines before reinforcements should arrive in the area. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that the United States must accept the loss of the Philippines as inevitable and concentrate on strengthening the local defenses of Hawaii, Panama, Alaska, and the west coast."

Shock and awe is why they were so good early on.

1. they were good the jap army was very well trained and motivated especially good at night & jungle ops.  

2. air superiority.

3. Mostly fighting civilian or paramilitary units.  

4. Asian hatred of British/dutch colonialism.  the sinking of the 2 brit battleships on 41 was HUGE

Ever heard the phrase 'woke the sleeping giant' ?

 


It's very accurate.




Prior to getting involved in WW 2 our military was




In 1939 the US army had just under 200 thousand troops and the navy had 150 thousand troops and the marines had 20 thousand troops.




In 1945 the US army had 8 million, the Navy 3 million, and the Marines 500 thousand.




We weren't actively at war when Pearl Harbot was hit which meant


#1 we hadn't battle tested what kind of  long range defensive scouting was effective and necessesary


#2 we weren't at war, so we really didn't have a need for long range defensive scouting (or we had a decent excuse to be lax, even if, yes, the general trend was that the risk of conflict was building, Washington was saying that the Pacific Fleet should start increasing it's alert status, but they weren't saying where any attacks might take place)


#3 our military was much smaller, meaning we didn't have as great of a capability of long range defensive scouting


#4 we had the defense of a shallow harbor at Pearl Harbor making attacks by torpedo impossible (unless of course someone invents a new torpedo...but you can't really effectively plan or predict on what someone might possibly develop) so that also made long range patrols less necessary


#5 because Pearl Harbor was immune to torpedos, it made sense to bring as many capitol ships there as possible.




What happened in Pearl Harbor only becomes 'predictable and hence avoidable' when you have the after-knowledge of Japan being willing to declare war and attack before officially declaring war.  Everyone talks like we should have seen it coming.  We did see the war with Japan coming, but everything in recent history before that said we'd have some formal declaration first, and we could react more defensively at that time.




on to the Philippines.  Bam! Pearl Harbor happens.  We don't get to wave a magic wand and instantly have millions of troops.  Now, we went from having roughly 200 thousand army troops in 1939 to 1 million in 1941, but that's a far cry from the 5 million to 8 million we had during the intense fighting during the middle and end.  We were struggling to get the troops we had trained up and equipped.  We were struggling to upgrade from World War 1 vintage tanks to something a bit more modern.  We didn't have the time, the men, the equipment, nor the logistical transportation capability, nor the ability to DEFEND the transportation of troops from the US mainland to the Philippines.  Granted, we did send a moderate amount of war materials, and reinforcements of troops, but also realize that for every rifle, machinegun, and tank we sent to the Philippines, that was one less rifle, machinegun, and tank that was going out in the lend-lease program.  For every trained troop that we sent to the Philippines, that was one less trained troop that could go either to another front (Italy and/or North Africa, but also remember that the US forces initially wanted to go right for Germany but the rest of the allies talked them into attacking weaker positions to give them some time to get battle hardened) or, had England fallen, that would have been less trained troops to defend the Continental USA.




That early in the war, weeks after Pearl Harbor, we just didn't have the men nor equipment to stop the Japanese from taking the Philippines without weakening ourselves way too much and without giving up our ability to help our friends who were actively fighting Germany.


 

I though it was common knowledge the US wanted into the war.

No but it was common knowledge the American public wanted nothing to do with foreign wars at the time. Roosevelt and many in Congress wanted a more active involvement in INTL affairs, most of all support for England. But public opinion was against it and Roosevelt knew he would have to face the electorate in 1940 so he could only go so far in assisting
Britain and China. Japans inept attack on PH, and Hitlers equally stupid declaration of war against the USA shortly after, removed that burden from him.

Actually, the Japanese Army in 1941 had no training in jungle operations at all, however their leaders were expected to keep pushing on regardless of difficulties or casualties.  As a result, Japanese units did very well against Allied units that were trying to play it safe with their flanks.  But on Bataan and in New Guinea, against Allied units that either couldn't or wouldn't withdraw, the Japanese took horrible casualties not just from Allied firepower but from starvation and disease.

Actually the IJA was not fond of jungles at all. They were, and are, a hygienic people and didnt like fighting in jungles. They were pretty good at improvising however and were certainly disciplined. I kinda wonder at point #3 because the IJA defeated regular army units in both the Philippines and Singapore.

The sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse may have been big propaganda victories but they didnt really alter any balance in the region. The Japs already had hegemony and two BBs were going to make any kind of difference in what had become a war where the Carrier was king and Land based air power a close second. By that time BBs were pretty much only useful as AA and artillery platforms to protect CVs and assist with marine landings. Even the biggest IJN BBs did little more then host dinner parties, unlike strapping a suicidal kid into a Kamikaze plane "which actually had military value". The Japanese entered the war ill prepared with no modern tanks, no paratroop regiments, a poor pilot raining/replacement pipeline, no real submarine doctrine, and no plan to protect convoys against a resurgent USN. In retrospect one kinda wonders exactly what they were thinking, but, they were in a bind with the trade embargo and America closing the Panama canal to them. That alone, the loss of most of their oil and strategic metals, was a big threat to their military machine.