December 8, 1941: MacArthur's Pearl Harbor

Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series #87

by William H. Bartsch

Ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “another Pearl Harbor” of even more devastating consequence for American arms occurred in the Philippines, 4,500 miles to the west. On December 8, 1941, at 12.35 p.m., 196 Japanese Navy bombers and fighters crippled the largest force of B-17 four-engine bombers outside the United States and also decimated their protective P-40 interceptors. The sudden blow allowed the Japanese to rule the skies over the Philippines, removing the only effective barrier that stood between them and their conquest of Southeast Asia. This event has been called “one of the blackest days in American military history.”

How could the army commander in the Philippines—the renowned Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur—have been caught with all his planes on the ground when he had been alerted in the small hours of that morning of the Pearl Harbor attack and warned of the likelihood of a Japanese strike on his forces? In this book, author William H. Bartsch attempts to answer this and other related questions.

Bartsch draws upon twenty-five years of research into American and Japanese records and interviews with many of the participants themselves, particularly survivors of the actual attack on Clark and Iba air bases. The dramatic and detailed coverage of the attack is preceded by an account of the hurried American build-up of air power in the Philippines after July, 1941, and of Japanese planning and preparations for this opening assault of its Southern Operations. Bartsch juxtaposes the experiences of staff of the U.S. War Department in Washington and its Far East Air Force bomber, fighter, and radar personnel in the Philippines, who were affected by its decisions, with those of Japan’s Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo and the 11th Air Fleet staff and pilots on Formosa, who were assigned the responsibility for carrying out the attack on the Philippines five hundred miles to the south. In order to put the December 8th attack in broader context, Bartsch details micro-level personal experiences and presents the political and strategic aspects of American and Japanese planning for a war in the Pacific.

Despite the significance of this subject matter, it has never before been given full book-length treatment. This book represents the culmination of decades-long efforts of the author to fill this historical gap.

Genres: World War II, History

568 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

William H. Bartsch, a former United Nations development economist and independent consultant, now works exclusively researching and writing on the Pacific War. He is the author of three books published by Texas A&M University Press: "Doomed at the Start: American Pursuit Pilots in the Philippines, 1941-1942," "December 8, 1941: MacArthur's Pearl Harbor," and "Everyday a Nightmare: American Pursuit Pilots in the Defense of Java, 1941-1942."

Reviews

[Gus Breymann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The publisher's review covers it all. I would add only three points. First, the author incorporates both American and Japanese records effectively and authoritatively. It was chilling to read, for example, how Japanese pilots learned of their country's success at Pearl Harbor as they waited beside their planes on Formosa to take off for the attacks on Clark and Iba. Second, my own perspective about Clark Field had been shaped for many years by what happened in the air until I read this book. Bill Bartsch adds a dramatic new perspective--taken from accounts of the men who were there--about what happened on the ground at Clark and Iba as the bombs began exploding. It was a horrifying human tragedy for both Americans and Filipinos who were killed and injured by the attacks. Third, Bartsch's epilogue(pages 409-424)is an absolutely invaluable, original analysis of blame for our failure at Clark Field. If you read the book, you'll also discover that an American officer not considered before played a significant role in the communication failure that allowed the attack to happen with the B-17s, B-18s and P-40s parked on the ground. Note: This is my second reading of the book, having read it the first time immediately after it was published in 2003. I went back to it this year after reading a 2014 biography of Douglas MacArthur in which the author of the new biography fixes blame for Clark Field differently---and I believe erroneously and without documentation. Bartsch's 86 pages of notes and sources make his book more trustworthy with respect to December 8.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

"December 8, 1941: MacArthur's Pearl Harbor" is the third of William H. Bartsch's books I've read on the tragedy of the United States military disasters in the Pacific in 1941 and early 1942, the others being "Every Day a Nightmare: American Pursuit Pilots in the Defense of Java 1941-1942" and "Doomed at the Start: American Pursuit Pilots in the Philippines, 1941-1942." These are extremely important books as the sacrifices of the men involved have largely been forgotten by Americans.

In "MacArthur's Pearl Harbor, Bartsch did his usual excellent job of describing the action, giving an account of almost every pilot and many of the ground crew who served the United States in the Pacific but were overwhelmed by the Japanese. In this book Bartsch concentrates on the first day of Japanese attack on the Philippines, the day when much of General Douglas MacArthur's airpower was caught on the ground and destroyed the day AFTER the attack on Pearl Harbor. With a full day's warning there was no reason why the disaster could not have been prevented.

Douglas MacArthur was not, in my opinion, a great general. He may have been a genius but his true talent was in self-promotion and not in military strategy. His force was caught flat footed on 8 December and he should have been cashiered for it as happened to General Walter Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel who were the victim's of an actual surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. I have always wondered how MacArthur could have abandoned his men and fled the Philippines six months after the attack. The answer is probably that the press was his friend.

A lot of really good men fought hard and suffered greatly in the Philippines and deserved better leadership than they got.

Read "MacArthur's Pearl Harbor." It ia a really good book.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Until recently I didn't understand all of Imperial Japan's closely coordinated attacks that happened nearly simultaneously to the Pearl Harbor raid. The attack on the Philippines is of special interest because a friend lost a relative there, a young soldier who'd enlisted only months before, and was deployed as a radio operator with a Philippines squadron of pursuit planes (P-40s). He'd only arrived weeks before the attack, and died in the initial bombing. That led me to learn about this entire campaign, which ended in a heroic defense of the Bataan peninsula but started with grave strategic errors by American high command (i.e. MacArthur). They had 9-hours warning after Pearl Harbor, and yet suffered a similar fate with planes parked together, and largely destroyed on the ground. Japan gained air superiority very easily.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

After covering the build up to the start of the war, Mr. Bartsch covers in nearly minute by minute detail what happened in the Phillipines on Dec. 8th - and from both sides. But there the book ends. Nothing addresses why no one chose to look at the disaster more closely. The popular picture is also that nearly all of the FEAF was destroyed on the ground. Yet, while the losses were significant, there was still a substantial force left. The issue begs for coverage in an epilogue, if not another book to reverse the popular misconceptions.