[Brett]

It is my understanding that HOURS after Pearl
Harbor was raided, most of US planes in the
Philippines were caught on the ground and
destroyed. I believe both the US Army and
Navy commander at Pearl Harbor lost their
command after Dec. 7.

So why didn’t MacArthur, the commander
in the Philippines. lose his job? In the book,
“Commander in Chief: Roosevelt and his Lieutenants”,
the author claims that Roosevelt didn’t relieve
MacArthur because he was politically powerless
and yet was an idol that Roosevelt’s enemies
could worship.

(if this is true, Roosevelt at least got MacArthur’s
political weakness right – in the ’44, ’48, & ’52
Presidential elections MacArthur failed to gain
much support even in Republican primaries, much
less the general election. Ike was far more popular
in 40s & 50s America).

I could imagine a few other possibilities why MacArthur
wasn’t sacked:

1) MacArthur’s career history: Was his record before
’41 so clearly superior to the commanders at Pearl
that it was decided to forgive his getting caught
by surprise? I don’t know enough of the pre-WWII
career of these 3 commanders to comment.

2) US morale reasons: If every commander in the Pacific
lost their jobs, it might have been a huge blow to US
morale, on top of the trauma of the opening of the war.
I imagine MacArthur was far better known than the
commanders at Pearl in Dec. ’41, and thus would have
kept his command.

3) Suitability to the Pacific war. After a very rough 1st year of the war. MacArthur recovered. It is my understanding that his forces advanced with far less casualties than the Central Pacific drive. My personal feeling is that this is not the reason because the amphibious warfare in the Pacific was so unprecedented that no one could have anticipated his skill, especially after MacArthur’s early failures.

(MacArthur’s first year of war just started with the
disastrous initial enemy air raid. All pre-war plans called
for a withdrawal to Bataan & hold out until to relief.
MacArthur instead lost much of his army attempting
against overwhelming enemy air superiority to hold
all of Luzon, and then failed to bring adequate supplies
to Bataan.

In Aug. ’42 he failed to get troops to Buna, New Guinea
despite intelligence warnings of enemy landing there.
This led to a costly 6-month campaign that could have
been prevented had he heeded the warnings.)