Caught on the Ground

The attack on Clark Air Base on December 8, 1941

In the popular history of World War II, the assertion that the United States was caught “unprepared” in Hawaii and the Philippines has become widely accepted as fact. However, in the case of the Philippines the proper word should be “under-prepared,” as this term more accurately represents the true situation that existed in the Philippine Islands in the early morning hours of December 8, 1941. While neither the War Department nor the Navy expected the Japanese to attack the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, for several months before the day that President Franklin Roosevelt prophesied would “live in infamy,” authorities in Washington, DC had been planning for war to break out in the Pacific. When it did, they fully expected that the Philippines would be involved, and preparations were being made to defend the islands. Unfortunately, the Japanese attack came when preparations had barely begun. The allegation has also often been made that General Douglas MacArthur personally caused the destruction of the Air Corps in the Philippines through indecision – this is also more myth than fact.

In 1941 the Philippines Islands were a possession of the United States and had been for four decades. The islands had come into US hands as a condition of the treaty with Spain that ended the Spanish-American War in 1898. Since that time there had been mixed emotions on the part of the Filipino people; while many had come to love the United States, which was a benevolent master in comparison to Spain, they also yearned for independence. Located just off the Asian mainland and stretching from the northernmost island of Luzon to Mindanao, the islands were the United States’ westernmost possession in the Pacific. The Japanese-owned island of Formosa lay some 450 miles to the north of Manila, while portions of mainland China that had been occupied by the Japanese was only a few hundred miles further, but to the west. The oil-rich East Indies lay to the south.

B-10

Planning for war in the Pacific was found in the RAINBOW No. 5 war plan, which basically called for the United States to fight a defensive war against Japan while concentrating the main effort on an offensive in Europe. Under its provisions, the Philippines would be written off and abandoned to the enemy, while all US forces would withdraw to a defensive line running from Alaska through Hawaii. Rainbow No. 5 was approved in the spring of 1941, but the plan was revised as the threat of war intensified. Because of their proximity to Japanese territory in the Pacific, the attitude of the War Department toward the Philippines changed from that the islands were “an outpost” that wasn’t important enough to defend, to their being of strategic importance in the defense of the region.

Prior to 1941 the War Department paid little attention to the Philippines, except for the maintenance of the garrison forces at Fort Stotsenberg and the cavalry and infantry troops made up of Filipinos led by American officers. The Navy had facilities at Cavite on Manila Bay where a few destroyers and PT boats were based, along with a seaplane squadron equipped with Consolidated PBYs. Very little attention had been given to air forces – as late as the spring of 1940 Army Air Corps aircraft in the islands consisted of a few obsolete open-cockpit, fixed landing gear Boeing P-26 pursuit planes, a handful of B-10 bombers and three more modern Douglas B-18s.

Things began to change in the Philippines in the late summer of 1941 as American relations with Japan deteriorated. When Japanese forces occupied French Indochina, President Franklin Roosevelt responded with an embargo on the sale of oil and other products to Japan in keeping with previous economic sanctions. The move precipitated worsening relations and it soon became apparent that war in the Pacific was inevitable – and that the Philippines would be in the line of the Japanese advance southward toward the oil fields in the Netherlands East Indies. As one of the most powerful naval countries in the world, Japan had to have oil to fuel the huge engines of its many ships. The US began reinforcing the islands, and recalled former US Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, who had retired in the Philippines where he served as Field Marshall of the Filipino military, to active duty to take command of all military forces based there. Several US Army air and ground units were alerted for movement to the Philippines.

The buildup of air strength in the islands was crucial to the new American plan. New Curtis P-40 pursuit planes were sent to replace the outmoded P-26s, along with two squadrons of Seversky P-35s. While the P-35s were of a more recent design than the open-cockpit P-26s, they were already obsolete by 1941 standards. Additional B-18s were sent to replace the antiquated B-10s in the 28^th Bombardment Squadron. By August 1941 Air Corps strength in the Philippines consisted of one squadron of P-40s, two with P-35s and two squadrons of B-18s, although one Filipino squadron was still equipped with P-26s.  The B-10s had also been transferred to the Philippines Air Force.

More modern aircraft were on the way; the newly created Army Air Forces Headquarters believed that the presence of a large force of heavy bombers would serve to secure the islands and perhaps deter Japanese threats to the region. The theory would soon be proved unfounded but in 1941 four-engine Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and the newly developed Consolidated B-24 Liberators that had been designed as their replacements were believed to be capable of destroying powerful naval forces while they were still at sea. Additional fighters were authorized for delivery direct from the factories to the Philippines, with others to be taken from operational units in the United States. War Department plans for the Philippines called for four heavy bomber groups with 272 operational airplanes and an additional 68 in reserve, along with two pursuit groups of 130 airplanes to be in place by April 1942.

In May elements formerly with the 19^th Bombardment Group arrived at Hickam Field, Hawaii for duty with the Hawaiian Air Force. At that time, they were the only US heavy bombers stationed outside the United States. In late July the Army Air Corps decided to move the entire group further westward to the Philippines, with a provisional squadron from the Hawaiian Air Force making the initial move. On the morning of September 5, 1941, nine Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses with 75 air and ground crew members aboard left Hickam for Midway Island, on the first leg of a journey that would take more than a week to complete.

From Midway Major Emmett “Rosie” O’Donnell led the flight of B-17s on to Wake Island, then south to Port Moresby on Papua, New Guinea. This leg of the flight brought the bombers over territory that belonged to Japan by mandate; the flight departed Wake at midnight so the bombers would be over Japanese territory during the hours of darkness to avoid detection. Their final stop before proceeding northward to their destination at Clark Field in Central Luzon was Darwin, a town on the north coast of Australia. The arrival of the B-17s reassured the senior officers in the War Department in Washington that the Philippines could, in fact, be reinforced by air if need be. Impressed by the flight, General MacArthur authorized the establishment of refueling sites in New Guinea and Australia in preparation for future movements.

Plans were made for the transfer of additional Army Air Forces groups to the islands. In November the Rainbow No. 5 plan was revised somewhat in that military strength in the Philippines was to be increased substantially, including a major buildup of air power. By the end of the month the US Army in the Philippines was to receive an additional 26 B-17s to fill out the complement of the 19^th Bombardment Group. In addition, the 27^th Bombardment Group (Light) was to arrive aboard ship, with its complement of 52 Douglas A-24 dive-bombers to follow. Although the United States military was strapped for personnel and equipment, the defense of the Philippines was given the highest priority. The War Department scraped the bottom of the barrel to find units to deploy, while additional air and ground troops were being trained for movement to the islands as soon as they were organized. Since the Wake Island-to-Moresby route came in close proximity to Japanese territory, a new South Pacific ferry route was under establishment. Plans were also made for a route over which fighters could be delivered to the Philippines from assembly points in Australia.

After the initial deployment of the 14^th Bombardment Squadron, the entire 19^th Bombardment Group was alerted in mid-October for the movement to the islands. The group’s remaining 26 Flying Fortresses departed Hamilton Field, California and had arrived at Hickam by October 22^nd. By November 6, barely a month before the outbreak of the war, 25 B-17s had arrived at Clark – one airplane was temporarily grounded at Darwin but arrived within a few days. Only two squadrons of the 19^th Bombardment Group made the trip to the Philippines – the 28^th Bombardment Group, which had been in the Philippines for more than a decade, joined the unit along with the 14^th Bombardment Squadron, which had arrived from Hawaii in September. Personnel from the 28^th gave up their twin-engine B-18s and joined the 19^th to fly B-17s. The B-18s were reassigned to liaison and transport duty.

With the arrival of the additional B-17s, US heavy bomber strength in the islands was up to 35 airplanes and more were scheduled to make the trip. Major General Lewis H. Brereton was sent to Manila to take command of all air units in the islands and assume a place on General Douglas MacArthur’s staff. On November 16 Far East Air Force activated under Brereton’s command.  Authorization had been given for the establishment of Fifth Air Force, but the headquarters hadn’t been activated before the war broke out, although the bomber and pursuit commands were. The new FEAF included V Bomber Command under Lt. Colonel Eugene L. Eubank and V Interceptor Command under Brigadier General Henry B. Claggett.

In early November an order was put out that all “modernized” B-17s would be sent to the Philippines. Additional heavy bomber squadrons, including some that were set to equip with the new Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber, were also ordered to the islands. The 7^th Bombardment Group was on its way to Clark Field, with the ground components setting sail from San Francisco on November 21 – the first flight of B-17s was scheduled to depart California in late November and early December. Additional B-17s and B-24s would follow as they were delivered from the factories. While the Boeing B-17s were to be the main striking component of V Bomber Command, the 27^th Bombardment Group’s light bombers would also be a part. The group was equipped with the Douglas A-24 Dauntless dive-bomber, an airplane that the US Navy would use with great effect, but the group’s airplanes never arrived in the islands.

While the arrival of the heavy bombers would give the American forces in the Philippines the power to strike at Japanese positions on Formosa and in parts of China, the increase in pursuit capabilities would provide protection from air attack. In early October the Air Corps activated the 24^th Pursuit Group in the Philippines; a month later it was joined by elements of the 35^th Pursuit Group, although that group’s headquarters was still at sea when the Japanese attack came. By the end of November all of the pursuit squadrons had equipped with either P-40Bs or Es, except for the 34^th Pursuit Squadron, which was still flying P-35s. To protect Luzon, the fighter squadrons were dispersed, with the 17^th and 21^st squadrons operating out of Nichols Field outside Manila and the 20^th at Clark. The 3^rd Pursuit Squadron was based at Iba, a small grass field on the China Sea across the 2,000-foot Zambales Mountains from Ft. Stotsenberg and Clark. The field was barely large enough to accommodate the 18 Curtis P-40Es that made up the 3^rd Pursuit Squadron, but it was the closest fighter airfield to the approach routes to the American military installations around Manila. Previously, Iba was used primarily as an advanced field for gunnery training on the ranges in the nearby Zambales.

Along with the basing of the 3^rd Pursuit Squadron at Iba, General Brereton stationed an aircraft early warning radar team there, although the technology was still new and the operators were just learning their trade. Because of its location on the opposite side of the 2,000-foot mountains from Clark Field on the shore of the China Sea, Iba was a logical choice for a radar site. In all, seven radar sets had arrived in the Philippines by early December, but Iba was the only one operational. Another at Manila was in the process of being set up when war came. General MacArthur borrowed from the practice used in China of establishing a rudimentary aircraft warning system that depended on Filipinos stationed at crucial locations and connected to V Fighter Command by telephone and telegraph. Information received from the sites would then be transmitted to a plotting center at Clark Field. It was a burdensome system, made even more so by the primitive Filipino communication system. During early tests, it took nearly an hour for word of spotted aircraft to reach the interceptor command post at Nichols Field.

Iba was not the only airfield that the Far East Air Forces elected to develop in its plan for the defense of the Philippines. Members of Brereton’s staff felt that the establishment of a heavy bomber base in the Southern Philippines on Mindanao was needed, a proposal that was initially opposed since the Rainbow .5 plan did not call for ground forces to be used to defend that particular island. But the soil on Mindanao was ideally suited for all-weather runways, a factor that weighted the argument in favor of a southern base. Until a new airfield could be constructed, a temporary base was set up at the airstrip on the Del Monte Pineapple plantation. On December 5^th two squadrons from the 19^th Bombardment Group – half of the heavy bomber strength then in the islands – deployed to Del Monte Field. Brereton’s operations plan called for the bombers to be based on Mindanao, but to stage through Clark on missions against Japanese positions on Formosa when war came. The Fifth Air Base Group arrived at Manila aboard the USS Coolidge in early December and was sent immediately to Mindanao by island steamer to support the B-17s.

The United States initially based its buildup in the Philippines on a timeline that would see war with Japan begin sometime in the spring of 1942. But a worsening diplomatic situation was leading to an increase in the potential for hostilities, to the point that by November it was apparent that war could break out at any moment. In early November the War Department sent a message to commanders in the Pacific advising that war with Japan was imminent, but that it was extremely important for the Japanese to carry out the first hostile act. Apparently, the leadership in Washington believed the American public would be more likely to support a war if the Japanese attacked first. General Douglas MacArthur apparently interpreted this letter to include any action that could be considered hostile, and forbade reconnaissance missions over Formosa even when unidentified aircraft were reported around and over Luzon. In late November, in response to a British suggestion, the War Department notified General MacArthur that two long-range B-24 Liberators equipped with photographic equipment would depart for the Philippines by November 28. Their mission would be to photograph Japanese installations in the Marshall Islands and the Carolines. As it turned out, the departure of the modified Liberators was delayed and the first arrived in Hawaii on December 5. It was held at Hickam for armament modifications and would become the first American aircraft loss of the war when Japanese planes struck Hickam Field.

The Air Corps intensified its preparations for war in early November and General Brereton ordered his commanders to be prepared for any emergency. Aircraft were to be dispersed and kept on an operationally ready status, with their crews on 2-hour alert day and night. The 19^th Bombardment Group was ordered to maintain one squadron for reconnaissance and bombing missions at all times, while the 24^th Pursuit Group was to have three planes from each squadron on alert from dawn until dusk. The orders were put into effect on November 10, nearly a month before war broke out. Within less than a week, all pursuit aircraft in the islands were placed on constant alert, with the airplanes fully armed and the pilots on a 30-minute alert. Some fighter pilots slept by their airplanes.

Early December saw an increase in the effort to beef up American air strength in the Philippines. While only 35 heavy bombers had arrived in the islands, others were on the way, along with 52 A-24 dive-bombers for the 27^th Bombardment Group and 18 additional P-40s that were bound for the islands aboard ship. On December 1 Army Air Corps General Henry H. Arnold notified the commander of the Hawaiian Air Force that “we must get every available B-17 to the Philippines as soon as possible.” On December 6 a flight of 13 B-17s left Hamilton Field for Hickam on the first leg of their journey to Clark. Their arrival at Clark would have continued the build-up of the heavy bomber force that was expected to be at full strength by April 1942. Unfortunately, time was running out at a rate much faster than expected.

Even though new aircraft were arriving in the Philippines on a regular basis, that did not mean they or the men who flew them were operationally ready.  The fighters arrived in crates, and required assembly and maintenance before they were combat ready. Engines had to be broken-in and slow-timed, while guns had to be bore-sighted. Many of the fighters were still not operationally ready when war broke out. A major problem for the fighter pilots was the lack of a source of oxygen in the islands, which restricted the P-40s to sustained operations at altitudes of 15,000 feet and below. The pilots themselves were inexperienced, which was a factor in what happened when war came. Most were fresh from pilot training and had very little experience in the P-40s they were to take into combat. More fighters would be lost in the battle for the Philippines to accident and mechanical failure or simply running out of fuel than to combat. Their radio equipment was primitive and everyone in the islands used the same frequencies. And even though the P-40s were first-line fighters, one squadron, the 34^th Pursuit, was still equipped with already obsolete P-35s.

During the more than half a century since December 7, 1941 many historians have concentrated on the “lack of decisiveness” on the part of General Douglas MacArthur during the first hours of the war. They have given the impression that no action was taken by the air forces in the Philippines, that the Japanese “caught the air force on the ground” and destroyed it within minutes. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The American forces in the Philippines learned of the attack within an hour after it started, not through timely notification by the War Department, but through a local radio station which picked up a broadcast from a Honolulu station and contacted the military. The Navy already knew of the attack but had failed to inform MacArthur’s headquarters in Manila. Upon receiving the news, MacArthur immediately informed his subordinates that the country was at war and instructed them to take appropriate action.

The Army Air Forces squadrons were informed – they were already on a status of high alert and had been for several weeks. On the evening of December 7, the officers of the newly arrived 27^th Bombardment Group, which still had no airplanes, threw a party for General Brereton at the Manila Hotel. Brereton was called out of the party for conferences with Admiral Purnell, the senior naval officer in the islands, and General Richard Sutherland, chief of staff for MacArthur, who informed him of a message from Washington advising that war could break out at any moment. Brereton notified his air units and canceled a training operation for the B-17s that was scheduled for the next day. Within an hour after the party broke up at 2:00 in the morning, word reached the Philippines that Hawaii was under attack.

Within thirty minutes after the first word of the attack reached Manila, the Army Air Forces radar site at Iba picked up a large formation of unidentified airplanes about 75 miles off-shore and plotted their track toward Corregidor. The 3^rd Pursuit Squadron dispatched its fighters to make the intercept and they were tracked by radar as they flew toward the unknown formation. The radar operators saw the blips merge on their scope, but the fighter pilots never saw the unknown aircraft in the pre-dawn darkness. Apparently they flew beneath the Japanese. After failing to locate the unidentified aircraft, they returned to Iba and breakfast. What the Japanese did is unclear, since the first attacks were still several hours away. Apparently, they were on a reconnaissance flight.

The United States forces in the Philippines were officially notified at 0500 Manila time that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. At this point “the record” becomes confusion. Air Force historians Wesley Craven and James Cate point out that no real record exists of the events of December 8, 1941, as they took place in the Philippines. What records that were kept were lost during the coming events in the islands, while unit histories were written “after the fact” and were possibly – even probably – considerably contrived. Author and historian Walter D. Edmonds took over a project that involved interviewing participants in the battles for the Philippines and Java that had begun in 1942 at the request of General Henry H. Arnold. Edmonds interviewed dozens of airmen, and carefully scrutinized diaries and combat reports. He published the results in They Fought With What They Had, which was originally published in 1951. Edmonds believed that the “official records” were compiled after the fact and were sometimes doctored so they agreed with the positions of certain senior officers. General Brereton published his Brereton Dairies right after the war – and General Douglas MacArthur promptly denied some of the information contained in them. General Henry H. Arnold claimed that he never really knew what happened in the Philippines on December 8 – even though it was widely known that a detailed report was sent to him within days of the event.

Many historians focus on the Japanese 11^th Air Fleet being grounded at its airfields around Tainan on Formosa due to a thick fog.  While the Japanese naval aircraft did not launch until the fog lifted, army bombers were not hampered by the weather. A formation of twin-engine bombers attacked Baguio at around 9:30. Accounts differ as to when Iba was attacked. Although most historians record that the field was attacked simultaneously with Clark, other reports indicate that Iba was first struck at daybreak, shortly after the 3^rd Pursuit Squadron returned from their attempted interception of the Japanese formation just before dawn. Based on reports from those interviewed by Edmonds, the Iba attack came shortly before the attack on Clark.

At 0500 General Brereton was at General MacArthur’s headquarters at Manila. The Air Corps commander wished to gain permission from MacArthur for an air strike on the Japanese airfields on Formosa, or so he said in his memoir. According to legend, General Richard Sutherland, MacArthur’s chief of staff, kept Brereton from meeting with his boss. MacArthur claimed that he was never consulted about an attack and that he wouldn’t have approved it anyway, as it would have been futile. Whether MacArthur’s observation was based on the reality of the time or came through the gift of hindsight, it was pretty astute. Regardless of what really happened, at 1014 Brereton reported that he received a phone call from MacArthur authorizing him to carry out an attack on Formosa in late afternoon at his discretion. A few minutes before the phone call, Lt. Colonel Eugene Eubank, the commander of V Bomber Command, left for Clark with orders to dispatch a reconnaissance flight over the Japanese airfields on Formosa in preparation for a strike. There is reason to believe that Brereton received authority, possibly from Sutherland, to mount an air strike against Japanese installations on Formosa as early as 8:00 AM.

Instead of taking no action, as so many have asserted, the Army Air Forces in the Philippines were very active from the moment they were notified of the attack on Pearl Harbor and Hickam – and even before in the case of the squadron at Iba. The 3^rd Pursuit launched in the wee hours of the morning to intercept a large formation radar had picked up over the South China Sea. Fighter patrols were in the air within an hour of the notification that war had come. At some time around 0800, at the insistence of Colonel Harold George, the chief of staff of V Fighter Command, all B-17s at Clark were ordered to take off so they would not be caught on the ground by an expected Japanese attack. The detachment at Mindanao was notified to prepare to return to Clark for a bombing mission.

 At 0923 Colonel George reported that two formations of multiengine bombers were over Northern Luzon. The 20^th Pursuit Squadron was directed to make the interception, but the Japanese turned east and struck the Filipino summer capital of Baguio instead of continuing south toward Clark Field or Manila as expected. Other Filipino cities were reportedly bombed during the morning hours – Tarlac, a town just north of Clark Field, and Tuguegarao, a city in northern Luzon. American P-40s from the 20^th Pursuit Squadron had expected to intercept the Japanese fighters over Rosales, a town south of Baguio, but failed to make contact with the enemy.