BATTLE OF THE PACIFIC: Last Stand

This was the brackish taste of defeat that American soldiers had not known in a major battle since Appomattox. To the grim, battle-weary soldiers of General Douglas MacArthur, backed up into the mountainous fastnesses of the Bataan peninsula, northwest of abandoned Manila, or desperately fending off Japanese attacks on the great harbor fortress of Corregidor, this was it.

It had been inevitable since the Jap smash at Pearl Harbor, his decisive slices into the Philippines' supply line at Wake and Guam. From then on it was a desperate, stubborn, downhill retreat before a foe of overwhelming numbers. The Jap admitted to the folks back home that his own losses were "colossal," that U.S. and Filipino troops fought "like demons." But he had command of the sea and the air.

The pursuits flown with dash and gallantry by stringy Filipinos and husky American boys were finally used up. The bombers that had sunk the ships of the Jap were gone. As the Jap neared Manila, even the flying fields were lost. And the Jap knew as did the American soldier that there would be no more to worry about for a long time. Maybe never.

The Shadow. Backing up in good order, taking their collections in casualties from the invader, Douglas MacArthur and his men had plenty to think about besides the battle.

While they fought and worked with coolness and precision at their staff and supply work, they must have thought of the American women on Luzon. Many of them, perhaps all of them, were now in the areas held by the Jap. Army & Navy men could thank their Government's forethought in ordering service families out of the islands. All were gone, except Douglas MacArthur's wife and three-year-old son, when war struck.

But the wives and daughters of U.S. civilians were still there, and the Japanese were strutting. In abandoned Manila they ordered all whites to stay indoors or be shot. From his fortress in the harbor, Douglas MacArthur charged that this treatment of U.S. civilians was already "especially harsh."

Days before, Douglas MacArthur knew what he had to do. The naval base at Cavite, on the south shore of the harbor, had already been abandoned, its stores removed or destroyed. Admiral Tommy Hart had snaked his ships out and away to the open sea. The Army was disposed in a crescent about Manila with its right flank in the narrow neck south of the town, its left sweeping north and westward into the Bataan peninsula.

The Retreat. Manila was an unequivocal liability. It lies in flat land with its back to the bay. It could be only a trap—a soft spot for a wedge to be driven home by the Jap to split the Army. As he had long planned to do in a last-ditch fight, General MacArthur abandoned Manila, already declared an open city, already heavily bombed.

The careful training of U.S. forces paid handsome dividends. U.S. troops moved their guns and trains in good order.

Before the week's end the withdrawal had been skillfully completed. The Army of the Philippines was holed up in an area almost devoid of roads, tough for armored-force operations, ideal for making the Jap pay for what he might eventually get. He made his first payment as this week began. Douglas MacArthur announced the Jap had lost at least 700 killed in a single, thwarted attack on the U.S. lines.