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No. 92243
ID: 1bddb7
>>92234
The tl;dr is that the defense of the Philippines was incredibly mismanaged, largely due to MacArthur just palling around with Quezon instead of doing his damn job, so that most of the defenses and military units only existed on paper. Wikipedia has a summary of the initial attack:
>At 03:30 local time on 8 December 1941 (about 09:00 on 7 December in Hawaii), Sutherland learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor and informed MacArthur. At 05:30, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General George Marshall, ordered MacArthur to execute the existing war plan, Rainbow Five. MacArthur did nothing. On three occasions, the commander of the Far East Air Force, Major General Lewis H. Brereton, requested permission to attack Japanese bases in Formosa, in accordance with prewar intentions, but was denied by Sutherland. Not until 11:00 did Brereton speak with MacArthur about it, and obtained permission. MacArthur later denied having the conversation. At 12:30, aircraft of Japan's 11th Air Fleet achieved complete tactical surprise when they attacked Clark Field and the nearby fighter base at Iba Field, and destroyed or disabled 18 of Far East Air Force's 35 B-17s, 53 of its 107 P-40s, three P-35s, and more than 25 other aircraft. Most were destroyed on the ground. Substantial damage was done to the bases, and casualties totaled 80 killed and 150 wounded. What was left of the Far East Air Force was all but destroyed over the next few days.
Then after the attack, large amounts of military supplies and fuel were left in warehouses to be looted or burnt by the locals, while he also denied a request by a commander to burn down warehouses full of rice that the Japanese had sent ahead for their troops. Then he fucked off to Australia with a PT boat full of a half million dollars of gold, leaving his men to be marched to death and have their livers eaten in Japanese POW camps, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Post-war he prevented the execution of a large number of war criminals and the Japanese imperial family.
Bonus: in Korea he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for flying his personal airliner over the frontline to prove that the Chinese weren't going to attack (because he looked out the window and didn't see any chinamen looking back up), the day before the Chinese attacked.
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