United States Army in WWII - the Pacific - Strategy and Command: the First Two Years

[Illustrated Edition]

Professor Louis Morton

• Publisher: Verdun Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781782893974
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

With 13 tables, 16 charts, 17 maps, 8 diagrams & 92 illustrations]
Strategy is a many-sided word, connoting different things to different people. The author of any work on strategy, therefore, owes it to his reader to define at the outset his own conception of this ambiguous term...
In the present volume, the author has viewed strategy broadly, including within it not only the art of military command-the original meaning of the term-but all those activities associated with the preparation for and the conduct of war in the Pacific.
Viewed thus, the arena of Pacific strategy is the council chamber rather than the coral atoll; its weapons are not bombs and guns but the mountains of memoranda, messages, studies, and plans that poured forth from the deliberative bodies entrusted with the conduct of the war; its sound is not the clash of arms but the cool voice of reason or the heated words of debate thousands of miles from the scene of conflict...It deals with policy and grand strategy on the highest level-war aims, the choice of allies and theaters of operations, the distribution of forces and supplies, and the organization created to use them. On only a slightly lower level, it deals with more strictly military matters-with the choice of strategies, with planning and the selection of objectives, with the timing of operations, the movement of forces and, finally, their employment in battle.
Strategy in its larger sense is more than the handmaiden of war, it is an inherent element of statecraft, akin to policy, and encompasses preparations for war as well as the war itself. Thus, this volume treats the prewar period in some detail, not in any sense as introductory to the main theme but as an integral and important part of the story of Pacific strategy. The great lessons of war, it has been observed, are to be found in the events preceding the outbreak of hostilities. It is then that the great decisions are made and the nature of the war largely determined.

PART ONE—The Road to War

“Am I deceived, or was there a clash of arms? I am not deceived, it was a clash of arms; Mars approaches, and, approaching, gave the sign of war.—OVID

For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower of rain but in an inclination thereto of many days together; so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.—THOMAS HOBBES”

Chapter I: The Beginnings of Pacific Strategy

“Covenants without swords are but words.—HOBBES, Leviathan”

At the turn of the twentieth century, after the war with Spain, the United States for the first time in a hundred years found itself involved closely in the affairs of other nations. Possession of the Philippine Islands, Guam, Hawaii, and part of the Samoan archipelago had made the United States a world power and imposed on it the grave responsibility of defending outposts far from its shores. Such a defense rested, as Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan had demonstrated, on sea power, on the possession of naval bases and a powerful fleet. Without these, no island garrison could hope to prevail against a naval power strong enough to gain supremacy in the Pacific.

Theodore Roosevelt, a close friend and student of Admiral Mahan, understood the importance of sea power and it was no accident that during-his administration steps were taken to strengthen the Navy and to build the Panama Canal. But the work begun by him was not pushed vigorously in the years that followed. The American people were overwhelmingly isolationist and unwilling to pay the price of colonial empire. Thus, almost from the beginning of America's venture into imperialism the nation committed itself to political objectives but would not maintain the naval and military forces required to support these objectives. It is against this background that American strategy in the Pacific and plans for the defense of U.S. island outposts must be viewed; it explains many of the seeming inconsistencies between policies and plans.

Early Plans for Defense

The defense of the 7,100 islands in the Philippine archipelago, lying in an exposed position 7,000 miles from the west coast of the United States, was for over thirty years the basic problem of Pacific strategy. From the start it was apparent that it would be impossible to defend all or even the major islands. A choice had to be made, and it fell inevitably on Luzon, the largest, richest, and most important of the islands. Only a few months after his victory in Manila Bay, Admiral Dewey, asserting that Luzon was the most valuable island in the Philippines, "whether considered from a commercial or military standpoint," recommended that a naval station be established there.{1} In the years that followed there was never any deviation from this view. Down to the outbreak of World War II that island, and especially the Manila area with its fine harbor and transportation facilities, remained the chief problem for American strategic planners.

Though the basic element of Pacific strategy was a strong Navy with supporting bases, this alone would not suffice. Successful defense of an insular position like the Philippines required an Army garrison, coastal fortifications, and mobile forces to resist invasion. And perhaps as important as any of these was the close co-operation of the Army and Navy. In a sense, this was the vital element that would blend the ingredients of defense into a strategic formula for victory.

The mechanism devised for Army-Navy co-operation was the Joint Board, established in 1903 by the two service Secretaries. The board, consisting of eight members—four from the Army's General Staff and four from the General Board of the Navy—had a modest task initially. To it came all matters that required co-operation between the two services. It had no executive functions or command authority, and reported to the War and Navy Secretaries. Its recommendations were purely advisory, and became effective only upon approval by both Secretaries, and, in some cases, by the President himself.{2}

Almost from the start, the main task of the Joint Board was the development of war plans. The impetus was provided by Lt. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, Army Chief of Staff, who proposed in April 1904, shortly after Japan's attack on Russia, that the Joint Board develop a series of plans for joint action in an emergency requiring the co-operation of the services. These plans, he suggested, should be based upon studies developed by the Army General Staff and the General Board of the Navy.{3}

From General Chaffee's proposal stemmed a series of war plans known as the color plans. Each of these plans was designed to meet a specific emergency designated by a color corresponding usually to the code name of the nation involved—RED for Great Britain, BLACK for Germany, GREEN for Mexico, ORANGE for Japan. On the basis of these joint color plans each of the services developed its own plan to guide its operations in an emergency, and Army and Navy field and fleet commanders drew up the plans to carry out these operations. In some cases, the early war plans were little more than abstract exercises and bore little relation to actual events. But in the case of Japan, the ORANGE plans were kept under constant review and revised frequently to accord with changes in the international scene.

The first serious examination of plans to resist a Japanese attack came in the summer of 1907. At that time tension between the United States and Japan, which had begun with the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905 and the San Francisco School Board segregation order in 1906, reached the proportions of a war scare. War seemed imminent and the protection of American interests in the Far East, especially of the newly acquired Philippine Islands, became an urgent problem. On 18 June 1907, in response to an inquiry from President Theodore Roosevelt, the Joint Board recommended that the fleet be sent to the Orient as soon as possible and that Army and Navy forces in the Philippines be immediately deployed in such a manner as to protect the naval station at Subic Bay. Because of Japan's strength, the Joint Board stated, "The United States would be compelled...to take a defensive attitude in the Pacific and maintain that attitude until reinforcements could be sent...."{4} This view, adopted by necessity in 1907, became finally the keystone of America's strategy in the Pacific and the basis of all planning for a war against Japan.

VIEW FROM MANILA BAY, showing Corregidor Island at center with Caballo Island at lower left and a portion of Bataan Peninsula at upper right.

The crisis of the summer of 1907, though it passed without incident, brought into sharp focus two weaknesses of America's position in the Pacific: the need for a major naval base in the area and the fact that the Philippine Islands could not be held except at great expense and with a large force. The islands, wrote Roosevelt at the height of the crisis, "form our heel of Achilles....I would rather see this nation fight all her life than to see her give them up to Japan or to any other nation under duress."{5}

The question of naval bases was debated by the Joint Board and by Congressional committees during the months that followed. Two questions had to be decided: first, whether America's major base in the Pacific should be located in the Philippines or Hawaii; and second, whether the Philippines base should be in Subic Bay or Manila Bay. Though strong representation was made—especially by the Army—for locating the major base in the Philippine Islands, the Joint Board in January 1908 selected Pearl Harbor. The Hawaiian base, the board pointed out, was not designed to defend the Hawaiian Islands alone but to provide "a buffer of defense" for the entire Pacific coast and to lay the basis for American naval supremacy in the Pacific. In May of that year Congress authorized construction of the Pearl Harbor base and appropriated $ 1,000,000 for the purpose. This step, the House Naval Affairs Committee believed, would constitute in the future "one of the strongest factors in the prevention of war with any powers in the Far East."{6}

Though the decision had been made to locate America's Pacific bastion in Hawaii, it was still necessary to provide for the defense of the Philippines, 5,000 miles away. A naval repair station and a secondary fleet base would have to be constructed in the islands, but there was strong disagreement even on this question. The Navy favored Subic Bay but the Army asserted that a base there would be indefensible against land attack and that Manila Bay, for a variety of reasons, should be selected. The Joint Board finally decided in favor of Cavite, on the south shore of Manila Bay, and the Army adopted a plan to concentrate its defenses in and around that bay on the islands in its narrow neck—Corregidor, Caballo, El Fraile, and Carabao—thus screening the naval base as well as the capital and chief city of the islands. It was this concept—the defense of the Manila Bay area and the fortification of Corregidor and its neighboring islands—that guided American planners until the outbreak of war in 1941.{7}

But no system of fortifications could guarantee the defense of the islands. The essential thing, as Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood pointed out at the time, was a strong fleet based in the Philippines. "Once sea control is lost," he asserted, "the enemy can move troops in force and the question then becomes one of time."{8} Congress and the Joint Board, by concentrating fleet facilities in Hawaii, had, in effect, relegated the Philippines to a secondary place in strategic plans for the Pacific and made all hopes for its defense dependent upon the security of Hawaii and the ability of the fleet to move westward from Pearl Harbor.

The ORANGE Plan

The first ORANGE plans were hardly plans at all but rather statements of principles, which, it was hoped, could be followed in the event of war with Japan. By 1913, the strategic principles of the plan had been exhaustively studied and were well understood. In case of war with Japan, it was assumed that the Philippines would be the enemy's first objective. Defense of the islands was recognized as dependent on the Battle Fleet, which, on outbreak of war, would have to make its way from the Caribbean area around the Cape—the Panama Canal was not yet completed—and then across the wide Pacific. Along the way the fleet would have to secure its line of communication, using the incomplete base at Pearl Harbor and the undeveloped harbor at Guam. Once the fleet was established in Philippine waters, it could relieve the defenders, who presumably would have held on during this period, variously estimated at three and four months. Thereafter, Army forces, reinforced by a steady stream of men and supplies, could take the offensive on the ground while the Navy contested for control of the western Pacific.{9}

During World War I planning for war in the Pacific was discontinued except for a brief flurry of activity in 1916, when Japanese vessels appeared off the Philippine Islands. And in the postwar period, the planners faced a situation considerably different from that of the earlier years. Then, Germany had been the chief threat to the peace in Europe. Now, with Germany in defeat and Russia in the throes of revolution, only Great Britain was in a position to engage the United States in war with any prospect of success. But economically and financially, England was in no condition for another conflict and there was no sentiment for war on either side of the Atlantic.

The situation in the Pacific and Far East was different. Between Japan and the United States there were a number of unresolved differences and a reservoir of misunderstanding and ill will that made the possibility of conflict in that area much more likely than in the Atlantic. Moreover, Japan's position had been greatly strengthened as a result of the war and the treaties that followed. In the view of the planners, the most probable enemy in the foreseeable future was Japan. Thus, U.S. strategic thought in the years from 1919 to 1938 was largely concentrated on the problems presented by a conflict arising out of Japanese aggression against American interests or territory in the Far East.

The strategic position of the United States in the Far East was altered fundamentally by World War I. Military aviation had proved itself during the war and though its enormous potentialities for naval warfare were not yet fully appreciated it was still a factor to be considered. Of more immediate importance was the transfer to Japan of the German islands in the Central Pacific. President Wilson had opposed this move at Versailles, arguing that it would place Japan astride the U.S. line of communications and make the defense of the Philippines virtually impossible. But Wilson had been overruled by the other Allied leaders, and Japan had acquired the islands under a mandate from the League of Nations which prohibited their fortification. "At one time," wrote Capt. Harry E. Yarnell, one of the Navy planners, "it was the plan of the Navy Department to send a fleet to the Philippines on the outbreak of war. I am sure that this would not be done at the present time...it seems certain that in the course of time the Philippines and whatever forces we may have there will be captured."{10}

Japan's position was further strengthened during these years by the agreements reached at the Washington Conference of 1921-22. In the Five-Power Naval Treaty concluded in February 1922, Japan a...