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-A* the Joint Army-Navy Board met in November 1941, the global war it bad foreseen was about to erupt. The board’s War Plan Rainbow-5 assumed that the Philippines were indefensible. But, just as Rainbow-5 did not anticipate Pearl Harbor itself, the board could not foretell the reactions of an unpredictable, intractable subordinate, General Douglas MacArthur.
Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Rainbow-5 laid down a strategy for U. S. entry into World War II with which it is hard to quarrel. Nevertheless, the plan itself, the written instrument as distinct from the ideas it contained, was ambiguous in one respect. And, after having been prepared, it was accepted, amended, and finally employed in a manner that was peculiar, to say the least. No explanation for this treatment has yet appeared, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s dislike for putting things in writing has not made it easy to find one. What follows should be understood as only a first approximation of the truth—something better, perhaps, than no explanation at all.
In early 1941, the Axis nations controlled most of Western Europe and posed a serious threat to the United States. Japan was engaged only in China but had unmistakable designs on the Philippines and the French, Dutch, and British possessions in Southeast Asia. America was providing the resisting nations
Listening to their chairman, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold R. Stark, are hoard members, left to right, Major Generals H. H. Arnold and W. Bryden, Army Chief of Staff General G. C. Marshall, and Rear Admirals R. E. Ingersoll, J. H. Towers, and R. K. Turner.
with increasing material support, but should it become directly involved, the strain upon its capacities would become severe. Existing U. S. military forces were still too small to take offensive action across either ocean. Rainbow-5, prepared at this time, assumed war with all the Axis powers and provided that America, in concert with its allies, would initially take a defensive posture in the Pacific while building strength for offensive operations first in Europe, the key area. When that theater was won, all strength would be directed toward the defeat of Japan.
An unstated corollary was the initial loss of the Philippines. This was in the manner of earlier plans for war with Japan alone, for they had also reflected that expectation. As in the earlier plans, it was assumed that Japan would initiate hostilities, blockade the Philippine Islands, and land troops. The U. S. Asiatic Fleet was to support the defense “so long as that defense continues,” but its lack of the strength needed to make such a task meaningful was not indicated. The Pacific Fleet would commence a step-by-step campaign westward from Hawaii, capturing positions among the Japanese-held islands athwart the route. The Philippine garrison, concentrated on Luzon, would defend only that island. Enemy landings would be resisted, but the defenders would fall back under pressure to a final line across the Bataan peninsula. Here, presumably, they would hold until relief came. The earlier plans anticipated that this relief would follow a decisive naval battle at the conclusion of the Pacific Fleet’s campaign. They left unstated, however, the expectation that a minimum of two years would elapse before such a climax could be reached, while the garrison was not equipped to survive for more than six months.
In Rainbow-5, the expected loss of the Philippines, though still not acknowledged, was more apparent. Certain theaters were listed for immediate reinforcement after war commenced—but not the Philip-
pines. The Pacific Fleet’s westward advance was to commence, but when and how it would reach the Philippines was not indicated, and its stated purpose was not to relieve the garrison but to draw enemy strength from the Malay barrier. This was a line curving from Burma through the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and eastward to Australia. Since the Philippines were well within the area which the war plan conceded to the enemy, their early loss was clearly expected.1
The conclusions are inescapable. It was not possible to give timely support to the garrison after war commenced. The time required to return to the Philippines, which for years had exceeded that in which the garrison could survive, had been increased by the demands of a war in Europe. There can be no doubt that, in view of the endorsements of approval of the secretaries and the military chiefs, those conclusions were accepted at the highest levels in both military departments.
A few days after the plan had been submitted to the president, however, his aide returned it to the secretary of the Joint Army-Navy Board, predecessor of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, informing him orally that the president neither approved nor disapproved and wished it returned for further study at the beginning of the war for which it was intended. The reasons he gave were not very convincing and did not dispose of the prospect that before the start of the war that was drawing visibly closer there would be no approved strategy on which to base the detailed plans for its conduct. That was in June 1941.
The individual services, however, seem not to have been disturbed. Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall announced a solution for the Army. Since the president had not disapproved Rainbow-5, it could be promulgated as it stood for the purpose of making detailed plans. These could be changed as necessary to conform with any change in the basic war plan the president might direct later. This expedient was adopted by both services. Not only did the plan now promulgated fail to state directly that the Philippines would be lost, it lacked also a visible indication that the president knew or approved of any part of it. In a narrow, legal sense it could be said not even to have existed.2
There are three probable reasons. First, no president since the time of the Washington Conference disarmament agreements in the 1920s had chosen to point to the contradiction that marked U. S. policy 'For footnotes, please turn to page 73- in the Western Pacific following their ratification. Though America still presumed to exercise sovereignty in the Philippines, it retained little power to defend its claim against a nation such as Japan. To admit it, however, and propose some way of restoring the balance between ends and means was to invite damaging political controversy. A step toward a solution was taken with the passage of the Tyd- ings-McDuffie Act of 1934, but under its terms U. S. sovereignty would continue until 1946 and so would the contradiction. It was the reluctance to raise the issue of this disparity and its possible consequences and the chance that it could be done surreptitiously by others that accounted for the failure of contemporary war plans to state the expected consequences in plain English. Roosevelt was simply taking a further precaution in not adding his signature.
A second reason lay in the pacifism, isolationism, and normal resistance to higher taxes that persisted in spite of the disturbing spectacle of war in Europe and China. In October 1940, at the height of his campaign for reelection, Roosevelt had been persuaded to promise that “your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” He could not have felt secure had he put his signature so soon thereafter on Rainbow-5, making it appear that he -was committed to precisely that. The third reason will be seen later.3
Such prudence must have seemed fully justified when, only three days before Pearl Harbor was attacked, a military appropriations bill was stalled in the House of Representatives. The cause was a sensational article in the Chicago Tribune that indicated the administration had a secret plan to raise an army of ten million and send half overseas. The idea had apparently been taken from a recent, highly classified estimate of the industrial capacity needed to fight the war anticipated in Rainbow-5. Dangerous exposure of a loose promise was avoided and work on the bill resumed because Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, like the president a lawyer, could assure skittish congressmen that there was no such plan.4
How seriously Roosevelt meant his instruction to resubmit the plan when war commenced and how seriously it was taken can be inferred from what actually happened on 7 December. With news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, both services ordered their principal commands to put Rainbow-5 into effect against Japan. It is apparent from the notation on the copies of some of these orders sent from the War Department that they had been released for enciphering and dispatch in something less than two hours after the first bomb fell in Hawaii. It is certain that Roosevelt had no time to review the plan in those
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few hectic minutes. In fact, there is also on file a note signed by General Marshall stating that the president had been shown and had orally approved the orders, suggesting that this may have occurred after they had been sent.
Illegitimacy was not the worst defect this plan took to war. Following some aggressive Japanese measures in Indochina, the president on 26 July 1941 took economic reprisals and inducted the largely reservist Philippine Army into the U. S service, calling up 75,000 for training. The Philippine garrison, which before had numbered about 23,500 in U. S. Army units, was thus increased fourfold. The change was marked by giving it the title U. S. Army Forces, Far East (USAFFE) and placing General Douglas MacArthur in command.
MacArthur was considered a brilliant officer, but he had a weakness that was generally unnoticed. It pertained to the Philippine Army whose strategy and structure he had conceived and whose growth he had directed since 1935 with neither guidance nor interference from the War Department. The problem was that he was unable to regard his creation objectively. His task, he discovered upon receipt of the Army’s plan in support of Rainbow-5, remained what it had been, the defense of Luzon and particularly of the Bataan Peninsula and the island fortress of Cor- regidor at its tip. Accordingly, he wrote on 1 October recommending that his task be extended to include all of the Philippines. His reason was that the Philippine Army with a total approaching 200,000 on active duty or in reserve plus a small air arm that was being built up as part of a general strengthening of USAFFE made such a change possible and desirable. Rainbow-5 took neither into account.6
Marshall’s reply of 18 October was unusually prompt in view of the sweeping nature of the recommendation. The latter had been placed before the Joint Board, he said, and its approval was expected. In addition to the changes Mac Arthur had proposed, another had been added to reflect the potential of USAFFH’s reinforced air arm. The latter would support the Navy by attacking enemy forces at sea. MacArthur was to proceed with his detailed planning as if these changes had already been made. One might have supposed that the original plan had inadvertently overlooked something so obvious that MacArthur had done no more than invite it to the board’s attention.7
As if this were indeed the case and Marshall’s reply sufficient, the Joint Board delayed for an entire month, finally approving these changes with others that were more clearly minor. The minutes of that meeting state:
“It was held that since the Secretaries of War and the Navy approved the original plan and since the present changes did not revise the fundamentals of the original plan, the signatures of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chief of Staff were sufficient to indicate departmental approval. Admiral Harold R. Stark Chief of Naval Operations stated he would inform the President of the major changes in the plan.”
This is a curious statement because one of the fundamentals of the original plan had very definitely been revised. With the area to be defended by USAFFE so greatly enlarged, the necessary supplies could not have been stockpiled in advance of any probable starting date of war. A continuing inflow would have been needed after war commenced. This would have required that the lines of communication from overseas and among the Philippine Islands be held open. The maritime task of USAFFH’s air arm may have been added as a presumed means by which that requirement might be met in the absence of adequate naval power. No other way of defeating the blockade was indicated. In any event, here was a concept that quite clearly suggested the Philippines could be held.
The revision was incomplete, however. Naval support for USAFFE was still to be extended for “so long as the defense of the Philippines continues,” a phrase suggesting it would cease. There was to be no acceleration of the Pacific Fleet’s westward advance and the words defining its purpose as a means of drawing enemy strength from the Malay barrier continued to forecast the loss of the islands. No change was made to indicate that reinforcements would be sent after war commenced. The opposite could still be inferred as could the assumption that the lines of communication would be severed. Rainbow-5 now contained a striking inconsistency. On one hand it anticipated that the Philippines would be held, on the other that they would not.8
It is scarcely possible that this was unnoticed and unintended by the joint board. The Philippine Army, for sufficient military reasons, had been disregarded as a front-line force. The planners, however, had not observed its growing political significance in the islands and their superiors, including the president, had committed the same error when they first reviewed the plan. Since its inception, that army had taken the taxpayer’s peso and the conscript’s time, and it had not escaped criticism in the Philippine press and legislature. Among the changes that had come with the establishment of the commonwealth
under the Tydings-McDuffie Act, none perhaps had touched so many Filipinos so immediately. Created under the direction of a U. S. Army officer who had come under orders of the U. S. Secretary of War, the Philippine Army had a sponsor in the U. S. Government and the latter, inescapably, a degree of responsibility for its sound development. The importance the United States appeared now to attach to their army might well be seen by Filipinos as indicative of the U. S. attitude toward all their preparations for independent statehood. To treat it as of no consequence might invite a reaction more damaging to future U. S. influence in the Western Pacific than any temporary military reverse. That, undoubtedly, was a strong consideration in the decision to induct 75,000. When war came, this army must not appear to be ignored. Some part was better called up at once in the hope that, with such further training as circumstances permitted, it would acquit itself in a manner that would not discredit its sponsor.”
That conclusion, however, had not been accompanied by an immediate perception of all it entailed. On 28 July, MacArthur, having just assumed his new command, was informed that he could expect no substantial reinforcement. Only three days later, however, an intent to equip and reinforce him to such an extent that in a few more months the Philippines might be successfully defended was announced within the War Department. The origins of this scheme are strangely obscure—notwithstanding the explanation left by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson—and its purported end was unrealistic. It seems to have followed from a recognition that Filipino attitudes after war started would be powerfully influenced by the example of their army. And little could be expected of that army unless it were convinced that it was being taken seriously. Hence, the flow of sorely needed equipment commenced. Hence, too, a few specialized units of the U. S. Army’s ground forces and the U. S. Army air reinforcements that were scheduled for USAFFE. Some were sent so that their appearance would give further assurance of U. S. confidence in the Philippine garrison, the greater part of which was in the Philippine Army divisions that had been called up. How important this was considered may be judged by what it was permitted to interfere with. It allocated military resources (though far from enough for the professed purpose), some of which, like the aircraft, were in short supply. They would be sacrificed in the Philippines despite the urgent needs of U. S. forces elsewhere and the needs of friendly nations already fighting the Axis powers. There would also be the expense of the scarce shipping needed for their transport. 10
The response to MacArthur’s recommendation for an enlarged strategy seems to have been no more than the plugging of another hole that had been overlooked, a further effort to smother any appearance that the U. S. was expecting the loss of the Philippines. The joint board was not wrong, in a sense, in holding that this did not change the fundamentals of the plan. It saw that when war came, the impossibility of pursuing MacArthur’s grandiose scheme would soon become universally evident. The retreat into Bataan would appear, however, not as having been planned but as having been dictated by the fortunes of war. By that time, hopefully, the Philippine Army, thanks to its further training, would be better able to hold together. This, it seems to have been supposed, was what MacArthur had in
mind. A more positive aim, not the futility originally reflected in Rainbow-5, had to underlie the training of the Philippine Army if that training were to be effective.
Accordingly, Rainbow-5 was launched on 7 December with this hastily added plastic streamlining in the apparent expectation that it would soon be washed away. The enemy, indeed, established all the necessary conditions in less than a week. But now MacArthur, as if he himself had been and continued to be deceived as to U. S. intentions (which was incredible in view of his long familiarity with those intentions and the hard, enduring facts that had shaped them), called for new measures amounting to nothing less than a worldwide change of direction that would, as a first step toward the defeat of the
Axis powers, concentrate all the resources of the U. S. and her allies upon the defense of the Philippines. This was so impracticable as to suggest either a total loss of judgment or a complete lack of candor, each hard to understand, each a cause for serious concern, and either a most compelling reason for a president to relieve a general. Whatever his aim,
however, MacArthur was in a most effective position to make damaging disclosures to a U. S. public now stirring with indignation at the surprise at Pearl Harbor. He could charge that the program of reinforcement had been conducted to deceive him and the American and Philippine people and could now be seen for what it actually had been, a sham. The resulting embarrassment could become a threat to the national interest were public pressure, so generated, to force the modification or abandonment of the Europe-first strategy in favor of more immediate, more expensive measures in the Pacific. Or, the principal effect might be to end forever the respect and loyalty of the Philippine people.11
The alarm that was felt is suggested in the response. Instead of relieving this soldier, whatever the risks, as one in whom confidence has been lost, his superiors gave him a completely evasive answer that refrained even from repeating the name Rainbow-5- At the same time, the use of that title appears to have been dropped in all communications originating in Washington. The request for a very large air reinforcement that had accompanied MacArthur’s proposal was met, not with the explanation that to comply would be contrary to the provisions of Rainbow-5, which still stood, but that “the problem of supply is complicated” by the losses at Pearl Harbor. That was not true. The problem of supply would have been just as complicated, the lines of communication just as completely severed, had there been no losses at Pearl Harbor at all. This excuse had the advantage, however, of offering no grounds for possible charges that the loss of the Philippines had been foreseen and secretly accepted by the administration months before. It quickly became an all-weather alibi and was repeated so often and served so well that it has found an unmerited place in history.12
In this way, apparently, Rainbow-5 disappeared, leaving hardly a trace. In spite of that, the war was still conducted much as it had specified. The demand for the immediate punishment of Japan began to subside as public understanding of the size of the task ahead increased. In a Gallup Poll taken during the period 12-17 December on the question “Which country is the greater threat to America’s future, Germany or Japan?” 64% indicated the former. That could have reflected an encouraging trend or, on the other hand, no more than a lingering tendency to underrate the Japanese. The president only hinted at the coming loss of the Philippines in an end-of-the- year proclamation. On 12 January, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, speaking for the administration at the annual meeting of the U. S. Conference of Mayors, went so far as to warn them not to expect an early decision over Japan and declared that Hitler must be crushed first. Once Germany was defeated, he said, “the whole Axis fabric will collapse.” MacArthur’s complaint on 17 January that “repeated statements from the United States that Hitler is to be destroyed before an effort is made here is causing dismay” seems to indicate that by this time the Europe-first strategy was gaining general acceptance. The idea was presented, however, not as something that had been intended before war commenced, but rather as the best line of action now open because of the unexpected crippling of the Pacific Fleet.13
Roosevelt may have wondered, when he first considered Rainbow-5 in June 1941, how he would— with the flag being trampled in the Philippines and without making embarrassing admissions—persuade the American people to take the offensive first in
Europe. (The wish to avoid making such admissions would have been a third reason for his failure to sign Rainbow-5.) Whatever his fears, the Japanese gave him an answer in the wrecked ships at Pearl Harbor. His aim of preserving the Europe-first strategy is above criticism, but one may ask whether this way of achieving it made it any easier to be just to General Walter Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel, the commanders in Hawaii. The more directly the loss of the Philippines was linked to the surprise at Pearl Harbor, the more their alleged failures in permitting themselves to be surprised would tend to appear culpable.
More certain casualties of the effort to bury the evidence that the loss of the Philippines had been planned were Admirals Stark and Hart. The former automatically became the target when MacArthur and Stimson—now another difficult personality who had virtually insisted upon being himself deceived by the reinforcement program—criticized the “Navy.” The latter was charged directly by both with certain delinquencies. The burden of all these strictures was that naval cooperation had been disgracefully withheld, but the real cause of the complainants’ dissatisfaction, whether they realized it or not, was that the Navy was continuing, so far as possible, to execute the tasks assigned it in Rainbow-5. No evidence has been found to suggest that this plan, though relegated to a sort of limbo after 15 December, was ever cancelled. The strategy that continued to govern military operations was that of Rainbow-5, and there is no reason to suppose that this happened without the approval of the president. He had grounds, however, for not wanting to make a frank statement of his intentions with respect to the Philippines, either to Stimson or MacArthur, and he found it expedient not to correct them, to let their objections stand unanswered as if the Navy were out of hand and he, the commander in chief, were helpless. As a result, the undeserved censure of Stark and Hart, like the Pearl Harbor alibi, has been permitted to find its way into history.14
By such means, it appears, the Europe-first strategy was preserved, but the cost included more than damaged reputations. Also involved was the retention of an unpredictable subordinate and eventually the division of the Pacific command with all the disadvantages that entailed. Perhaps Roosevelt could have found a better way to preserve the Europe-first strategy, perhaps not. Much of the evidence in this strange case of Rainbow-5 has yet to be revealed.
EDITOR'S NOTE: In next month’s Proceedings, Captain Cook will carry the story of General MacArthur and the loss of the Philippines to conclusion in an article entitled “The Pacific Command Divided: The ‘Most Unexplainable’ Decision.”
A 1931 graduate of the Naval Academy, Captain Cook served in a variety of surface ships, including command of the USS Robert H. McCord (DD-822), Destroyer Division 22, USS Conecuh (AOR-110), and Destroyer Squadron 14. He attended the National War College as a student and remained for two more years as a member of the staff. After retirement from active duty in 1961, he obtained a master of arts degree in teaching at Brown University and later taught and wrote a book titled The Battle of Cape Esperance.
'Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Rainbow-5, reproduced in Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Congress, 2nd session, Part 18, p. 2908.
2Louis Morton, Strategy and Command: the First Two Years (Washington: Department of the Army, 1962), pp. 89-90.
3The New York Times, 31 October 1940, p. 1.
4Ibid.} 5 December 1941, p. 3.
5See notation on copy, WPD 4544-20, 7 December 1941, and attached memo, Modern Military Branch, Military Archives Division, Record Group 165, National Archives.
6Letter, CG USAFFE to War Department, 1 October 1941, WPD 4175-18, Record Group 165, National Archives.
7Morton, The Fall of the Philippines (Washington: Department of the Army, 1953), pp. 65-69.
8Joint Army Navy Board, minutes, 19 November 1941, Record Group 218, National Archives.
9D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, Vol. 1 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), pp. 506-509, 519-520.
,0Henry L. Stimson, with McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper, 1947), pp. 388-389; Morton, The Fall of the Philippines, pp. 31-50; R. M. Leighton and R. W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943 (Washington: Department of the Army, 1955), p. 123.
"Radio message, MacArthur to Marshall, 13 December 1941, Record Group 165, National Archives.
12Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939-1942 (New York: The Viking Press, 1965), p. 232; Morton, The Fall of the Philippines, p. 583; Radio messages, MacArthur to Marshall, 14 December 1941, and Marshall to MacArthur, 15 December 1941, both in Record Group 165, National Archives.
13George H. Gallup, The Gallup Poll, Vol. I (New York: Random House, 1972); The New York Times, 29 December 1941, p. 1, and 13 January 1942, p. 20; radio message, MacArthur to Adjutant General, 17 January 1942, Record Group 407, National Archives.
14Henry L. Stimson, Diary, 14, 16, 17, 22 December 1941, 29 January and 5, 23 February 1942; Stimson, On Active Service in Peace and War, pp. 395-396; Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1964), pp. 120-121; radio messages, MacArthur to Marshall, 13 December 1941, and 9 January 1942, Record Group 165, National Archives.