First, I'm no fan od MacArthur, so keep that in mind.
Allowing MacArthur to be captured - and he would have been captured - would have been a major blow to the WWII Pacific theater. And when I say major, I do mean m-a-j-o-r. They would have tortured him, broke him, and he would have spilled a butt-load of military intel to the Japs.
Secondly, I read not too long ago that at the outset of WWII, there were 3 generals in the entire US military who had actually led troops in battle during wartime (namely WWI). The first was Patton, the second was MacArthur. Losing him in the Phillipines would have removed the only commander of ground forces that had any actual real wartime experience.
Eisenhower, Smith, Bradly - none of them had any wartime experience. Marshal was the other general who had bonafide wartime experience, but he was tapped to be the supreme commander of the US forces in the war by Roosevelt, and therefore could not command troops during WWII.
I know it is a pretty cold thing to say, but that outpost was lost anyways. The US could not defend it after Pearl Harbor, and an attempt to rescue those men would have been a feat that - given the logistics of the situation - would have resulted in a major catastrophy for the US in the Pacific. There would have been no way that the US could penetrate that deep into the Pacific without a well-established supply chain, ofv which there was none. Any rescue force would have been quickly cut off from supply and reinforcement, and then wiped off the face of the earth.
Secreting MacArthur out and preventing his capture was the only smart play in an otherwise sh*t hand.
jpotts wrote:
