Tears in the Darkness (65 page)

5
. Interviews with Q. P. Devore and Ben Steele. All conversations are as the principals remember and report them, sometimes in whole, sometimes in fragments. In either case, nothing in quotation has been either reconstituted or imagined.

6
. Gleeck,
Over Seventy-five Years
, 22–37, for poem, preceding details, and quotations.

7
. Miller,
Bataan Uncensored
, 59.

8
. Ibid., 63.

9
. From the accounts of many officers and from Sayre,
Glad Adventure
, 221, who says MacArthur held to this fiction as late as November 27, ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the same day Washington sent him a “war warning” that “hostile action” was “possible at any moment”; also Watson,
Chief of Staff
, 507. A number of officers on the command staff had read the same intelligence reports and worried that the Japanese were marshaling troops for a move on the Philippines. The strike would surely come in December or January, not April, the incendiary prelude to the rainy season and, as even the most insouciant second lieutenant knew, the worst month to launch an attack. Hersey,
Men on Bataan
, 19.

10
. “Monkey men . . . ,” Lee,
They Call It Pacific
, 10; the “eyeball” quotations come from an interview with Zoeth Skinner, 2002, but the subject is a familiar one, explained fully and well in Dower,
War Without Mercy
, 94–180. See also Johnson,
Japanese Through American Eyes
, 19, 145–54; “We'll knock . . . ,” Zoeth Skinner, interview, 2002.

11
. Rogers,
The Good Years
, 93.

12
. Miller,
Bataan Uncensored
, 63.

13
. Frank Tremaine (UP correspondent in Honolulu), interview, 2000.

14
. Frank Bigelow, interview, 1999.

15
. Rita Palmer, Army Nurse Corps, interview, 1984.

16
. Zoeth Skinner, interview, 1999.

17
. Ind,
Bataan
, 64.

18
. Here too there is controversy. Ind, ibid., 101, an air intelligence officer, said he had photos showing some planes “lined up neatly” on the runway; Shimada, “Opening Air Offensive Against the Philippines,” 93, writes that Japanese pilots found their targets “lined up on the target fields.”

19
. For the Shinto myth of creation, see Sansom,
Japan
, 22ff; Storry,
History of Modern Japan, 25ff
. For the Japanese view, see Sakamaki Shunzo, “Shinto: Japanese Ethnocentrism,” in Moore,
The Japanese Mind
, 24–26. For a wider view, see Holtom,
Modern Japan and Shinto Nationalism
. Embree,
The Japanese Nation
, 165–75, provides the best context in Western terms. Ballou,
Shinto
, is the single best source for Shinto as a basis for nationalism and war, and all quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from this text, 19–25ff.

20
. Holtom,
National Faith of Japan
, 15, 23. The Zero was a new and revolutionary fighter plane. Formally it was designated the A6M2. Zero—
Reisen
or “Zero fighter”—quickly became its nickname, which was intended to commemorate the year 1940, when its trials were finished and it went into full production.

21
. All the quotations that follow are from Sakai, Caidin, and Saito,
Samurai!
Sakai, now deceased, is the only Japanese character in our book we did not interview or for whom we did not have primary sources—notes, letters, transcripts of interviews with other writers, and so forth. Saito gave Caidin Sakai's notes and transcripts of his interviews with Sakai. Caidin's papers, from his many books, are archived at the University of Wyoming. A search of that archive failed to turn up Saito's transcripts. There are letters referring to the work, but not the vital transcripts themselves. Nor were these documents in other archives, private or public. Permission to
quote at length from the memoir was given by DeeDee Caidin, executor of Caidin's estate. A subsequent book on Sakai claims to have found errors in the memoir, but these turn on one or two combat incidents. Sakai became a public figure after his memoir,
Samurai!
was published in 1957, and he was interviewed many times. We could find no interview in which Sakai challenged or disputed Caidin's account of his life or the details of his part in the attack on Clark Field.

22
. A British Officer “Literature of the Russo-Japanese War,” 509.

23
. McClain,
Japan,
407.

24
. Erfurth, “Surprise,” 355, 367; Musashi,
Book of Five Rings,
48; Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS),
Japan's Decision to Fight,
10.

25
. Erfurth, “Surprise,” 361.

26
. Sakai, Caidin, and Saito,
Samurai!
48–52. Sakai's times are at variance with the most authoritative Japanese account in English on the attack: Shimada, “Opening Air Offensive Against the Philippines,” 90–91, and Morton,
Fall of the Philippines,
79–90. We have followed Shimada and Morton.

27
. Morton,
Fall of the Philippines,
79–90.

28
. Sakai, Caidin, and Saito,
Samurai!
51.

29
. ATIS,
Japan's Decision to Fight,
31.

30
. There are many conflicting accounts of the circumstances that led to destruction of the Far East Air Force at Clark Field. Various historians, biographers, and writers hold, or at least suggest, that the principals are accountable. Some point the finger at MacArthur or Sutherland or Brereton or certain subalterns at FEAF (Air Corps) headquarters at Nielson Field or on the communications staff at Clark Field. Taking a wider or more historical view, others cite the actions of the army and navy chiefs in Washington, indeed, even President Roosevelt, who waited so long to reinforce a protectorate then so clearly in harm's way. The wider view from within the War Department, where admirals and generals regularly changed their war plans to reflect the constant shifts in national and foreign policy, can be seen, in careful detail, in Watson,
Chief of Staff
, and, in much broader context, in Kennedy,
Freedom From Fear;
Morton,
Strategy and Command;
Dumond,
America in Our Time;
and Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey,
American Pagent.
The most balanced and likely most accurate view of what led to the calamity at Clark, which includes the colloquy between commanders, is Watson, “Pearl Harbor and Clark Field.” He concludes that “general confusion and bad luck” were responsible for the debacle (209). Edmonds,
They Fought with What They Had,
a smoothly crafted and moving book that adds extensive interviews to the few logs and records that survived that day, seems to suggest the same thing. This much is clear: news of the attack on Pearl Harbor reached Manila sometime after 2:30 a.m.; the Japanese bombed small bases in the northern and southern Philippines around dawn; the enemy hit Baguio, 105 miles north of Clark Field, at 9:30 a.m. and Clark sometime between 12:15 and 12:40 p.m., a full ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

31
. Fifty-three bombers attacked the field, 27 Mitsubishi G3M “Nells” and 26 G4M “Bettys.” Their combined payload was 636 sixty-kilogram bombs. Figures supplied by Ricardo Trota Jose, correspondence March 12, 2002, who cites Osamu Tagaya,
Mitsubishi Type 1 Rikko “Betty” Units of World War 2
(Botley, Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2001), 22.

32
. Bartsch, “Was MacArthur Ill-Served,” 72–117, mentions many of the these details, which were confirmed by the authors in interviews with veterans.

33
. Helen Cassiani Nestor, interview, 2002.

34
. Ibid.

35
. Steele and Devore see one another regularly and have replayed that conversation in the barracks many times across the years. This part of the colloquy is drawn from multiple interviews with both men.

36
. No reliable figures exist in extant medical records. This estimate is based on calculations made from figures in Morton,
Fall of the Philippines,
and Edmonds,
They Fought with What They Had.

37
. Some interviewees report the base “nearly abandoned,” though that seems an exaggeration. Edmonds,
They Fought with What They Had,
111–12, and Watson,
Chief of Staff,
212, suggest that the force “disintegrated” and that a “substantial portion . . . took off” during and after the attack.

CHAPTER TWO

1
. Ryotaro Nishimura, interviews with authors, 2000—2002.

2
. Smaller landings had taken place earlier on Luzon, and two days after the main force secured the beach at Lingayen, some 7,000 troops of the 16th Division landed south of Manila on Luzon's east coast at Lamon Bay. Morton,
Fall of the Philippines,
125, lists 14th Army total strength at the time of the invasion (combat, support, and air force troops) at 43,110.

3
. Morton,
Fall of the Philippines,
50.

4
. Historical Section,
Japanese Studies in World War II,
Monograph 1, 13.

5
. Ardant du Picq, “Battle Studies,” 157; Stouffer et al.,
The American Soldier,
54–81.

6
. Historical Section,
Japanese Studies in World War II,
Monograph 1, 13.

7
. Watson,
Chief of Staff,
432–33.

8
. Jose,
The Philippine Army,
102.

9
. Wainwright,
General Wainwright's Story,
7; Philippine Department Plan Orange, 1940 Revision 1, RG 165, NARA, quoted in Jose,
The Philippine Army,
185.

10
. Hersey,
Men on Bataan,
289; Linn,
Guardians of the Empire,
229, 236.

11
. Watson,
Chief of Staff,
415.

12
. Leeb, “Defense,” 13–14.

13
. Linn,
Guardians of the Empire,
171–78. Watson,
Chief of Staff,
has many of the key documents that detail the changing strategies in Washington and tactics in Manila, but Linn, particularly in chapter 9, “Orange to Rainbow, 1919–1940,” puts together the disparate pieces of evidence and offers a coherent narrative of the confusion, interservice rivalries, personal ambitions of military leaders, and an air of unreality that, eventually, led to disaster.

14
. From a 1941 memo to the army chief of staff, quoted in Watson,
Chief of Staff,
389.

15
. Linn,
Guardians of the Empire,
240–45; Jose,
The Philippine Army,
175; Watson,
Chief of Staff,
420–21.

16
. Watson,
Chief of Staff,
432; MacArthur, Memorandum: “Defense of the Philippines.”

17
. Poweleit,
USAFFE,
18–20.

18
. Mallonée,
Naked Flagpole,
30.

19
. Ibid., 32–35.

20
. Blesse, “The Filipino Fighting Man,” 6; Mallonée,
Naked Flagpole,
31.

21
. Brougher, “Battle of Bataan,” 1.

22
. William H. Gentry, interview, 1998.

23
. Miller,
Bataan Uncensored,
94.

24
. There are no official records to confirm that Lieutenant Ben Morin was the first POW in the islands in World War II. He was captured sometime in the early or midafternoon of December 22, 1941. It is possible that other Americans serving as advisers to the Philippine Army were taken prisoner when their units collapsed the same day or that an American pilot might earlier have gone down behind enemy lines. From his conversations with the authors, Morin believes his unit was the first to be taken captive, a distinction he does not value.

25
. All the preceding comes from a 2000 interview with Ben Morin. Father Morin—he took his vows in 1948 and spent much of his tenure as a priest working with the poor in Latin America—says that during the war he prayed almost exclusively to the Blessed Mother and is more than likely to have done so on the road to Lingayen Gulf.

26
. MacArthur, Radio Message to AGWAR, December 22, 1941, uses the 40,000 figure. Morton,
Fall of the Philippines,
162, calculates that, in fact, MacArthur had some 80,000 men on the main island, roughly 20,000 Americans and Philippine Scouts in American ranks, and the rest Philippine Army reservists and regulars. MacArthur likely offered the fiction to support his contention that he was suffering an “enormous tactical discrepancy.” Although he outnumbered the Japanese some two to one, using Wainwright's ratio of the number of troops actually prepared for combat, he likely had no more than 8,000 men who, at that point, could put up a fight.

CHAPTER THREE

1
. This account is based on Swinson,
Four Samurai,
34–36; Tsunoda,
Once There Was a Dream,
205–15; Okada, “The Tragic General.”

2
. Tsunoda,
Once There Was a Dream,
212–15.

3
. Ibid, 222–23.

4
.
USA v. Homma,
3047–56.

5
. Homma, “Statement on the Charge,” 2; Thompson, Doud, and Scofield,
How the Japanese Army Fights,
14; Tsunoda,
Once There Was a Dream,
230.

6
. Tasuku Yamanari, Kozo Watanabe, Isao Shinohara, Yoshiaki Nagai, interviews, 2000.

7
. Whitman,
Bataan,
1–9, pulls together details from many sources, including Mallonée, Collier, Toland, and others. For this section we also draw on Duckworth, “Official History”; Jackson,
Diary;
and Lee,
They Call It Pacific.