The Shadow of MacArthur's Life: As a five-star general, he left his soldiers in the battle
MacArthur was a famous general in the U.S. Army in World War II, and he had a strong and outstanding military talent, and if he wanted to rank the most capable generals in World War II, MacArthur was absolutely qualified to enter the top ten rankings. But MacArthur, who was as strong as MacArthur, was also forced to abandon his soldiers in the Japanese attack and flee alone.
In 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and on December 22 of that year began a major attack on the front line of U.S. defense in Lingalyan Bay, Luzon, Philippines. The U.S. military has 16,000 troops stationed in the Philippines and also has a large Philippine army under its command.
The Japanese attacked the Philippines with two extremely elite divisions of the Japanese army, namely the Japanese 16th Division and the Japanese 48th Division, and the commander of the two divisions was Masaharu Honma.
MacArthur was actually very confident in the face of the Japanese attack, and he trusted his army very much, believing that his army would be able to hold the Philippine defense line. The task given to MacArthur by the United States was only to let him lead his army to resist the Japanese army for a few months, so that the United States could mobilize troops and mobilize generals to achieve rescue of the Philippines.
In fact, both the United States and MacArthur believed that being able to resist the Japanese for months was a kind of self-confidence that could not see the reality.
As early as the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military lost most of its air force in the Far East, so that the air superiority at that time had been deprived by the Japanese. And because the naval base was bombed by the Japanese, resulting in the near loss of sea supremacy, when the Japanese Navy dragged out three huge naval fleets to assist Masaharu Honma, the coastal defense line of the US military was actually in danger.
Similarly, although the US army has a main force of 16,000 and is very well-equipped, it is facing two Japanese divisions and regiments, and there is a gap in strength, while the Philippine troops under its jurisdiction, due to old equipment and insufficient training, in addition to acting as cannon fodder, actually do not have much effect.
But all this MacArthur could not see at the beginning of the war, in the first line of defense, MacArthur even placed only two American divisions on the line of Lingayan Bay, the result is not surprising, when these two Philippine divisions and the main Japanese division met, only a few hours after the defense line was breached by the Japanese army, the remnants of the Philippine division began to flee all the way.
Because the first line collapsed too quickly, MacArthur had no choice but to order a retreat to Bataan in a hurry.
In fact, the retreat to Bataan was a strategic plan previously formulated by the US-Philippines Combat Command, when the US military in the Philippines believed that the Bataan Peninsula had long been built fortifications, and as long as there were enough military supplies to store, it would be able to hold out until the arrival of reinforcements.
But it wasn't until the eve of the Japanese offensive that macarthur vetoed the plan, who thought his army could hold the entire island of Luzon.
However, it was not expected that due to the collapse of the first line, the US army was affected by the collapse of the Philippine army and lost the will that it had originally insisted on, and the collapse of this will made the Japanese army chase all the way, so that the US-Philippine coalition army could no longer organize a defensive position.
It was in this situation that MacArthur could only hastily decide to carry out the previous plan to withdraw bataan, but only then did this plan, which was obviously different from the initial retreat to Bataan.
The U.S.-Philippine coalition forces retreated all the way south, losing most of their military supplies during the period, which meant that they had lost the possibility of holding Bataan in the first place, and the most important reliance of the US military to hold Bataan was enough military supplies.
When the U.S.-Philippines army arrived in Bataan, the soldiers resisted the Japanese attack while using only half of the previous supplies, and all the supplies combined were not enough to support the arrival of reinforcements. Due to the shortage of medicines, under malnutrition and tropical climate, a large number of soldiers began to have scurvy, athlete's foot and other diseases that could not be cured.
For the U.S.-Philippines in Bataan, they were desperate, and when the food had come to an end, all the horses had to be killed for food.
MacArthur continued to send telegrams to Roosevelt for help, but due to insufficient preparation for the expedition, Roosevelt refused the rescue operation, although there were still more than 10,000 American soldiers on the Bataan Peninsula.
Of course, in order to make these soldiers worthwhile, Roosevelt also let american public opinion reports exaggerate how heroic the American soldiers were in this Bataan defense war and how capable MacArthur was.
The hungry American soldiers in the Bataan positions obviously did not want praise, they only wanted food.
Entering March 12, MacArthur gathered all the American soldiers in the Bataan positions, and he left only five words for his soldiers: I will come back!
All the American soldiers knew by now that their commander was going to flee and would not take them with him.
It is repeated in many history books on the Battle of the Philippines that although MacArthur left, his words inspired the American soldiers, after which the American soldiers broke out into a fierce battle with the Japanese army.
But in fact, let's think about it in another position, when our commander-in-chief flees alone, what kind of incentives are pale and powerless, when the commanders are going to run, then there is no need to resist in this battle, the commander-in-chief is the military heart, the military heart is gone, how can it fight?
After that, although the US army also counterattacked under the attack of the Japanese army, this was the final battle of the trapped beasts, and what they could do was symbolically fight for their lives.