The Southwest Pacific Drive
Copyright © Henry J. Sage 2006

MacArthur moves toward the Philippines

Of all the quotations attributed to famous military leaders, General Douglas MacArthur's “I shall return” ranks with the best known. General MacArthur had been the American military commander of forces in the Philippines since 1935 and had grown to love the Islands and the people. When ordered by President Roosevelt in March 1942 to remove himself in order to take over command of operation in the Southwest Pacific area, MacArthur vowed to come back to liberate the Philippines from Japanese control.

Immediately after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they had turned on the Philippines, and despite heroic resistance by the Americans and the Philippine army, the Islands finally fell in April 1942. MacArthur was evacuated secretly by a patrol torpedo boat and made his famous promise upon his arrival in Australia. Meanwhile the Americans, who had established a final line of defense at Bataan, were forced to surrender to superior Japanese forces. Many prisoners suffered and died during the infampus Bataan death march, and many more spent three gruesome years in Japanese prison camps.

MacArthur's plans to move back toward the Philippines were hampered by the fact that the American and British staffs in Washington and London were struggling to allocate scarce resources while honoring their joint commitment to conquer Germany first. The attack on Guadalcanal had been necessitated by the threat of the Japanese airfield under construction, and the Pacific commanders insisted in keeping the pressure on Japan, a decision which was finally agreed upon by Allied leaders during the Casablance Conference of January 1943, the same conference at which President Roosevelt adn Prime Min ister Churchill agree on the policy of “unconditional surrender.”

While the Navy and Marines under Admiral Halsey and the Army units under his command moved through the Solomons, the Gilberts and beyond, General MacArthur's Army units and Australian forces were preparing to advance toward the Philippines along the northern coast of New Guinea. MacArthur had pointed out the advantage of that second route in that it would provide for land-based air cover along the way. The double-pronged advance—the Southwest Pacific route and the Central Pacific drive had the merit of keeping Japanese forces divided and of providing opportunities for surprise.

The advance through New Guinea began in April 1944. MacArthur followed the same general strategy adopted by Halsey in the Central Pacific—leapfrogging over lesser points of resistance to cut them off, leaving them for Australian forces to neutralize.  After several initial landings MacArthur’s troops established a large base at Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea. From there they moved westward up the coast, gradually getting closer to their objective of the Philippines.  (See Map) 

As the Japanese moved to reinforce western New Guinea with aircraft from the Marianas, they discovered that the Americans were preparing to attack the Marianas, leaving the Japanese forces stretched very thin. By late July 1944 Allied forces were at the western tip of New Guinea and began planning for the assault on the Philippines, just as the Marines and Army were capturing Saipan, Tinian and Guam in the Marianas.

MacArthur returns to the Philippines

TBA