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Fear of armed American citizenry deterred Japan from invading Oahu on December 7, 1941...


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On 7/22/2021 at 1:38 PM, RichTO90 said:

The only "ass-covering" was by MacArthur, Sutherland, and Brereton, all of whom blamed each other. MacArthur essentially lied about everything, Sutherland tried to gain cover from MacArthur for his own part in the debacle, and Brereton never explained his own lapses of judgement (or, looking at his later carer, perhaps his indolence?)

Hap Arnold probably said it best in 1949, “I have never been able to get the real story of what happened in the Philippines.”

Fundamentally, it was piss poor planning and preparation, confused reactions, and sheer contrariness that resulted in the Philippine disaster. Two of the seven radars sent to the Philippines were operational and tracked the inbound Japanese. The assessment that the attack was directed at Manila was wrong, which left the Pursuit squadrons out of Nichols, Del Carmen, and Nielsen chasing their tails, while for some unknown reason, the Bomb and Pursuit squadrons at Clark and Iba were never notified the Japanese were inbound and so remained on the ground, happily munching on sandwiches as the bombs began to fall.

Worse though than the lack of reaction was the failure to disperse aircraft at Clark and Iba, which can be directly laid on Brereton, the squadron, and the station commanders.

My mother’s father was a P40 pilot during the invasion and was officially credited with  1/2 of a Zero kill. :) still trying to figure out how he made it to Australia but I guess he did, I wouldn’t be alive otherwise. 

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Congratulations to him for the feat of surviving against the elite IJNAF pilots of the 23rd Air Flotilla in the skies over Central Luzon on December 10.

There wasn't much left of American fighter strength in the Philippines afterward.

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On 8/7/2021 at 4:19 PM, Nobu said:

Congratulations to him for the feat of surviving against the elite IJNAF pilots of the 23rd Air Flotilla in the skies over Central Luzon on December 10.

There wasn't much left of American fighter strength in the Philippines afterward.

1/2 zero kill was never confirmed and probably bullshit  :) Looks like Doomed at the Start is the book to read. https://www.amazon.com/Doomed-Start-Philippines-Williams-Ford-University/dp/0890966796https://www.amazon.com/Doomed-Start-Philippines-Williams-Ford-University/dp/0890966796

Edited by Angrybk
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