Roosevelt orders MacArthur out of the Philippines

On 22 February 1942 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur to leave the fortress of Corregidor, go to Mindanao and from there to Australia, where he was to take command of new Allied forces. The message reached the Malinta Tunnel at noon on 23 February. It was one of the hardest decisions of the first months of the war: in it Washington admitted that the Philippines could not be saved and resolved to rescue at least America’s most famous general before he fell into Japanese hands. It is widely believed that Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to evacuate the Philippines when the American defence collapsed. In fact, in February the defence of Bataan was going through its best period, and the order concerned only the commander himself, not his troops. They were to fight on, with no hope of relief.

A general who could not be lost

From the first days of the war MacArthur was a hero in the United States. After the defeats at Pearl Harbor, on Guam and on Wake, his were the only forces still resisting, and the press, encouraged by communiqués from his headquarters, made him a symbol of America’s will to fight. In the January fighting the defenders had beaten off the first Japanese assault, and in February they destroyed the Japanese landings and pockets behind their line. No one in Washington, however, had any illusions that the garrison could hold out for more than a few months. The fleet could not break through the Japanese blockade, and the strategy agreed at the Arcadia Conference gave priority to defeating Germany. Had MacArthur been captured, it would have been a propaganda triumph for Japan and a blow to the Americans that it was preferable to avoid.

The Army Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, first raised the matter cautiously on 2 February, asking about plans for MacArthur’s wife and son, who were with him on Corregidor. On 4 February he wrote plainly that if Bataan fell and only the fortress of Corregidor remained in American hands, the general might be more needed elsewhere: on Mindanao, to conduct further resistance, or in Australia, from where he could command all army forces in the Far East. He stressed that such a recall would come only on the President’s direct order. General Patrick Hurley, a former Secretary of War and a friend of MacArthur’s, warned that MacArthur would not leave his soldiers unless the President ordered him to, and that even then he might feel that by leaving he was destroying himself.

Quezon’s proposal

Before MacArthur replied, Washington received a message that forced it to act more quickly. On 8 February the President of the Philippine Commonwealth, Manuel Quezon, ill with tuberculosis and embittered by the lack of help, sent Roosevelt a proposal: the United States was to grant the Philippines independence immediately, the archipelago would be neutralised, American and Japanese troops would withdraw by mutual agreement, and the Philippine army would be disbanded. MacArthur attached his own assessment of the situation to the message. He wrote that his forces had lost half their strength, that his divisions were the size of regiments, that “we are near done”, and that Washington should be prepared for the complete destruction of the garrison. He added that from a military point of view Quezon’s plan might be the best way out of the impending disaster.

Roosevelt replied firmly on 9 February. He rejected the neutralisation plan, assuring Quezon that so long as the American flag flew on Philippine soil it would be defended by American soldiers, and that the United States would not rest until the invaders had been driven from the islands. He allowed MacArthur, if necessary, to surrender the Filipino troops, but forbade the surrender of American forces “so long as there remains any possibility of resistance”. He argued that America, the strongest member of the coalition against the Axis, could not show weakness on any front, and entrusted the general, as he put it, with “the most difficult task”. Quezon submitted to this decision. MacArthur replied that he had no intention of surrendering either Americans or Filipinos, and that he and his family had decided to “share the fate of the garrison”. Marshall at once showed his concern and gently reminded him that the general might yet be given an assignment that would require him to part from his family.

Quezon leaves Corregidor

In Washington and on Corregidor alike it was agreed that the Commonwealth government, which had moved into the Malinta Tunnel in December, must not fall into Japanese hands, especially since in January the Japanese had already set up an administration in Manila made up of Filipino politicians willing to collaborate with them. After dark on 20 February the submarine USS Swordfish took off from Corregidor Quezon and his family, Vice-President Sergio Osmeña, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, José Abad Santos, and several officers. The submarine passed through a minefield, spent the day submerged and early on 23 February landed her passengers off the island of Panay. On her next run Swordfish took the American High Commissioner, Francis Sayre, off Corregidor and carried him to Australia.

For several more weeks Quezon moved between the islands of the central Philippines. On 17 March, as he sailed from the island of Negros to Mindanao, he appointed Abad Santos acting president in the islands not yet occupied, and at the end of March he flew to Australia and from there to the United States. In Washington he headed the Philippine Commonwealth government-in-exile. Abad Santos was captured by the Japanese on Cebu in April and shot on Mindanao at the beginning of May 1942, on 1 May according to the findings of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.

The order of 22 February

In the second half of February the Allied position in Asia deteriorated rapidly. On 15 February Singapore surrendered, on 19 February Japanese aircraft bombed Darwin, and General Archibald Wavell’s ABDA Command on Java was nearing its end. Washington and London were agreeing a new division of responsibility, under which the United States was to take over the Pacific, including Australia. A senior commander was needed to head the Allied command in Australia, and the choice fell on MacArthur. The Australians, terrified by the fall of Singapore and the raid on Darwin, were demanding American help, and the presence of the famous general was to be its visible sign.

On 21 February Marshall warned MacArthur that the President was considering sending him to Mindanao, from where he would direct the defence of the Philippines. The next day, without waiting for a reply, Roosevelt made his decision. MacArthur was to leave Corregidor as soon as possible, stop on Mindanao for no more than a week to ensure a prolonged defence there, and go on to Australia, since, as was emphasised, his swift assumption of command there was of “vital importance”. Washington would provide transport by aircraft and submarine and agreed that he could take his chief of staff, General Richard Sutherland, with him. This was the first time MacArthur learnt officially what role was intended for him in the rest of the war.

According to MacArthur’s biographer Frazier Hunt, the general’s first impulse was to refuse, and he had already written a sharp reply. His staff officers, however, persuaded him that he would have to obey the order anyway, that refusal might end in a court martial, and that only from Australia could he lead the relief the defenders were waiting for. MacArthur tore up his first message. In his reply of 24 February he accepted the order but asked to be allowed to choose the “psychological moment” for his departure. He warned that the sudden departure of a commander the Filipinos trusted might cause the defence to collapse. Roosevelt left the timing and manner of the journey to him, and MacArthur said he would leave around 15 March.

“I shall return”

The departure came sooner. With quiet reigning on Bataan and the Japanese tightening the blockade around Corregidor, MacArthur did not want to wait for a submarine. On the evening of 11 March 1942, with his wife, his four-year-old son, the boy’s nurse and over a dozen staff officers, he left Corregidor in four PT boats under Lieutenant John Bulkeley. After two nights’ voyage through waters patrolled by the Japanese he reached Mindanao, and from there B-17 bombers flew him to Australia on 17 March. On 20 March, on his way to Melbourne, he made reporters the promise that passed into history: “I came through and I shall return.”

In the Philippines MacArthur intended to command from Australia through his own officer on Corregidor, but Washington did not accept the idea. Command of all forces in the archipelago went to General Jonathan Wainwright, promoted to lieutenant general, and on Bataan his place was taken by General Edward King. To deprive Japanese propaganda, which spoke of a commander running away from his soldiers, of its arguments, Marshall secured the Medal of Honor for MacArthur. On Bataan many soldiers took his departure with bitterness.

Place in the war

The order of 22 February determined the shape of the war in the Pacific for the next three years. In April 1942 MacArthur became Supreme Commander of Allied forces in the South West Pacific Area, which comprised Australia, New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines, while the central Pacific went to Admiral Chester Nimitz. From this division grew a rivalry between the army and the navy over resources and the direction of the main thrust that lasted until the end of the war. MacArthur spent his first months defending Australia and New Guinea, and then for two years led the advance along New Guinea’s coast.

The defenders he left behind never received help. Bataan capitulated on 9 April, and thousands of prisoners died on the death march to Camp O’Donnell. Corregidor surrendered on 6 May, and Wainwright spent the rest of the war in captivity. Quezon died of tuberculosis on 1 August 1944 at Saranac Lake, New York, without living to return to his country. MacArthur kept his promise: on 20 October 1944 he waded ashore on the island of Leyte, and in the following months his forces recaptured Luzon and Manila. The words “I shall return” became a symbol of hope for Filipinos and, for his critics, an example of how MacArthur built his own legend.