Death and Honor

From the American perspective, the war had begun with a series of humiliating defeats. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 saw most of the battleships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet either lying on the bottom or so seriously damaged as to be out of action for the foreseeable future. The next day, the Japanese attack on the Philippine Islands destroyed half of General Douglas MacArthur’s air force.

Before the month was out, MacArthur was forced to declare Manila an open city and retreat to the Bataan Peninsula and the island fortress of Corregidor. On 23 December, Wake Island fell to the Japanese. Two days later, the British forces in Hong Kong surrendered.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to Australia. MacArthur arrived 20 March 1942, delivered his famous “I Shall Return” speech, then learned there were only thirty-four thousand soldiers in Australia and very little supplies.

On 18 April 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle led a small flight of B-25 “Mitchell” medium bombers in a raid on Tokyo. They took off from an aircraft carrier on what most of them considered a suicide mission, knowing the actual damage they could do was minimal, but that some victory—almost any victory—against the Japanese was necessary to prevent despair among the American people.

The exultation of the American people when they learned of the raid was short-lived. Just over two weeks later, on 6 May 1942, Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright was forced to surrender all U.S. forces in the Philippines. It was the largest surrender in American history.

In early July, MacArthur learned that the Japanese were about to build an air base on Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands. If the base was built, the Japanese could both attack Australia and interdict supply of Australia by sea.

Less than a month later, on 7 August 1942, the just-formed, ill-prepared First Marine Division, which had not planned to go into combat for another year, landed on Guadalcanal. The desperate action almost failed. On 9 August, after losing the cruisers USS Vincennes and USS Quincy and the Australian cruiser HMAS Canberra at the Battle of Savo Island, the invasion fleet was withdrawn. It took with it the Marines’ heavy artillery, most of the supplies it had planned to put ashore, and even a large number of Marines.