1940's Government and Politics | America at War: from Humiliation to Hegemony in the Pacific

Setbacks in the Pacific.

Three days after Pearl Harbor the Japanese Imperial Army invaded the American-controlled Philippines. Despite the war alert and the debacle at Hawaii, the entire American air fleet at Clark Field remained uncamouflaged and lined up on runways wingtip to wingtip. It was thus destroyed on the ground. Had it remained intact it might have thwarted, or delayed, the invasion. Meanwhile, the Japanese continued their drive into Thailand, Malaya, and Singapore. In quick order the American territories of Guam and Wake Island fell before Christmas, The new year witnessed Japan's takeover of the Dutch East Indies, and on 26-28 February a major defeat for Allied naval forces in the Battle of the Java Sea, where American forces were all but wiped out. By then the American garrison in the Philippines had withdrawn to the Bataan Peninsula, where it was overwhelmed and forced to surrender on 9 April. More than seventy-five...