How Imperial Japan Launched a 'Second' Pearl Harbor

Michael Peck

Security, Asia

And this was one move America should have seen coming. 

Key Point: If MacArthur and his commanders had taken all the right precautions, if they had acted more quickly and decisively, would it changed the outcome? In the long run, probably not.

At 3 a.m. Philippine Time on December 8, 1941, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was awakened from his slumber by a telephone call informing him that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor just an hour earlier.

At about noon in the Philippines, nearly two hundred Japanese Mitsubishi “Betty” bombers and “Zero” fighters struck Clark Field, America’s main military airbase in the Philippines. The attackers were supposed to arrive at the same time as the Pearl Harbor strike, to maximize surprise and catch American planes on the ground. But takeoff had been delayed by fog over their Taiwanese bases. Arriving at Clark Field after a grueling seven-hundred-mile flight, the tired Japanese pilots expected to find the skies swarming with American fighters.

Instead, the skies were clear. Even better, instead of being safely dispersed to secondary airfields, U.S. planes on the ground were parked wingtip to wingtip, perfect targets for bombs and machine-gun fire. Within minutes, the powerful U.S. air fleet at Clark Field—the backbone of America’s Philippine defenses—had been smashed.

It was a catastrophe almost as devastating as Pearl Harbor. Yet at least Pearl Harbor’s defenders could offer the tepid excuse that they had been caught by surprise tactically, if not strategically. On the other hand, American forces in the Philippines had been alerted nine hours before the Japanese struck.

There would be much blame to go around. But the man who earned the most blame was Douglas MacArthur.