Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [169]
Col. Russell Volckmann, an American officer who had been leading guerrillas against the Japanese on Luzon since 1942, provided a report to Sixth Army assessing the enemy’s tactical strengths and weaknesses. He admired Japanese powers of endurance, skill in moving men and equipment over harsh terrain. He thought well of their junior officers and NCOs. More senior commanders, however, impressed him little with their “absurd orders476, assignment of impossible missions in relation to a unit’s strength, utter disregard for the lives of subordinates, refusal to admit defeat or even face the fact that events are going against him [sic] and inability to adjust to a changing situation, proneness to exaggerate success and minimize failure causes higher echelons to get a false picture. Jap small unit tactics are tops but there is seldom any coordination between units. To sum it up—the Jap officer generally has no idea of modern methods of fighting in large mass.” This seems fair. The Japanese showed themselves superb soldiers in defence, yet often failed in attack because they relied upon human spirit to compensate for lack of numbers, firepower, mobility and imagination. When the Japanese counterattacked, they were almost always repulsed with heavy loss. But when they merely held ground, as did Yamashita’s men for most of the Luzon campaign, they performed superbly.
To the dismay of Krueger’s Sixth Army, after the fall of Manila MacArthur launched the five divisions of Eichelberger’s Eighth Army on the progressive recapture of the lesser Philippine islands. Strategically, this decision had nothing to recommend it. American forces struggling to defeat Yamashita on Luzon were left grievously shorthanded. Eichelberger’s formations, which carried out fourteen major and twenty-four minor amphibious landings in forty-four days all over the Philippines Archipelago, thereafter spent weeks pursuing small Japanese forces which hit and ran, inflicted casualties, then retreated, day after day and month after month, with worsening weather and American morale. Samuel Eliot Morison notes that the joint chiefs of staff in Washington strongly questioned the necessity for the further extension of ground operations in the Philippines. “It is still something of a mystery477,” the great naval historian remarks acidly, “how and whence, in view of these wishes of the JCS, MacArthur derived his authority to liberate one Philippine island after another.” The simple explanation is that MacArthur’s manic will to fulfil his personal mission was stronger than that of the chiefs of staff to stop him doing so.
In this second phase of the Luzon campaign, the general’s behaviour became bizarre. During the advance on Manila he had assumed personal command of American forces and repeatedly risked his life in forward areas, hustling his generals on. When the capital fell, however, he seemed to lose interest in subsequent operations, only once visiting a Sixth Army front before the war’s end. He constantly criticised Krueger for sluggishness, but successfully recommended his subordinate to Washington for promotion to a fourth star. Most senior Americans on Luzon thought it would have been more appropriate to sack Krueger. It was the familiar story. MacArthur was loyal to his own, right or wrong, competent or otherwise. Promotion for Krueger represented an endorsement of his own performance.
Robert Sherwood of the Office of War Information visited MacArthur on 10 March and reported in some alarm to Roosevelt: “There are unmistakable478 evidences of an acute persecution complex at work. To hear some of the staff officers talk, one would think that the War Department, the State Department, the joint chiefs of staff—and, possibly, even the White House itself—are under the domination of ‘Communists and British Imperialists.’” Sherwood thought the atmosphere at SWPA headquarters profoundly unhealthy. While MacArthur