Command Decisions: The Decision to Withdraw to Bataan

摘要

On 23 December 1941, only two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, GeneralMacArthur--then commanding American forces in the Philippines--made one of the most difficult and important decisions of his long and famous military career. Under the threat of impending disaster, he determined on that day to withdraw his forces on Luzon to the Bataan Pensiula, to declare the Philippine captial, Manila, an open city, and to transfer his headquarters to the tiny island of Corregidor. The successful execution of this plan has farreaching results: it saved the 75,000 troops on Luzon from immediate defeat, delayed the Japanese timetable for conquest by four months, and kept large Japanese combat forces tied up in the Philippines long after Malaya, Singapore, and the Indies had fallen. It is not the purpose of the essay to describe the masterly skill with which the elaborate maneuver--a double retrograde movement--was accomplished. Rather it is to examine the background and circumstances leading to the critical decision to withdraw to Bataan.