December 8, 1941

My recollection of Dec. 8, 1941was going to mass at the Baguio cathedral accompanied by my aunt, a deeply religious woman with a special devotion to our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Just as we were leaving the church, I noticed a low-flying, single-engine airplane with a large red dot on its wings and fuselage. The plane flew so low and at relatively slow speed such that I could make out the image of the pilot in his open cockpit. The pilot did not appear to have any aggressive intentions as he flew over the city several times, often dipping his wings for a better view of the landscape. It was the first time I had actually seen a plane in flight and for a seven-year-old boy, the experience would remained etched in memory for many years to come. After months of speculation about an impending conflict, the symbol of the Rising Sun finally made its first appearance over the skies of Baguio City. It was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

In the evening, we experienced our first blackout, not due to any power failure but more as a security measure. The old folks brought out candles and cautioned us to be quiet and not to move around too much. For the next three-and-a-half years, we experienced life under enemy occupation. Among other things, this meant having to bow low to strange-looking soldiers with cloth flaps hanging from the back of their caps, learning to sing a new anthem and familiarizing ourselves with a completely different alphabet.

Most Filipinos are aware of the Dec. 7 attack on the US Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor that signaled the start of World War II in the Pacific. But there is another event that took place here in the Philippines on the following day that should be remembered because of the huge impact it had on the conflict that followed in Bataan and Corregidor.

In 1941, the Far East Air Force (FEAF), the air component of the US armed forces in the Philippines, was formed under the command of Maj. General Lewis Brereton. In December of that year, FEAF had 34 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers and 52 P-40 fighter aircraft. Seventeen of the 34 bombers had earlier been moved to Del Monte base in Mindanao, leaving 17 bombers all based at Clark Field, along with 36 P-40 fighters. The remaining 16 P-40 aircraft were based at Iba Field in Zambales.

At 3 a.m. of Dec. 8, 1941, the Asiatic Fleet commander, Admiral Thomas Hart, was notified of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Hart was not on good terms with General Douglas MacArthur and did not bother to pass on the information. Maj. General Richard Sutherland, chief of staff of MacArthur, learned about the raid from a commercial radio broadcast and immediately informed the general. A few minutes later, MacArthur got official word from Washington of the Pearl Harbor attack.

According to General Brereton, upon learning of the attack he immediately went to see MacArthur but was told that the general was too busy and could not see him. He proposed through Sutherland to launch his B-17 bombers against Japanese bases in Formosa (now Taiwan). He was told to stand-by for orders and was never able to discuss his plans with MacArthur. Some accounts say that hours later, MacArthur called Brereton, saying that offensive air action would now be left to his discretion. Apparently, MacArthur hesitated for nearly eight hours before reaching that decision. By then, it was too late. Eight hours after the news about Pearl Harbor was received, FEAF planes were still on the ground. Shortly after noon on Dec. 8, a formation of 54 Mitsubishi bombers and 50 Zero fighters swooped down on Iba Field, destroying the base and its 16 P-40 fighters. The formation then proceeded toward the primary objective: Clark Field. Stanley Karnow’s best-selling book “In Our Image” described the scene that followed: “The sky was crystal clear… 25,000 feet below lay America’s largest army of planes in the archipelago, its biggest armada anywhere overseas. Lined up, their wings tip to tip, sat 36 P-40 fighters and 17 B-17 bombers, the famous Flying Fortresses.”

First came the bombers, hitting the oil dumps, base facilities and gutting the runway to prevent aircraft from taking off. Then came the Zero fighters, machine-gunning the base for almost an hour. They destroyed all except three bombers. Every P-40 aircraft apart from four that had somehow been able to scramble to the air, were also lost.

After the attack on Iba and Clark, the FEAF had been eliminated as an effective combat force on the very first day of the war. What remained were the 17 B-17s in Mindanao that were ordered to move to Australia. “MacArthur had lost his airpower and the blow was to be calamitous both for the Philippines in the weeks ahead and for America’s long-term position in the Pacific.”

Who was to blame? In the case of Pearl Harbor, Adm. Husband Kimmel, commander-in-chief, US Pacific Fleet, and Lt. General Walter Short, the commanding general, US Army Pacific, were both found guilty of poor judgment and dereliction of duty. Both were demoted in rank and retired in 1942.

In the case of the Iba-Clark fiasco, not one official inquiry was conducted and no one was court-martialed. General Brereton was reprimanded and re-assigned to the China-Burma-India theater under General Joseph Stilwell. Many historians have found it difficult to explain fully the Clark-Iba disaster or to determine who was at fault. But D. Clayton James, a highly-respected history professor, had this to say in his book “The Years of MacArthur, 1941-1945”: “When all the evidence is sifted, however contradictory and incomplete it may be, MacArthur still emerges as the officer who was in overall command that fateful day, and that he must therefore bear a large measure of the blame.”