Kind of hard to get 100 up when you line them up in nice neat rows so the bad guys can maximize damage on each pass. The ones that got up were mostly at aux fields.
That was definitely a not smart thing to do. Probably the most not smart thing was ignoring the Opana radar site report. This would have given pilots ample time to get up. The Brits were getting up in 2 minutes. Multiple failures, like any big disaster. The Enterprise scout reports are an interesting read: http://www.cv6.org/ship/logs/ph/
In this battle, the incoming Japanese force was discovered, and TRACKED on radar. While this information made it to headquarters, it somehow never made if from headquarters to the the squadron at Clark. The squadron was eventually scrambled when an officer on site visually identifited the incoming attack wave. By then it was too late. The Battle of the Philippines is easily the greatest defeat in US military history. If I had to give a reason why, it would be that the US commanders at that time were stupid. For some reason they were promoting stupid people. Short was given written orders in 1941 to prepare for a Japanese air attack on Oahu. After the attack, he had claimed that those orders were too vague, and that somehow the Navy was responsible for detecting an incoming attack wave. ?????????
The top Pearl Harbor commanders were both sacked. Douglas MacArthur was not tainted by the P.I. installations being caught by surprise after the Pearl Harbor attack. Short was branched infantry and probably did not grasp his broad multi-faceted mission.
Chester Nimitz and Husband Kimmel had been friends for many years. Nimitz had been offered CINCPACFLT before it was offered to Kimmel and turned it down knowing what the future likely held. He knew no serious attention was going to be directed at the Pacific as a deterrence and would and was redirected to the ETO in support of Britan. He knew being CINCPACFLT at the wrong time was a sure career ender and advised Hubby Kimmel not to take the job either. Kimmel did not see as grim a future as Nimitz did and so took the promotion with the outcome predicted by Nimitz. Short was just an idiot but both careers were sacrificed in the name of holding someone responsible and we all know politicians are really good at finger pointing.
Dugout Doug was very aware of the Japanese headed his way but he said a political solution was still possible to avoid all out war so took no action until it was far too late. That was his story and he stuck to it. A father of a friend was there when Doug filmed his famous return and walked off a landing craft. The friends father said they were playing vollyball there and had to move so it could be filmed.
I knew some guys that served in the Philippines near Ol' Doug and one of them told me that Doug was the best actor that he served under and that the "Return Drama" was filmed several times to get it "right" in Doug's eyes.
A family friend was a Marine in the Philippines. He had the honor of being a participant in the Bataan Death March. He told a lot of interesting stories over the camp fire.
If you guys haven't yet read it, Pearl Harbor, From Infamy to Greatness, is a nice recent take on how it all went off.
Now reading Francis Pike's 'Hirohito's War,' his account of the defense of Philippines is very damning. McArthur comes off very badly.
