The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
the possibilities in the situation confronting the associated powers, he
emphasized the necessity for a defensive strategy until such time as
sufficient forces had been brought together for offensive operations
“(a) by working from Burma into China towards Shanghai to acquire
advanced bases; (b) by exerting slow pressure through the Nether-
lands East Indies and Malaya; and (c) by exerting similar pressure
from Australia into the islands to the North.” O n the following day
he ordered the Holbrook and Bloemfontein, the only vessels so far
dispatched to MacArthur, to put in a t Darwin and to discharge their
cargo and all troops a t that port.lo4
By this time the War Department, too, held grave doubts as to the
feasibility of sending substantial reinforcements to the Philippines. It
was clear that a reservoir of supply could not be built up in Australia
except over a period of many months. Hope of ferrying short-range
planes to the Philippines declined with each report of the progress
of Japanese forces, and the prospect of breaking through the sea
blockade with a naval escort for convoys was even less promising.
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill with their chiefs
of staff, then meeting in Washington, had considered such an opera-
tion. But the US. Navy had been hard hit at Pearl Harbor, the bal-
ance of naval power in the Pacific had been further upset in Japan’s
favor by loss of the British Prince of Wales and the Repulse to enemy
bombers on 10 December, and forces already committed to the Atlan-
tic and Middle East theaters could not be released within the time
available.” A memorandum of 3 January for the Chief of Staff signed
by Brig. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow, Assistant Chief of Staff, outlined
the operations that would be required to restore the American posi-
tion in the Philippines. The first requirement would be to gain air
and naval superiority south of the line Malaya-Borneo-Celebes and
to make preparations for extending this control northward. With air
supremacy established in the Netherlands East Indies, it would be
necessary to extend this supremacy from NEI bases northward to
cover Mindanao, and then with the support of strong naval and air
forces to land large ground forces on Mindanao preparatory to a
drive into Luzon. The associated powers commanded of course
neither the time nor the means for such an operation as this, and on
the basis of an unavoidable conclusion that “the forces required for
the relief of the Philippines cannot be placed in the Far East area
# See below, pp. 239-43.
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