AHC: Improve the defence of the Philippines during WW 2.

[La Rouge Beret]

The Philippine campaign (1941 - 1942) commencing with the invasion of the Philippines by Imperial Japan in December 1941 to the fall of Corregidor in May 1942 is regarded as a significant defeat in American military history.

(Above maps sourced from wikipedia article)

With a POD after December 1940 what practical changes could be made to improve the defence of the Philippines both from the Philippine perspective & USAAFE against the threat posed by Imperial Japan? Is there an ability to create a local supply chain for consumables like small arms ammunition, stockpiling supplies and what would an improved training regime look like for the Philippine Army & the US Army forces within theatre? Could the Asiatic Fleet be used more effectively.

 

[CV(N)-6]

Douglas MacArthur hops on a plane to go tour the northern coast of Luzon where he intends to repel any Japanese invasion in mid-1941. Unfortunately, both of the plane's engines suddenly fail and he dies in the resulting crash.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Douglas MacArthur hops on a plane to go tour the northern coast of Luzon where he intends to repel any Japanese invasion in mid-1941. Unfortunately, both of the plane's engines suddenly fail and he dies in the resulting crash.

I was waiting for Mac to die in a creative way.

 

[Alanith]

Mac gets hit by a truck, which then throws it into reverse to finish the job. Also, as I recall the Philippines had some reasonably large sum of money held in trust they could have spent on defense. Get that money earlier and spend it, preferably before 1938-39 and buy a bunch of good enough equipment for their army.

 

[marathag]

Well, the standby is to have Mac choke on his pipe and get evac'ed to the US.
But with December 2, the Cake is already pretty much baked.

Yeah, you can do some stuff, like actually bomb Taiwan and maybe not have most of the USAAC not be shotup on the ground, but there is little to be done,
except move every bit of supply and combat troops to Bataan, and start making fieldworks there. It's the only defensible bit of that whole chain

 

[CV12Hornet]

The issue boils down to the fact that the defense of the Philippines is first a naval problem and that the United States Navy for a bunch of very sensible reasons did not want to commit itself to a naval defense of the Philippines.

Certainly, the US could've made things a lot harder for the Japanese. Not getting their entire air force destroyed on day one, for instance. But the defense of the islands depended on a Philippine army that was underequipped, poorly trained, and not up to strength due to mobilization difficulties, leaving only the understrength Philippine Division to try and stop two crack Japanese infantry divisions. So what they need, above all else, is more fully-equipped, well-trained infantry units. Two full-strength, well-handled divisions could've likely undone the entire Japanese invasion.

 

[I want to learn]

Mac gets hit by a truck, which then throws it into reverse to finish the job. Also, as I recall the Philippines had some reasonably large sum of money held in trust they could have spent on defense. Get that money earlier and spend it, preferably before 1938-39 and buy a bunch of good enough equipment for their army.

Were any nations selling anything good in 1938? Like the first-rate tanks, ships and planes are going straight into the inventories of great powers preparing for war, so anything the Philippines could afford would be totally useless in 1942 campaigns. Did the Philippine Commonwealth Army want for surplus World War 1 small arms and obsolescent light artillery? Because I think that's all that was available.

 

[CV12Hornet]

Were any nations selling anything good in 1938? Like the first-rate tanks, ships and planes are going straight into the inventories of great powers preparing for war, so anything the Philippines could afford would be totally useless in 1942 campaigns. Did the Philippine Commonwealth Army want for surplus World War 1 small arms and obsolescent light artillery? Because I think that's all that was available.

In terms of artillery? Yes. Because the Philippine units raised only had 20% their allotment of artillery, and even obsolescent pieces would help dramatically.

 

[Alanith]

Were any nations selling anything good in 1938? Like the first-rate tanks, ships and planes are going straight into the inventories of great powers preparing for war, so anything the Philippines could afford would be totally useless in 1942 campaigns. Did the Philippine Commonwealth Army want for surplus World War 1 small arms and obsolescent light artillery? Because I think that's all that was available.

Surplus WW1 small arms and outdated light artillery would be better then what they had. Which was a great deal of nothing. A 40 year old Lee Enfield can kill a charging japanese solider as well as a Garand in the right hands. When the baseline is so low, improving it isn't that hard really.

 

[wcv215]

Right offhand if MacArthur had begun preparations to withdraw earlier he’d have been able to move a lot of food and ammunition that had to be abandoned OTL.

 

[Jellico]

I was waiting for Mac to die in a creative way.

Stubs his toe on his crate of Philippine cash. Penicillin barely exists in 1942 so infection sets in.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Well, the standby is to have Mac choke on his pipe and get evac'ed to the US.
But with December 2, the Cake is already pretty much baked.

Yeah, you can do some stuff, like actually bomb Taiwan and maybe not have most of the USAAC not be shotup on the ground, but there is little to be done,
except move every bit of supply and combat troops to Bataan, and start making fieldworks there. It's the only defensible bit of that whole chain

December 1940 and not December 1941.

He has 12 months.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

In terms of artillery? Yes. Because the Philippine units raised only had 20% their allotment of artillery, and even obsolescent pieces would help dramatically.

I was thinking something simple like Stokes mortars and the like as they can be purchased & training is straight forward. Plus it would help to augment their firepower at the sub unit level, although increasing the number of radio sets would then be required to meaningfully integrate the mortars.

 

[Slime_blob]

MacArthur gets involved in corruption charges, dismissed by Quezon, then he placed local commanders in charge of the defense of the Philippines with Vicente Lim as supreme commander, I've been reading his accounts seems that he is apparently very talented of a General.

Or Have Quezon lose the 1935 elections and have the staunch pro independence candidate Aguinaldo win. So no MacArthur and isntead he placed a local general in Charge

 

[Driftless]

Wasn't there a too frequent of a problem with small arms ammunition that had deteriorated in the Philippine humidity and heat over time? If so, get that ammo replaced. That should be a comparatively cheap fix.

Also, while not a decisive change, how about a "Phen" SMG, for distribution to the Philippine second-line troops and militias? Easy and cheap to make That type of weapon would be useful in boht jungle engagements and urban fights.

Break the fighting commands up into two or three regional entities: Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao? Would that allow for a longer fight?

 

[La Rouge Beret]

The other option I considered was to have Macarthur seconded to Chiang Kai Shek as his military advisor instead of Vinegar Joe Stilwell. While Stilwell is then posted to the Philippines, although any timeline where Mac and the Generalissimo have to be in the same room as each other & work together would be tremendous fun to write.

 

[CV12Hornet]

Knowing what I know of the two men, MacArthur is either going to be defenestrated in the first week or find himself dying of a very convenient liver failure a few months later.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Knowing what I know of the two men, MacArthur is either going to be defenestrated in the first week or find himself dying of a very convenient liver failure a few months later.

I was thinking of the mother & father of all honeypot operations, but that's just me.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

If I had to come up with a defensive plan for the Philippines in December 1940, I would start by concentrating all eight divisions on Luzon the map lists in the Manila areas. The island is to big to stop any force from landing on the island. Manila and Bataan might be defensible.

My understanding is that this was the plan. Pull back to Bataan and wait for the navy to relieve the islands.

If you successfully lobby for a larger and better equipped Philippine Army, then of course you can do more. With what they had, the best they could do was not get the air force destroyed and withdraw to the peninsula, with supplies as soon as possible. So you postpone the surrender by a couple of months.

One thing about World War 2 is that it was an industrial war, and a lot of these campaigns were decided by air/ sea/ materiel/ logisitcs, so there was not much scope for land tactics to decide things.

 

[stephen the barbarian]

here's an answer:
pull us army out of the Philippines and base them in Australia along with most if not all of their heavy equipment.
begin to distribute small arms* and communications equipment to garrisons located throughout the archipelago while training up partisan groups. ideally this will turn the Philippines into a major manpower sink for the Japanese while costing the us very little

*up to and including light mortars and at rifles