USS Nashville sunk at Surigo Straits

Cook

Could you simply have either:

a) The POD is that they do attack the airfield while he's there.

b) Even simpler, he's just made a [for the time] long flight across a contested region largely under Japanese control either enemy action or simply a break-down means he's lost?

Steve

For a while Gridley it seemed like my best opportunity.

MacArthur arrived in Australia from the Philippine Islands at Batchelor airfield south of Darwin on 17 March 1942 in a B-17 bomber with his entourage. The aircraft had had to divert to Batchelor from Darwin because of a Japanese air attack on Darwin taking place at the time.

After stepping off the plane he demanded to be taken to the nearest railroad station for the south. When informed that the nearest train south was in fact at Alice Springs, some 1000 miles away he had breakfast before transferring to a DC-3 and continued his journey south.

Ten minutes after their DC-3 departed Batchelor the airfield was devastated by a Japanese air attack.

So you see I thought I had a good opportunity to kill him off there if his plane was delayed for 10 minutes, delays are a fact of live in the top end even now so would hardly be unusual in ’42.

There are only a couple of snags. The first is that Darwin was definitely not bombed on 17 March; the B-17s had flown from Batchelor in the beginning and merely returned there after their trip to the Philippines, the report that the aircraft had to be diverted because of a Jap (sic) attack was invented by the MacArthur publicity machine.

And as far as I’ve been able to dig up, so was the attack on Batchelor. So far I’ve been able to find only one report of an attack on Batchelor in ’42 and that was later in the year and caused minimal damage; more MacArthur creative reporting.

And when you think about it why would the Japanese not simultaneously attack two airfields only 50 miles apart?

So there you see, I seem to be stuck for the moment.
 
Harry Truman gets a second full term and the Korean War ends in 1952 with an armistice and without Chinese involvment. Much of World War 11 goes on the same apart from the loss of USS Nashville. Sutherland takes over. The problem lies in the reconstruction of post war Japan and whether anyone would be up to the job other than Mcarthur
 

Bearcat

Banned
I don't think Sutherland would take over. The army back in DC was somewhat aware of the issues on MacArthur's staff by late '42 IIRC. Before the fall of the PI, he is not senior to too many people, after, he is hated by too many who have dealt with him in his role as Mac's Chief Ass-kisser and guarddog.

Someone would get sent out from CONUS to take over.
 
IIRC...

IIRC, he wanted to 'go nuclear' in Korea, and had to be ordered home before WW3 erupted...

Uh, rather than shot by exasperated aide, beheaded as POW, strafed in PT boat, mortared by IJN hold-out or crashed in Dead Heart of Australia, what about a nice, relapsing tropical disease contracted during his escape from Philippines that invalides him home and *out* before his ego runs rampant across the Pacific ??

Still leaves him available for 'desk job' in Japan...
 

The Sandman

Banned
You're all ignoring a much earlier, and therefore better, POD.

Have somebody shoot him during or just after the attack on the Bonus Army in 1932.
 
How about we keep Mac alive till he landed in PI? Then have a sniper, artillery, kamikaze or whatever else there it to waste him :p

With Mac gone, who would succeed him? Eichelberger, Krueger, or Buckner?

And what will happen to Japan's reconstruction? IIRC he pushed hard for keeping the Imperial system... and how would Korean War go without him (that's unfamiliar territory to me)?

Marc A
 

Bearcat

Banned
A parallel question here is how much longer someone else would hold in the PI. Krueger, for instance. I think a *little* longer... the food situation would likely be better.... but the ammo and other problems remain. There is no chance that Bataan can hold IMHO until the end of 1942 or some such. Krueger will eventually have to surrender. He may be able to make the IJA bleed a little more first, however.
 

Cook

Banned
b) Even simpler, he's just made a [for the time] long flight across a contested region largely under Japanese control either enemy action or simply a break-down means he's lost?

Steve

Perhaps I should have him board Lt. Pease’s B-17 on the 11th even though it had suffered hydraulic failure. The subsequent ground loop on landing in Australia goes worse than IOTL and Mac’s killed.

Or High Command determines that the attempt to rescue him on the 11th should not be followed up on the 17th and Mac goes into captivity with the rest of his Army; his reputation would be the same as Percival’s in that case.
 

Or High Command determines that the attempt to rescue him on the 11th should not be followed up on the 17th and Mac goes into captivity with the rest of his Army; his reputation would be the same as Percival’s in that case.

Cook

Possibly although I have heard that for all his failures as a commander Percival seems to have won a lot of respect from his men [and others ] not just for going into captivity with his men but also his work on their behave during the captivity and afterwards. From everything I've heard about him I get the feeling MacArthur wouldn't have been held in the same esteem.

Steve
 
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