WI the Japanese invaders faced a tougher fight in the Philippines in early WW2?

Assume that the Pearl Harbor surprise attack proceeds as OTL, but that once General Douglas MacArthur receives word of the bombings, he orders his air command on Clark and Iba air-fields to bomb the Japanese invasion fleet at Formosa while the Japanese are still hemmed in by early morning fog.

Let's also suppose that instead of seeking to repel the Japanese invaders at the beaches, MacArthur instead follows War Plan Orange, and in the intervening years before December 1941 he fortifies the approaches to the Bataan peninsula and sets up the equivalent of the Fort Stotsenberg supply base at Mariveles.

This helps to ensure that though the Japanese would eventually force their way through Luzon, his troops on Bataan would be well-supplied (or at least in better circumstances than occurred in OTL) and ready to meet them in pre-prepared positions with a massive supply base in their rear. Obviously this would result in a much longer siege through 1942 with significantly higher casualties for the Japanese who would presumably have to pull troops from other pending operations throughout the Southwest Pacific to subdue the well-supplied (and better-fed) American-Filipino garrison on Bataan and Corregidor.

And don't forget that there are other commands on the other islands throughout the Philippines archipelago that the Japanese would also have to conquer.

And before I forget, also imagine that Gen. Douglas MacArthur would still be pulled out of Corregidor and spirited to Australia per presidential orders in February 1942 as in OTL, but that Chief of Staff George C. Marshall would not alter MacArthur's command structure by promoting Gen. Jonathan Wainwright as commander of all American and Filipino units in the Philippines (as opposed to just Corregidor and Bataan, as MacArthur had intended with himself remaining as supreme commander in the Philippines).
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How differently would the war in the Pacific have turned out had the Japanese faced longer and stiffer organized resistance in the Philippines, along with a command structure that still left Gen. Douglas MacArthur as supreme commander in the Philippines?
 
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How differently would the war in the Pacific have turned out had the Japanese faced longer and stiffer organized resistance in the Philippines?


Shogun,

I guess the best way to answer that question is to ask another question:

What would it be like if people used the Search function?

Have fun reading.


Bill
 
Shogun,

I guess the best way to answer that question is to ask another question:

What would it be like if people used the Search function?

Have fun reading.


Bill

I already searched for it, and didn't find what I was looking for.

And give me a break... :rolleyes:
 
I concur. Give the guy a break. He's new. And furthermore, I started a TL about this same thing some time back, and it didn't get much response. I've seen very little posted on this subject in the time I've been a member here. So it deserves discussion.

Shogun, my TL addressed the second half of your question for the most part. If Skinny Wainwright had not been in charge overall, the Japs could not have forced him to surrender everybody, and General Sharp on Mindanao, along with perhaps others would have gone on fighting until well into the summer of 1942. To back up a bit to the first part of your question, you would almost have had to had a different commander than Macarthur to get the B 17s at Clark Field to hit the Japs first. Even after news of the attack at Pearl had reached the Phillipines, politicians there didn't want any attacks to come from their soil, in the stupid and folorn hope that the Phillipines somehow might be bypassed by the attackers. And Macarthur, being Macarthur, with all of his respect for Quezon and others there, held back until it was too late. Perhaps another commander might not have given a damn about what the 'natives' thought, and sent his planes to bomb Formosa just as the fog there was lifting.

So if all this happened, and the supply situation on Bataan was better, then perhaps some organised resistance continues almost to the end of 1942, and more Americans in various places never surrender, but simply melt away into the jungle to fight on as guerillas, like some did in OTL, and the occupiers have a whole lot more grief there during their tenure.
Shogun,

I guess the best way to answer that question is to ask another question:

What would it be like if people used the Search function?

Have fun reading.


Bill
 
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And furthermore, I started a TL about this same thing some time back, and it didn't get much response.



Oudi14,

The fact that your thread didn't get much response has to more to do with the way you proposed it and less to do with whether there is interest in this topic.

I've seen very little posted on this subject in the time I've been a member here. So it deserves discussion.

Bollocks.

Just for starters try Calbear's Pacific War Redux. It's recent, currently on pause, and extremely good.

If you've seen very little posted it's because you've done very little looking.


Bill
 
Just for starters try Calbear's Pacific War Redux. It's recent, [YES] currently on pause, [DEAD:confused::(] and extremely good [Very True].

If there were still Active Fighting going on in Fall '42, There would be intense pressure for the US to send troops to Mindanao, instead of Australia and the Fall DEI Attacks.
 

Markus

Banned
Assume that the Pearl Harbor surprise attack proceeds as OTL, but that once General Douglas MacArthur receives word of the bombings, he orders his air command on Clark and Iba air-fields to bomb the Japanese invasion fleet at Formosa while the Japanese are still hemmed in by early morning fog.

Waste of bombs. Go after the airfields instead. IIRC Bereton intended to do just that.

How differently would the war in the Pacific have turned out had the Japanese faced longer and stiffer organized resistance in the Philippines, along with a command structure that still left Gen. Douglas MacArthur as supreme commander in the Philippines?

Not that much. The PI were bypassed and isolated by taking islands of the DEI. A well prepared and supplied allied base on Bataan would be a tough nut to crack but the Japanese do not need to hurry, at least not there. In Malaya and the DEI it´s another matter.
 
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