If you are reading about MacArthur and B-17s, it must be about how he had the B-17s lined up wingtip to wingtip at Clark Field, even hours after he knew of the air attack on Pearl and Hickam

That is a misread of history.

But first:

Flashes of brilliance interspersed with long stretches of self promotion and pig-headedness.

MacArthur had retired from the US Army, and lived in the Philippines. He had been in the Philippines multiple times, since being with his dad, when Arthur commanded the US troops on the Islands in 1898. When FDR set the Philippines on a path to independence, in 1934, a Philippine government was elected, under President Manuel Quezon. Quezon named MacArthur Field Marshal and commander of the Philippine military.

MacArthur set to work organizing the Philippine army.

Through the 1920s and 1930s, the US military had war plans drawn up for several possible theaters of conflict. The plan that included the Philippines, was Plan Orange. Plan Orange observed the distance reinforcements would need to travel, from the US to the Philippines, and, for several thousand miles of that ocean trip, the force would be passing islands that Japan ruled, under a mandate from the League of Nations, and concluded that the Philippines were indefensible. The plan was for the US garrison to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula, and try to hold out as long as they could, but don't really expect rescue.

Delusion #1: Somehow, MacArthur convinced Chief of Staff Marshall and Sec War Stimson that the Philippines *were* defensible. He boasted the army he had created would meet the Japanese on the beach, and push them back into the ocean. US policy turned 180 degrees in the summer of 41. Long range bombers, state of the art fighters (P-40s) and submarines were flooded into the islands. And MacArthur was reactivated as a US Army General.

Delusion #1a: MacArthur wanted about 300 B-17s. Even if you disregard all the other commitments the US needed B-17s for, Boeing had not built that many, in the entire history of the model. There were not nearly adequate facilities in the Philippines to accommodate that many aircraft anyway.

Delusion #2: When informed of the attack on Pearl Harbor, MacArthur thought that, if he did not launch an attack on the Japanese bases on Formosa, the Japanese might pass the Philippines by.

So, when the commanding General of the Air Corps in the Philippines ran to MacArthur's offices at 3:30am, for authorization to launch a strike on Formosa, he was rebuffed. He tried a couple more times. Rebuffed again. Sure the Japanese would attack at dawn, he had all the aircraft take off and orbit the island. That way, when the Japanese attack arrived, the fighters would be in position to attack, and the bombers could skedaddle in the opposite direction, so they would not be destroyed.

What the US commanders had no way of knowing, was Formosa was socked in with fog, which delayed the launch of the Japanese strike.

So the US aircraft orbited Luzon for hours. The Japanese never showed. MacArthur finally authorized a strike on Formosa. The aircraft were landed, refueled, and the bombers loaded for the strike, while the pilots went to lunch. *That* is when the Japanese showed up.

The part of the book I read last night, talks about President Quezon writing to FDR, from a tunnel on Corregidor, proposing both the US and Japanese withdraw, and he declare the Philippines neutral. I take that incident as confirmation that MacArthur's reluctance to attack was, at least, in part, his read that Quezon would do anything to prevent war in the Philippines.

Steve