Could anything more have been done on Corregidor in 1942?

Lol! Very nice retort. I left myself open for that one.

 

Et tu Brute.

Vini, Vidi, Icriti. I came, I saw, I concreted.

 

Well I personally believe no, because the US wasn't really ready to fight WWII until 1944. Alot of guts and luck before then.

 

I don't know about that one, they did launch Operation Torch and smacked the Germans in NA (ok they had help with the Brits) and they effectively invaded Italy drawing valuable resourses from France and the Soviet Union and they achieved Italy's withdrawal from the war as an axis ally.

 

Well thanks I'm glad you gave me a chance to elaborate on this subject of not being ready.

The US had a well supplied able force and got her clock cleaned by the Afrika Korp at Kassarine. The Germans were excellent experienced soldiers but lacked supply. The Americans were simply not ready or experienced and resulted in a rout in that Battle. Had the Germans exploited their short victory, they would have done more serious, though short term, damage to the Allies in Afrika.

As far as Italy, again they faced quality German troops but with the American lack of leadership from Mark Clarke, experienced unacceptable set backs and losses. Kesslering did have quite a say in the matter of defense. Italy was on her way out after the defeat in Afrika and the partisan groups hitting the fascists. True, the Allied presence in Italy just sped the inevitable up.

Similar instances can be made to the PTO, The Japanese with a superior carrier force, ran into alot of bad luck and guts of American TB pilots that didn't return. Many landing tactics needed to be refined as to not waste so many Marines. Still the Japanese resolve became stiffer the closer America got to Japan. So when thinking back to Corregidor it would have been a disasterous gamble to have tried to save the situation, liken it to a Dunkirk gone bad.

 

Yes that maybe so, but if reading correctly that the Americans knew sooner or later that Japan was to be an enemy, America had imposed a raft of tough sanctions onto Japan, due to it's current invasion of China and that the Americans knew American territory was vulnerable to future attack, with the Philipines bearing the main attack but, this is where the American psychy of isolationism went against it, it needed to bolster its territories to attack but need an attack to overide their Neutrality Act, hence Catch 22. I will even entertain the fact MacArthur did not know of the impending attack, but he had 10s of thousands under his command but waisted them. And finally when he was given an opportunity to escape he did leaving behind thousands and then blamed them for his failure.

 

Well many Americans didn't want to fight WWII in the beginning before Pearl Harbor and well others, remember the Nazi rally in Madison Square garden. There was a reason why Italians and Germans were not interned on the East Coast, too many. You mention sanctions, they don't work and more than not lead to war, so why bother. The defeat at Pearl Harbor prevented any challenge to the Superior Japanese Navy in the Phillipines. A defeat would leave both the Aleutians and the West Coast vulnerable. An Army did not matter unless it had both Naval and Air support in the Phillipines.

 

Ok you have there.

 

True. The US Army has to cross the Pacific. But the point of the matter is that the Filipino troops were THE US Army. They were inducted in the US Army and were organized as the United States Armed Forces in the Far East or USAFFE. So the US Army had at least 70,000 troops already in the Philippines, aside from the regular US Army and US Marine formations.
What was needed were reinforcements and resupply.
Replacements could always be drawn from the native population.

Also, thanks for the comment. You gave me another idea for a what if.

 

I thought that the figure was more like Philipino 110,000 troops.

 

Thanks for the correction. That's the total. The 70,000 count is the number of troops that made it into Bataan, I think. I have to double check that.

 

Yeah no problems it is just i read that the Philipino forces numbered roughly 110,000 so i took that as a given. And look forward to your findings on how many actually served.

 

Sorry if this reply is a bit late but I finally tracked down a number. An estimated total of 250,000 Filipinos served under US military command during World War II, based on the Missouri List. Of this number, roughly 18,000 are still alive today with 6,000 living in the US and 12,000 in the Philippines. This data was released during the recent hearing in the US Senate on the Veterans Benefits Enhancement Bill.

 

Thanks Falcon. It's never too late to add useful data.