INSPECTION. General MacArthur and Brig. Gen. Albert M. Jones with members of their staffs, 10 January 1942.

The supply situation on Bataan was serious from the start and became steadily worse through the campaign. Originally, under the ORANGE plan, supplies for 43,000 men for a period of six months were to have been moved to the peninsula on the outbreak of war. MacArthur's order to fight it out on the beaches had invalidated this plan, and when war came supplies and equipment were moved forward to advance depots to support the troops on the front lines. At that time there were stored on Bataan 2,295,000 pounds of canned salmon, 152,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables, 6,000 pounds of miscellaneous foods, and 400,000 gallons of gasoline.

Full-scale movement of supplies to Bataan did not begin until the decision was made on 23 December to withdraw to Bataan. By that time the number of troops to be supplied during the siege of Bataan had increased from the planned 43,000 to almost 80,000, in addition to about 26,000 civilians who had fled to Bataan to escape the invading army. Moving to Bataan enough food and supplies to keep so large a force in action for a period of 180 days would have been extremely difficult under the most favorable circumstances. To accomplish it in about one week, during the confusion of war and retreat, proved to be an impossible task.

Some preparations had been made for the transfer of supplies to Bataan even before the orders for a general withdrawal had been issued on the evening of 23 December. Lt. Col. Otto Harwood, a quartermaster officer, had gone to Limay on Bataan on 14 December to disperse the defense reserves stored there the previous summer, and Col. Alva E. McConnell of the Philippine Quartermaster Depot had begun to ship small quantities of food and petroleum products to Bataan some days before the 23d. Altogether Harwood received from Manila for storage on Bataan approximately 750,000 pounds of canned milk, 20,000 pounds of vegetables, 40,000 gallons of gasoline, and 60,000 gallons of lubricating oils and greases. The Si-Kiang, bound for Indochina with 5,000,000 pounds of flour and large quantities of petroleum, was seized and brought to Bataan, but unfortunately was bombed and sunk before the flour could be unloaded.

The large-scale movement of supplies to Bataan and Corregidor began after 23 December. First Corregidor was stocked with enough reserves to supply 10,000 men for six months. This task required only one day since the island already had rations for 7,000 men. The movement of supplies to Bataan was more difficult, largely because of transportation problems, the brief period of time in which to accomplish the task, and the size of the shipments.

The only land route to Bataan was the one being used by the retreating troops. Until 31 December the roads to San Fernando and into the peninsula could be used, but with difficulty. The shortage of motor vehicles further limited the quantities of supplies that could be dispatched by this means. After that date the land route from Manila to Bataan was closed. The rail net north of Manila, the best in the archipelago, proved of limited value because of the shortage of rolling stock and the desertion of train and engine crews.

There was no time to evacuate the depots in northern Luzon and scarcely time to get out part of the reserves from Forts McKinley and Stotsenburg. Many of the troops became afflicted with "withdrawal fever" and left behind much that they could have taken. At Stotsenburg, long before the Japanese were within striking distance, the post was evacuated. Food, clothing, and other supplies, it is reported, were left behind by post personnel, to be picked up later by the withdrawing troops. The same thing is supposed to have happened at Clark Field, adjacent to Stotsenburg, where 250,000 gallons of aviation gasoline and several obsolete but serviceable planes were left behind. North and South Luzon Force commanders were instructed to pick up whatever food they could on their way to Bataan, and to turn their supplies in when they reached the peninsula. "Not an ounce" was turned in, noted the quartermaster, although the divisions brought in between ten and twenty-five days' supply of food.

Most of the supplies for Bataan came from Manila, where the port area with its large warehouses and loaded ships was filled with stores of all kinds. Bataan, only thirty miles away across the bay, could be reached easily by almost every type of vessel. With the shortage of motor and rail transportation, water transport become the chief means of getting supplies from the capital to Bataan. The quartermaster's Army Transport Service, led by Col. Frederick A. Ward and staffed largely by civilian volunteers, took over all the available barges, tugs, and launches and used them for the journey. The first two were slow, but they had the advantage of being easily unloaded at the three piers on Bataan where dock facilities were primitive.

At the Manila end loadings were hampered by the Japanese bombings of the port area between the 27th and 30th and the shortage of stevedores. The latter was partially overcome by the use of some two hundred American and British civilians who volunteered to work as dock hands. Altogether, a total of approximately 30,000 tons of supplies was shipped to Bataan and Corregidor by barge and unloaded by the time the Japanese occupied Manila on 2 January.

Also loaded, but still lying out in the bay at this time, were another 150 barges and 3 freighters. These vessels were unloaded during the weeks that followed at times when they would be safe from Japanese attack, usually at night. But large quantities of food, supplies of all kinds, and gasoline were left behind on the docks and in commercial storage. What the civilians in Manila did not take away with them just before the Japanese entered the city, the conquerors appropriated.

At the time the decision was made to withdraw to Bataan, ammunition and food appeared to be the most critical items of supply and they were accorded first priority. Second priority went to defense materials and to gasoline. All other supplies were given third priority. When rations and ammunition had been shipped, medical supplies, demolitions, barbed wire, and gasoline moved to the top of the priority list.

The shortage of rations proved to be even more serious than expected, and from the start the scarcity of food was the most alarming fact in the situation of the 80,000 troops on Bataan. The transfer of rice to Bataan had proved difficult because of Commonwealth regulations which stipulated that neither rice nor sugar could be removed from one province to another. When the time came to move supplies to Bataan, authority was requested to take these commodities but permission was not received in time. In this way 10,000,000 pounds of rice at the Government Rice Central at Cabanatuan was lost.³⁹ Even the seizure of Japanese-owned stocks was prohibited. At Tarlac Lt. Col. Charles S. Lawrence, commander of the depot there, planned to take over about 2,000 cases of canned food, mostly fish and corned beef, as well as a considerable quantity of clothing that belonged to Japanese firms. He was informed by MacArthur's headquarters that he had no right to do so and that he would be court-martialed if he did. These supplies were later destroyed during operations.