The story of the last two days of the
defense of Bataan is one of progressive disintegration and final
collapse. Lines were formed and abandoned before they could be fully
occupied. Communications broke down and higher headquarters often did
not know the situation on the front lines. Orders were issued and
revoked because they were impossible of execution. Stragglers poured to
the rear in increasingly large numbers until they clogged all roads and
disrupted all movement forward. Units disappeared into the jungle never
to be heard from again. In two days an army evaporated into thin air.
When the action of the 6th was over the
Americans and Filipinos found themselves in a desperate situation. The
carefully prepared counterattack launched that morning had failed
dismally and the enemy had quickly seized the initiative to score
decisive gains.
In an Army Day broadcast General
Wainwright spoke bravely of those who were "privileged to be charged
with the defense of this distant bastion." But his official dispatches
show a clear appreciation of the catastrophic events of the past
twenty-four hours. To Washington he reported that the enemy had driven a
wedge into the right center of his front, that the air and artillery
bombardment begun on the 3d had continued without letup, and that fresh
enemy troops had been thrown into the battle and were gaming ground
slowly.
All units on the line were so decimated as
to make their designations meaningless. The 31st Infantry (US) had but
160 men; the 26th Cavalry, 300; the 57th Infantry, 500. Altogether
Bluemel had 1,360 men in the three regiments and one battalion under his
command. Irwin's force of two regiments numbered but 1,200 men. All the
troops were half starved and exhausted. "We were all so tired," wrote
one officer, "that the only way to stay awake was to remain standing. As
soon as a man sat or laid down he would go to sleep."
At 2330, when his position was already
hopeless, General King received fresh orders from Corregidor directing
him to launch an offensive with I Corps northward toward Olongapo, the
Japanese base at the head of Subic Bay. In issuing these orders
Wainwright was merely carrying out his own orders from General
MacArthur, who, on 4 April, had instructed him to "prepare and execute
an attack upon the enemy along the following general lines," when the
situation became desperate.
Even before he issued the orders for an
attack, Wainwright already knew it was impossible of execution. Earlier
that day he had notified the War Department that the withdrawal of both
corps had become necessary because of the weakness of the troops who had
subsisted for so long on one-half to one-third rations. Even the best of
his regiments, he said, "were capable of only a short advance before
they were completely exhausted." In his message to MacArthur he had
given clear warning that the end was near. The tactical situation, he
explained, was fast deteriorating and the men were so weakened by hunger
and disease that they had "no power of resistance" left. "It is with
deep regret," he had written, "that I am forced to report that the
troops on Bataan are fast folding up."
Except for a single issue of half rations,
the food stocks on Bataan had been exhausted. Already the depot
commanders were standing by for orders to destroy their equipment and
the Chemical Warfare Service was dumping its chemicals into Manila Bay.
At Mariveles the Navy had begun demolitions an hour before and the
flames were already lighting up the sky.
When, late in the evening of 8 April,
General Wainwright ordered a counterattack by I Corps in the direction
of Olongapo, General King had already reached the conclusion that he had
no alternative but to surrender. By that time all chance of halting the
Japanese advance, much less launching a successful counterattack, was
gone. The last of his reserves as well as those of the two corps had
been committed.
The deterioration of the line in the II
Corps sector gave the enemy free passage to the south where the
hospitals with their 12,000 defenseless patients, already within reach
of Japanese light artillery, were located. Philippine Army troops were
in complete rout and units were melting away "lock, stock, and barrel."
Headquarters had lost contact with the front-line troops and could no
longer control the action except through runners or the armored vehicles
of the SPM battalion. The roads were jammed with soldiers who had
abandoned arms and equipment in their frantic haste to escape from the
advancing Japanese infantry and armored columns and the strafing planes
overhead. "Thousands poured out of the jungle," wrote one observer,
"like small spring freshets pouring into creeks which in turn poured
into a river."
Even if General King had been able at the
last moment to muster enough arms and men to oppose the Japanese advance
it is extremely doubtful that he could have averted or even delayed the
final disaster, The men on Bataan were already defeated and had been for
almost a week. Disease and starvation rather than military conditions
had created the situation in which General King now found himself. The
men who threw away their arms and equipment and jammed the roads and
trails leading south were beaten men. Three months of malnutrition,
malaria, and intestinal infections had left them weak and
disease-ridden, totally incapable of the sustained physical effort
necessary for a successful defense.
If the situation appeared critical to
those on Corregidor and in Australia, how much blacker was the future to
General King on whom rested the responsibility for the fate of the
78,000 men on Bataan. As early as the afternoon of 7 April, when the
last of the Luzon Force and I Corps reserves had been committed without
appreciably delaying the enemy, he had realized that his position was
critical. It was then that he sent his chief of staff, General Funk, to
Corregidor to inform Wainwright that the fall of Bataan was imminent and
that he might have to surrender. Though Wainwright shared King's
feelings about the plight of the men on Bataan, his answer to Funk was
of necessity based upon his own orders. On his desk was a message from
MacArthur which prohibited surrender under any conditions.
The only alternative remaining to King if
he followed Wainwright's orders was to accept the wholesale slaughter of
his men without achieving any military advantage. Under the
circumstances, it was almost inevitable that he would disobey his
orders.
Wainwright evidently appreciated King's
position, and even expected him to surrender. Some years later, after
his return from prison camp, he wrote: "I had my orders from MacArthur
not to surrender on Bataan, and therefore I could not authorize King to
do it." But General King, he added, "was on the ground and confronted by
a situation in which he had either to surrender or have his people
killed piecemeal. This would most certainly have happened to him within
two or three days."
At just what point in the last hectic days
of the battle of Bataan General King made his decision is not clear. He
may already have decided to surrender on the 7th when he sent Funk to
Corregidor, for even at that time it was evident that defeat was
inevitable. The next day, sometime during the afternoon, King instructed
his senior commanders to make preparations for the destruction of all
weapons and equipment, except motor vehicles and gasoline, but to wait
for further orders before starting the actual destruction. At the same
time he told General Wainwright that if he expected to move any troops
from Bataan to Corregidor, he would have to do it that night "as it
would be too late thereafter." When Colonels Constant Irwin and
Carpenter came to Bataan to discuss the withdrawal of the 45th Infantry
(PS) with the Luzon Force staff they "gained the impression" after a
conversation with King that he felt the decision to surrender "might be
forced upon" him.
