Goodbye, Darkness by William Manchester Page A
Authors: William Manchester
Tags: BIO008000
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the two-hour voyage the air is humid, and as we approach the dock just off Roxas Highway the capital is partly obscured by smog. I observe all this, and write it down, because that is my trade. But my mind is elsewhere. I am thinking of Christmas Eve, 1941, when MacArthur and his party abandoned Manila to Homma and sailed to the Rock on the small interisland steamer
Don Esteban
. They were on Corregidor thirteen weeks. Once he grasped the staggering fact that he would receive no reinforcements, the general knew the Japanese would take the island. He intended to die there and expected his wife and his four-year-old son to die with him. After he had balked at Washington's order that he leave, he was vulnerable to a court-martial. Still he held back. Then his staff, reviewing the cables from the War Department, persuaded him that a great army awaited him in Australia, ready to return under his leadership and reconquer the Philippines.
His breakout through three thousand miles of enemy waters, first by PT boat and then aboard a decrepit plane, is one of the greatest escape stories in the history of war. But when he reached the little Australian town of Kooringa, he was stunned to learn that the country was virtually defenseless. He had fewer troops Down Under than the garrison he had left on Bataan and Corregidor. Australia's divisions were in Egypt, fighting Rommel. “God have mercy on us,” MacArthur said hollowly when he was told. Turning away, he clenched his teeth until his jaw was white. “It was,” he later wrote, his “greatest shock and surprise of the whole war.” But the Diggers took heart when he appeared in Melbourne. They knew how exasperating he could be; every civilian who had dealt with him was aware of his vanity, his megalomania, and his paranoia. But his military genius was already a legend. And genius was required by the Allies at this point in the Pacific war, for Australia faced imminent invasion by the triumphant armies of the Empire of Japan.
DOG
The Rim of Darkness
I n the spring of 1942, when corregidor fell and i joined the Marines, a glance at a global map would have convinced an impartial observer, were there any left, that our side was losing the war. Indeed, one could have argued persuasively that the Allies had already lost it. Hitler was master of Europe. He ruled an empire larger than the United States, with conquests stretching from the Arctic waters in the north to the Libyan Desert in the south, from the English Channel in the west to within a day's march of the Caspian Sea in the east. It seemed that nothing could stop Erwin Rommel from seizing Cairo and the Suez Canal. Certainly the Americans couldn't. Thus far they had been an ineffectual ally. They had no troops in the field. They couldn't even serve, in their President's phrase, as a valuable “arsenal of democracy.” U.S. merchantmen were being torpedoed nightly in the Atlantic — 1,160 that year — often within view of their Atlantic seaboard. Too few were reaching Murmansk or English ports with tanks or munitions to tip the scales. An imminent linkup between German and Japanese armies, probably in India, appeared to be inevitable.
American eyes were riveted on Europe. Asia and Oceania, on the other hand, mystified them. They mistook Singapore for Shanghai and thought it was a Chinese city. Most of them were unaware that Hawaii is closer to Japan than to the Philippines. Later, men on Iwo Jima would get V-mail from relatives who thought they were fighting in the “South Pacific,” although Iwo, like Lower California, is over seventeen hundred miles north of the equator. To this day, few GIs and Marines have the remotest idea of where they fought. Even Australians, whose very survival was threatened by Hirohito's legions, are baffled by the geography of the Pacific.
Allied commanders had some knowledge of it, however, and they were almost overwhelmed by the task confronting them. They estimated that recapturing lands
Don Esteban
. They were on Corregidor thirteen weeks. Once he grasped the staggering fact that he would receive no reinforcements, the general knew the Japanese would take the island. He intended to die there and expected his wife and his four-year-old son to die with him. After he had balked at Washington's order that he leave, he was vulnerable to a court-martial. Still he held back. Then his staff, reviewing the cables from the War Department, persuaded him that a great army awaited him in Australia, ready to return under his leadership and reconquer the Philippines.
His breakout through three thousand miles of enemy waters, first by PT boat and then aboard a decrepit plane, is one of the greatest escape stories in the history of war. But when he reached the little Australian town of Kooringa, he was stunned to learn that the country was virtually defenseless. He had fewer troops Down Under than the garrison he had left on Bataan and Corregidor. Australia's divisions were in Egypt, fighting Rommel. “God have mercy on us,” MacArthur said hollowly when he was told. Turning away, he clenched his teeth until his jaw was white. “It was,” he later wrote, his “greatest shock and surprise of the whole war.” But the Diggers took heart when he appeared in Melbourne. They knew how exasperating he could be; every civilian who had dealt with him was aware of his vanity, his megalomania, and his paranoia. But his military genius was already a legend. And genius was required by the Allies at this point in the Pacific war, for Australia faced imminent invasion by the triumphant armies of the Empire of Japan.
DOG
The Rim of Darkness
I n the spring of 1942, when corregidor fell and i joined the Marines, a glance at a global map would have convinced an impartial observer, were there any left, that our side was losing the war. Indeed, one could have argued persuasively that the Allies had already lost it. Hitler was master of Europe. He ruled an empire larger than the United States, with conquests stretching from the Arctic waters in the north to the Libyan Desert in the south, from the English Channel in the west to within a day's march of the Caspian Sea in the east. It seemed that nothing could stop Erwin Rommel from seizing Cairo and the Suez Canal. Certainly the Americans couldn't. Thus far they had been an ineffectual ally. They had no troops in the field. They couldn't even serve, in their President's phrase, as a valuable “arsenal of democracy.” U.S. merchantmen were being torpedoed nightly in the Atlantic — 1,160 that year — often within view of their Atlantic seaboard. Too few were reaching Murmansk or English ports with tanks or munitions to tip the scales. An imminent linkup between German and Japanese armies, probably in India, appeared to be inevitable.
American eyes were riveted on Europe. Asia and Oceania, on the other hand, mystified them. They mistook Singapore for Shanghai and thought it was a Chinese city. Most of them were unaware that Hawaii is closer to Japan than to the Philippines. Later, men on Iwo Jima would get V-mail from relatives who thought they were fighting in the “South Pacific,” although Iwo, like Lower California, is over seventeen hundred miles north of the equator. To this day, few GIs and Marines have the remotest idea of where they fought. Even Australians, whose very survival was threatened by Hirohito's legions, are baffled by the geography of the Pacific.
Allied commanders had some knowledge of it, however, and they were almost overwhelmed by the task confronting them. They estimated that recapturing lands
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