The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Japan
Chapter 1: The Philippines—The Opening Operations
When Japan boldly opened war on the United States in December 1941, the Quartermaster Corps (QMC) in the Philippines, like other U.S. Army components, was ill equipped to shoulder the heavy burdens suddenly thrust upon it. From the time the United States took possession of the archipelago after the Spanish-American War, two basic factors had constantly operated to preclude the maintenance of strong military forces in the islands and the development of a defensive system capable of protracted resistance against vigorous attack. One factor was the persistent weakness of the Army; the other was use of the meager military resources of the Army mainly in Hawaii and Panama, protection of which was essential to the security of the continental United States. Acquisition of the Caroline, Mariana, and Marshall Islands by Japan, as part of its reward for entering World War I on the Allied side, added a third factor, since these central Pacific islands stretched directly across American lines of communication with the Philippines and thereby discouraged any strengthening of the forces in that archipelago. The naval limitation treaty negotiated at the Washington disarmament conference in 1922 constituted still another factor detrimental to defensive preparations by forbid ding further fortification of the Philippines and by calling for a reduction of naval armaments that would give Japan control of western Pacific waters.1
In December 1934 Japanese denunciation of this treaty opened the way, after the lapse of the two years stipulated in the treaty, for renewed fortification of the Philippines, but the opportunity was not grasped. One reason may have been the passage in March 1934 of the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which provided for the recognition of Philippine independence after a ten-year interval. Army war planners as well as members of Congress felt that, since the archipelago would soon become independent, the United States should be relieved of heavy expenditures for its protection. More than ever the Army was now convinced of the futility of using its small resources in a costly attempt to defend the precarious American position in the Far East. Available military power, it was believed, was insufficient for protracted resistance against a foe that would operate not far from his home bases in Japan and that would probably possess naval superiority in the western Pacific. Until mid-1941, Army plans for defense of
the Philippines thus called for only the protection of the small area about Manila Bay and Subic Bay.
By then, as a result of growing international tensions, the United States was confronted with the danger of an early Japanese attack in the Far East. But since American Army strength in that area was rapidly increasing, it was possible for the first time to envision a strong defense of the Philippines. The War Department accordingly began to alter its strategic concepts along the lines favored by General Douglas MacArthur, U.S. Military Advisor to the Philippine Commonwealth. Strategic planners now thought in terms of defending all Luzon and the Visayan Islands rather than merely Manila and Subic Bays. The new trend was manifested in the establishment late in July of a new command, the U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). It embraced all American military activities in the Far East and absorbed both the Philippine Department, U.S. Army, and the Commonwealth Army, which was to be mobilized in force and integrated into the service of the United States.
Implementation of this ambitious defensive program required huge quantities of American equipment and supplies, particularly for the Philippine forces, which were designed to be the major source of military manpower. They were to furnish about 150,000 men by 1 April 1942, when the combined strength of American ground and air forces and Philippine Scouts would at best be only about 50,000. But in the summer of 1941 the Commonwealth Army was mostly a paper organization that needed at least the better part of a year to train the green Filipino soldiers. Time, too, was the element most needed to transport supplies and equipment from the United States to the remote archipelago. Yet little time remained. In four months Japan would strike.2
Quartermaster Preparations for War in the Philippines
Working under heavy pressure, the Office of the Chief Quartermaster (OCQM) at Headquarters, USAFFE, in Manila, devoted the late summer and the autumn of 1941 mainly to the support of the greatly expanded military preparations. Its major task was requisitioning Quartermaster items for the Philippine Army, which was to start its mobilization on 1 September 1941 and receive its supplies from the U.S. Army after 1 December. For planning purposes the strength of this force was set at 75,000 troops by 1 December 1941, at 90,000 by 1 January 1942, and at 150,000 by 1 April 1942.3
The Philippine Army itself had scarcely any supplies or equipment. For this lamentable situation the Commonwealth Government as well as the United States was responsible. That government had in fact
made elaborate plans for the future defense of the islands as an independent state, but its implementation of these plans had proceeded slowly and in early 1941 the regular military establishment included only a few thousand troops. There were somewhat more than 100,000 reservists, but as a whole they had received only inadequate training. Creation of a truly modern army would have put an almost unbearable strain on the limited financial resources of so poor a land as the Philippines. Throughout the 1930s the Commonwealth Government had consistently maintained that as long as the United States retained political control and with it power to determine whether the Filipinos were at peace or war, that country had the primary obligation for defense. Actually, after the Tydings-McDuffie bill became law, the United States had not only done virtually nothing to strengthen the islands’ defenses but had established the principle that American funds for equipping and supplying Filipino forces could be spent only in the archipelago and only under the supervision of the Commonwealth. Worst of all, it had appropriated no money for these forces even under these narrow conditions. In August 1940 and on several subsequent occasions President Manuel Quezon had appealed to the American government to make available the credits that for some years had been accumulating in the U.S. Treasury both from duties levied on Philippine sugar imported into the United States and through devaluation of the American dollar. He suggested that these funds, amounting to more than $50,000,000, be freed for defense preparations and spent under the direction of the United States. In September 1941 the War Department recommended that Congress authorize the expenditure of this money for these purposes, but that body did not take favorable action on this proposal until after Pearl Harbor.4
All this meant that in the summer of 1941 USAFFE had no funds for expenditure in the United States in behalf of the Commonwealth forces. When it became necessary to obtain supplies from the United States for the hastily assembling Filipino soldiers, the Chief Quartermaster was thus unable to requisition supplies direct from the depot at San Francisco, as was the normal practice. Instead he submitted his requisitions to the OQMG. Since this office also had no money for the Philippine Army, it sent them on to the Chief of Staff. Though he authorized the needed purchases with special U.S. Army allocations from the President’s Emergency Fund, the unusual procedure held up approval of the requisitions until after the Filipino forces had begun mobilization on 1 September.5 Even within the islands the OCQM was hampered in its procurement of supplies for these forces by the requirement that the Commonwealth Government approve all contracts for “open market” purchase or manufacture. Nevertheless a considerable number of such contracts were made for articles of outer clothing.6
In addition to sending requisitions for Filipino requirements to the United States the OCQM submitted others covering the
supply deficiencies, created in July by the increase from 31,000 to 50,000 men, in the basis of defense reserve stocks for U.S. Army troops and Philippine Scouts. It also sent in orders for the supplies required by the rise in the authorized strength of the Regular Army and the Philippine Scouts from 18,000 to 22,000 troops. Among the food items requisitioned were dehydrated vegetables and boneless beef, both of which, recent tests in the archipelago showed, had special value in combat.7
Though low shipping priorities had been assigned to such Quartermaster supplies as food, clothing, and items of general utility, most of the articles requisitioned for the Regular Army and the Scouts arrived before the Japanese invasion. The situation was quite different with respect to defense reserve and Philippine Army supplies. Early in October the War Department notified Brig. Gen. Charles C. Drake, the Chief Quartermaster, that the first shipment on his requisitions for these supplies would arrive in Manila late in the month and that shipments would continue until the following spring. General Drake obtained sufficient wharfage in the Manila Port Terminal Area to discharge the vessels, but the shipment did not arrive at the scheduled time. Nor did it come late in November when a convoy was again expected. At the beginning of hostilities, it was at sea, bound for the Philippines, and was then diverted to Australia to lessen the danger of capture by the Japanese.8 No Quartermaster supplies requisitioned for the Commonwealth Army and the defense reserves ever reached the Philippines. When war came, the defense reserves were less than half filled, and the Filipino forces took the field with only the few Quartermaster items that the QMC could buy locally or borrow from U.S. Army stocks.9
In the spring of 1941, even before the start of accelerated defensive preparations, OCQM had investigated the availability in the Philippines of items that would be particularly useful for support of combat troops in wartime. It found that no steel drums for distributing gasoline in the field could be obtained. Nor were there any individual rations for soldiers who might be cut off from their normal sources of supply. On learning this General Drake immediately requisitioned 500,000 C rations and enough 55-gallon drums to handle 1,000,000 gallons of gasoline. Both drums and combat rations had high shipping priorities and arrived at Manila late in June. Gasoline had not been requisitioned. Nor was it included in the defense reserves since there were ample commercial stocks in the Philippines and the local oil companies had agreed to meet all emergency requirements. The War Department nevertheless filled the drums with gasoline before they were shipped. Its action proved very fortunate, for when the defenders of Luzon withdrew to Bataan in late December, they had little more gasoline than was in the filled drums.10
When the drums reached Manila from the United States, the OCQM put them with the rations in defense reserve storage at Fort William McKinley on the eastern outskirts of Manila; at Fort Stotsenburg, sixty-five miles northwest of Manila; and at Camp Limay in Bataan on the shores of Manila Bay. The latter installation served as the principal depository for defense
reserves. It stored approximately 300,000 gallons of gasoline in 55-gallon drums, 100,000 C rations, and 1,145 tons of canned salmon. Fort McKinley and Fort Stotsenburg each had about 200,000 C rations and 300,000 gallons of gasoline. In addition, Fort McKinley had sizable stocks of canned meat and fish.11 The defense reserves, as a whole, lacked rice, the principal food of the Filipinos; canned fruits and vegetables; and perishable provisions, for which, indeed, sufficient cold-storage warehouses could not be provided from either military or commercial sources.
Peacetime procedures for meeting current supply requirements did not permit the accumulation of stocks in quantities large enough to fill gaps in the defense reserves. The main supply installation, the Philippine Quartermaster Depot in Manila, requisitioned items for current use only in the quantities necessary to maintain a sixty-day level of supply for U.S. troops and Philippine Scouts. Since rice, sugar, coffee, and perishable foods were abundant in the commercial markets, the depot did not buy the items as they were needed but delegated their procurement to posts and stations. These installations, able to secure these foods whenever they were wanted, filled their immediate requirements by frequent purchases from nearby merchants but built up, normally, only a few days’ reserve. This meant that when war came there were only small stocks of these essential supplies.12
The Manila Base Quartermaster Depot, hurriedly established in September 1941, was designed to perform for the Philippine Army the same functions that the Philippine Quartermaster Depot performed for the Regular Army, but the early outbreak of war gave it too little time to obtain adequate stocks for either current or reserve use.13 Accordingly the Philippine Quartermaster Depot was given responsibility for supplying the Commonwealth Army, with the result that its limited stocks were soon almost depleted.
In the few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, drastic changes in the detailed plans for Philippine defense profoundly influenced Quartermaster preparations. War Plan ORANGE 3 (WPO-3), which had been developed by the Philippine Department in 1940 and 1941 on the basis of Joint Plan ORANGE of 1938, still reflected the prewar skepticism regarding an effort to defend any part of the archipelago except Manila and Subic Bays. If a hostile landing could not be prevented or the enemy beaten back once he had landed, the defenders were to conduct a series of delaying actions while they withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula, the key to the defense of Manila Bay. Under WPO-3 the Commonwealth Army was to be used chiefly to help the American forces in central Luzon.
General MacArthur, who had become commanding general of USAFFE on its establishment, considered WPO-3 with its restricted objectives, a defeatist plan.14 As Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army, he had devoted himself since 1936 to the preparation of a complete program for protecting the whole archipelago. When the War Department RAINBOW Plan received formal approval in
August 1941, it, like the ORANGE Plan, assigned the U.S. forces only the limited mission of holding the land areas around Manila and Subic Bays. MacArthur quickly pointed out that it gave no recognition to the wider view of defense implicit in the current mobilization of the Commonwealth Army and in the recent creation of an American high command for the Far East. He strongly urged that the plan be revised to provide for the protection of all the islands. As the War Department had already set the stage for a broader strategy, it concurred in MacArthur’s views, and early in November formally altered the RAINBOW Plan in line with his tactical ideas.15
In contrast to WPO-3, which was now regarded as obsolete, the new RAINBOW Plan visualized no hasty withdrawal from beach positions. On the contrary, they were to be held at all costs. MacArthur believed that the contemplated increase in air power and in the total strength of all defending forces to about 200,000 men could be achieved by 1 April 1942, which was, he thought, the earliest probable date of a Japanese attack. There would then be available forces sufficiently strong, he concluded, to execute the new strategy.16
The changed concept of defense radically altered the plans for storage of Quartermaster supplies. Under WPO-3 movement of these supplies into Bataan would have started on the outbreak of war and continued until the depots in the peninsula had enough supplies to maintain 43,000 men for 180 days. In addition, that plan had provided for the storage of supplies on Corregidor for 7,000 men in the Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays. During the summer MacArthur’s staff communicated to the OCQM his objections to the limited aims of WPO-3. Drake learned that the general, having determined to defend all Luzon, had decided not to place large quantities of supplies on Bataan but “to fight it out on the beaches.” This decision largely established the nature of the Quartermaster storage program. Since far-flung and, if possible, offensive operations were to be conducted, supplies would have to be dispersed rather widely to support the scattered forces contemplating the defeat of the enemy on his as yet unknown landing beaches. This fact determined the choice of sites for three advance QMC depots that were to supply the Philippine Army in Luzon after 1 December.17 The largest depot, intended to supply northern Luzon, was located at Tarlac, about seventy miles northwest of Manila and forty-five miles south of Lingayen Gulf. Another, charged with a similar function for southern Luzon, was at Los Bafios, approximately thirty-five miles southeast of the capital, and a third was at Guagua, Pampanga Province, about thirty-five miles north of Manila and not far from Bataan Peninsula. A QMC advance depot for the Philippine Army was also established at Cebu City in the island bearing that name to supply forces in the southern and central Philippines.
To the QMC the most important part of the decision to “fight it out on the beaches” was abandonment of the WPO-3 plan for storing Quartermaster supplies on Bataan.
As a result, when M Day arrived for the Philippines on 8 December, the Corps instead of beginning the movement of supplies to the peninsula as the discarded plan had directed, accelerated shipments to the advance depots and to the railheads and motorheads of the fighting forces.18 Stocks originally designed largely for the defense of Bataan were now scattered over much of central and southern Luzon. For some days the only Quartermaster supplies on Bataan were those sent to Camp Limay several months before.
From the very beginning of hostilities the activities of the Corps in Regular Army and Philippine Scout organizations were handicapped by the small number of experienced Quartermaster officers and enlisted men. In July 1941, Quartermaster units serving these military groups consisted of the 12th Quartermaster Regiment, with headquarters at Fort McKinley; the 65th and 66th Pack Troops at Fort Stotsenburg; the 34th Light Maintenance Company at the Army Port Area in Manila; and the 74th Field Bakery Company at Fort McKinley. In addition, each military station had separate American and Philippine Scout Quartermaster detachments. These detachments had about 700 enlisted men all together but they had no assigned Quartermaster officers not serving also in other administrative posts. At this time Quartermaster troops of the Regular Army and the Philippine Scouts totaled approximately 35 officers and 1,000 enlisted men. By 8 December the number of officers had been increased to 90 by calling local reservists and by detailing line officers. Enlisted strength then amounted to about 1,200 men, an increase of approximately 200.
The manpower situation in the Commonwealth Army was much worse. No corps, army, or communications zone Quartermaster units were scheduled to be inducted as such into this force until the spring of 1942, and so none had been mobilized when hostilities started. A school was set up at Manila in November, primarily for the instruction of Philippine Army division quartermasters in the handling of supplies, but this enterprise bore little fruit, for all division quartermasters were then attending a command and staff school at Baguio, and only subordinate officers were sent to Manila.
Though the Far East Air Force of about 8,000 men received from the United States during the summer and fall two truck companies and two light maintenance companies, these units did not come under the control of the USAFFE Quartermaster. General Drake, then, had less than 1,300 experienced officers and men to carry out Quartermaster functions for almost 100,000 men in the Regular Army, the Philippine Scouts, and the Philippine Army.19
Since a trained Quartermaster force amounting to at least 4 percent of the total troop strength was usually recognized as essential to efficient supply operations in the field, the force actually available, constituting only slightly more than 1 percent, fell far below the desired quota. Quartermaster responsibilities, moreover, still included extensive motor, rail, and water transportation functions that, within a few months, were to be transferred to the Ordnance Department and the newly organized Transportation Corps. Believing that if a large number of experienced officers and men were not secured before hostilities started, “we would be lost in the inevitable rush and confusion,” Drake on several occasions during the summer and fall had informed The Quarter-
master General of his needs, but that officer had no jurisdiction over this problem and could do nothing to help him. Drake had also asked Philippine Department headquarters to make qualified civilians residing in the archipelago commissioned officers, but that headquarters likewise lacked authority to grant his request. When the Japanese invaded Luzon, Drake was consequently obliged to rely on civilian volunteers and improvised units composed wholly of civilians. Among these units were labor battalions, repair detachments, graves registration, salvage, and truck companies, complete boat crews, and stevedore gangs.20
Quartermaster Operations in Luzon, 8 December 1941–1 January 1942
War came four months sooner than General MacArthur had anticipated. The Philippine Army was still scarcely more than half mobilized; only a fraction of the planes, supplies, and equipment necessary for the successful defense of the archipelago had arrived; and American tactical commanders had been unable in the few weeks available after the revision of RAINBOW Plan to finish the preparation of new plans of their own. MacArthur nevertheless hoped that the increases already made in his military strength, inadequate though they were, might suffice to carry out his war plans.
During the early fighting Quartermaster activities were centered chiefly on the task of assuring field forces enough supplies without drawing on the small defense reserves. Particular emphasis was placed on rations and petroleum products, for these were the items most sorely needed by the defending forces as they attempted vainly to check the advance of the enemy from his landing beaches. No figures on shipments from the Manila Depot are available, but thirty-five trainloads of Quartermaster supplies are estimated to have been delivered to the depots at Tarlac, Los Banos, and Guagua.21 Shipments of rations to Tarlac, for example, comprised a five-day level of supply, and by 15 December an eight-day stock of food had been accumulated. Generally speaking, the advance installations looked to the Manila Depot for practically all their supplies except perishable food, rice, sugar, and coffee, which were still locally procured as they were needed. Even in the field, divisions filled their requirements for fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish partly by purchases from nearby markets.
Because of the growing air and naval superiority of the Japanese, replenishment of stocks from the United States, the major prewar source of supply, proved in-possible; even procurement from neighboring islands was hazardous. Thus outside sources furnished only a diminishing trickle of Quartermaster supplies. Only maximum exploitation of local sources could provide a significant replenishment of dwindling stores.
There were approximately 10,000,000 gallons of gasoline in commercial storage on Luzon, mostly in Manila. Shortly after hostilities began, General Drake reached an agreement with the oil companies which allowed the Army to control the distribution of all commercial gasoline. Distributing centers, belonging to and operated by the oil companies, were available for military service at six strategic points in Luzon. These centers were each capable of handling from 75,000 to 100,000 gallons daily.
Rail tank cars from Manila supplied the centers, which in turn supplied some thirty issue points set up along the main traffic arteries out of Manila. Tank trucks, drums, and cans were all used in these operations.22
In Manila, the largest commercial storage center in the Philippines, the Quartermaster Depot exploited local supply sources to the maximum. It stressed particularly the procurement of subsistence, for from the beginning it realized that food might become critically scarce. Some polished rice was obtained from Chinese merchants, and large quantities of food and other scarce supplies from ships in Manila harbor. Arrangements were made with Armour and Company, Swift and Company, and Libby, McNeill, and Libby to take over their stocks of canned meats and other foods.
When it became obvious shortly after the Japanese landings that Luzon might soon come completely under enemy control, the increasing objection of the Commonwealth Government to measures that might reduce the food available to the Philippine public under Japanese occupation handicapped further accumulation of food reserves. This objection was reflected in the frequent refusal of Headquarters, USAFFE, to approve the commandeering of food, even the seizure of stocks owned by Japanese nationals.
An incident at the Tarlac Depot illustrates this difficulty. The commanding officer, Col. Charles S. Lawrence, planned the confiscation of 2,000 cases of canned fish and corned beef and sizable quantities of clothing, all of which were held in the warehouses of Japanese firms. But USAFFE disapproved the plan and informed Colonel Lawrence that he would be court-martialed if he took the goods.23 Another incident of far-reaching importance involved the procurement of rice. Since there were only small military stocks of this vital commodity, both the Quartermaster Depot and the advance depots bought as much as they could from local sources. To their dismay they discovered that rice could not be removed from the province in which it had been purchased because of the opposition of the Commonwealth Government. Ten million pounds at the huge Cabanatuan Rice Central, enough to have fed the troops on Bataan for almost a year, and smaller amounts elsewhere in consequence never passed into military hands. A similar prohibition applied to sugar, large quantities of which were likewise held in storage.24
In mid-December military food stocks fell substantially short of the 180-day supply for 43,000 men on Bataan that was contemplated as a reserve in WPO-3. Yet the number of troops to be fed had increased to almost 80,000, and after the withdrawal to Bataan the number of persons to be supplied was further increased by about 25,000 civilians who had fled to the peninsula before the onrushing enemy. The QMC fully realized that transportation of food stocks, though relatively small, would entail serious difficulty in the event of a hurried retreat into Bataan. Before Pearl Harbor a logistical study made by General Drake had shown that even under good transportation conditions at least 14 days would be required to get into Bataan a 180-day supply for 43,000 men. Drake was alert to the danger of delay and after M Day unsuccessfully requested permission to start stocking of the peninsula. Despite this rebuff, Col.
Alva E. McConnell, Commanding Officer of the Philippine Quartermaster Depot, began the movement of small quantities of food, gasoline, and oil to Bataan some days before the order for a general withdrawal was issued on 23 December.25
An equally important preparatory measure was the dispatch of a Quartermaster officer, Col. Otto Harwood, to the peninsula with the mission of dispersing and otherwise protecting from bombing the food and gasoline stored there the previous summer as part of the defense reserve. After his arrival at Camp Limay on 14 December, Colonel Harwood and his Filipino laborers worked unflaggingly—chiefly at night in order not to be seen by the enemy. The American commander selected storage points well hidden from hostile air observers yet convenient for the supply of troops, locating them mostly under the cover of large trees along the Mariveles Road, which ran across the southern end of Bataan. Fifty-five-gallon drums, filled with gasoline, were camouflaged and placed in roadside ditches. Colonel Harwood’s work materially facilitated supply operations when the withdrawal to Bataan began, but a general movement of rations and gasoline to the peninsula would have been much more helpful. Unfortunately, such a movement was not ordered until nine days after Harwood arrived.26
During this period the first and only effort was made to forward Quartermaster items from Luzon to the new but still un-stocked depot at Cebu City. It ended in disaster on 16 December, when the motor ship Corregidor, carrying about 1,000 passengers and a substantial cargo, including over 1,000 tons of Quartermaster goods for Cebu City, struck a mine off Corregidor Island and sank within three minutes. All Quartermaster supplies were lost together with more than 700 persons. This shipping catastrophe, the worst suffered by American forces during their defense of the Philippines, left the Cebu Depot wholly dependent upon the Quartermaster supplies that it could procure in the industrially undeveloped southern provinces.27
On 23 December WPO-3 was put into effect. This action meant that withdrawal to Bataan had been decided upon. Brig. Gen. Richard J. Marshall, Deputy Chief of Staff, immediately authorized the movement of Quartermaster supplies to the peninsula but at the same time told Drake that the basis of the 180-day Corregidor supply reserve had been lifted from 7,000 to 10,000 men and that shipments to Bataan were not to start until all shortages in the Corregidor reserve had been filled.28 Drake’s first task, then, was the hurried transfer of additional stocks from Manila to the great harbor fortress. Within twenty-four hours this assignment was completed, but a precious day had been lost in beginning shipments to the peninsula.
These shipments presented what was under the circumstances the almost impossible task of moving within one week enough food and other Quartermaster supplies from widely scattered depots, motor-heads, and railheads to keep nearly 80,000 troops in prime fighting condition for six months. Even with unhindered movement, this would have been a hard task. It was
rendered much more difficult by inability to move a large quantity of supplies by land. In central Luzon there was almost everywhere confusion created by defeat—abandoned railways, highjacked trucks, destroyed bridges, and roads congested by hundreds of vehicles and thousands of fleeing civilians and disorganized troops. Bataan itself was a mountainous region served only by primitive roads. For the movement of Quartermaster items there was only one fairly usable way into the peninsula, and that was by water through Manila Bay. Even that route was to be open for but a single week, and the Corps could not hope to accomplish in seven days what under much better conditions would probably have taken double that time for the supply of half as many men.
Loss of use of the Manila Railroad, running north to Tarlac, was a particularly heavy blow, for that line constituted the chief artery for evacuating stocks from advance depots and combat areas. As early as 15 December train and engine crews started to desert their jobs because of increased strafing and bombing, and by Christmas not a single locomotive was in operation.29 WPO-3 had provided for a Department Motor Transport Service, and in the summer of 1941 such a service was organized with Col. Michael A. Quinn, a Quartermaster officer, as Department transport officer and commander of the service. In addition to the operation and maintenance of motor vehicles not assigned to combat units WPO-3 had charged the Department Motor Transport Service with the local procurement and the assignment of commercial vehicles to field organizations in time of emergency. But when Colonel Quinn submitted a plan for implementing this program, Headquarters, Philippine Department, disapproved it and informed him that arrangements had been made with the Commonwealth Government for the local procurement of vehicles by the Philippine Constabulary and for their distribution by that agency to units of the Philippine Army. This system proved an almost complete failure, for on the outbreak of war most of the Constabulary were withdrawn from the districts in which they operated, much like American state police, and were incorporated into the Philippine 2nd Division, a combat infantry unit, assembling at Camp Murphy near Manila.30
When hostilities started, Colonel Quinn tried to alleviate the shortage of trucks by procuring commercial vehicles. He requested all automobile dealers in Manila to freeze their stocks. The dealers willingly cooperated, and Colonel Quinn leased about 1,000 cars, mostly trucks. Few trucks in the Philippines came with bodies; few even had cabs or windshields. But enough of these parts were improvised every day to equip thirty or forty vehicles. Yet in spite of Quinn’s tireless efforts there were never enough trucks to meet military needs. The Philippine Army in particular suffered from the lack of these vehicles. When that army started mobilization in September, each of its divisions was assigned twenty trucks from Regular Army stocks. These trucks were still the only ones held by the Philippine Army when the fighting began. Both American and Filipino field commanders, uncertain how or from whom they could secure motor transportation and fearful that they would not be able to move their men and materiel, permitted their units to seize Motor
Transport Service vehicles carrying supplies from Manila to motorheads in the combat zone. Unable to halt this practice, Headquarters, USAFFE, finally sanctioned it by authorizing division commanders to requisition vehicles to meet their immediate needs. Removal of Quartermaster stocks to Bataan therefore depended mainly upon the willingness of combat officers to load their trucks with food, gasoline, and clothing.31 Unfortunately, while units took all they could, they did not always take what the QMC wanted. The commander of a Philippine Scout regiment, when asked to remove from Fort Stotsenburg whatever subsistence his unit could use, reportedly answered that he was “not even interested.32
Stocks in Manila and at Fort McKinley, which lay along the Pasig River, seven miles above Manila Bay, could be moved fairly easily by water, but elsewhere the loss of rail transportation and the shortage of trucks made shipments difficult. At Tarlac and Los Bafios, division trucks moving through these points picked up some rations, but most of the food stocks had to be destroyed. At Fort Stotsenburg, only thirty miles north of Bataan, evacuation efforts achieved better results, thirty to forty truckloads, consisting mostly of subsistence, being removed. Some gasoline was also saved, but most of it had to be burned. Perceiving the impossibility of sending all food stores to Bataan, General Drake on 27 December advised field force commanders by radio to build up their stocks, especially of sugar and rice, by foraging. This expedient, he later estimated, added several days’ supply to the ration hoards of those organizations that followed his advice.33
The Manila Port Terminal Area, with its ships and warehouses, was the main source of last-minute replenishment of Quartermaster stocks. Upon the declaration of war General MacArthur had directed Chief Quartermaster Drake to remove all militarily useful items from warehouses and freighters in the harbor.34 The supplies thus obtained were ready for shipment several days before the withdrawal to Bataan commenced. Though about fifty truckloads were evacuated from Manila by land, water transportation was the chief means of getting the supplies out of the capital. The Army Transport Service, headed by Col. Frederick A. Ward, collected all the tugs, barges, and launches it could find and on Christmas Day, as soon as Corregidor had been completely stocked, started supplies moving to the peninsula.
Shipments, made mostly by barges, consumed considerable time, for this type of carrier could be towed at a speed of only three miles an hour and the round-trip distance from Manila to Bataan was sixty miles. Few barges could make more than one trip in the seven or eight days available before capture of the capital. In spite of this drawback, these vessels had to be employed because, with only three small piers and little handling equipment available on Bataan, they could be unloaded more speedily than other craft. Even so, docking facilities were so limited that only five barges could discharge their cargoes at one time.35
At Manila occasional bombings and air raid warnings hampered stowing operations. Many stevedores fled at the first sign of hostile airplanes over the port area, and some never returned. Radio appeals for volunteers were made, and about 200 Americans and Europeans responded. Most of them were unused to manual labor, but they worked by the side of faithful Filipinos through the last three nights of December until all possible shipments had been made. Colonel Ward estimated that 300 barges sent approximately 30,000 tons of supplies of all technical services to Corregidor and Bataan. From these shipments came the greater part of the Quartermaster stocks in the hands of the fighting forces. But time was too limited to permit the evacuation of more than a small fraction of the 10,000,000 gallons of gasoline in commercial storage, and as the Japanese approached Manila, these stocks and the gasoline stores at Fort McKinley were set on fire. Substantial quantities of food that might have been shipped had more time been available were likewise left behind.36
On Bataan, Colonel Harwood was responsible for the storage of Quartermaster cargoes arriving from the capital between 24 December and 1 January. Among these cargoes were approximately 750,000 pounds of canned milk, 20,000 pounds of vegetables, 40,000 gallons of gasoline in 5-gallon cans, and 60,000 gallons of lubricating oils and greases as well as miscellaneous foodstuffs. Harwood also unloaded the Si-Kiang, an Indochina-bound ship captured at sea with its cargo of approximately 5,000,000 pounds of flour, 420,000 gallons of gasoline, and 25,000 gallons of kerosene. The petroleum products were removed, but unluckily for the food supply of Bataan, the Si-Kiang was bombed and sunk before the flour had been discharged.37
The Japanese occupation of Manila on 2 January ended the shipment of supplies from the capital. Quartermaster items that reached the peninsula after that date were chiefly those stealthily brought ashore at night from some 100 loaded barges that lay in Manila Bay between Corregidor and Bataan. These barges contained sizable quantities of gasoline in 55-gallon drums. There were also a few oil-company river tankers filled with that fuel.38
Status of Quartermaster Supplies on Bataan
The scarcity of food on Bataan was truly alarming. An inventory taken immediately after the defending forces had arrived there disclosed a dismayingly low supply of a very unbalanced ration.39 There were at normal rates of consumption only a 50-day supply of canned meat and fish, a 40-day supply of canned milk, and a 30-day supply of flour and canned vegetables. Of rice, there was a mere 20-day supply. Stocks of such essential items as sugar, salt, and lard were extremely low; coffee, potatoes, onions, cereals, beverages, and fresh and canned fruits were almost totally lacking. For emergency use the defense reserve of 500,000 C rations was available. On such slender stores as these the combined U.S.-Philippine forces hoped to make a six-month stand.
Circumstances clearly demanded severe rationing. On 6 January half rations were
prescribed for both troops and civilians.40 At best they provided less than 2,000 calories as compared with the nearly 4,000 calories needed by combat troops. A few fortunate units could supplement this scanty diet with the food taken along during the withdrawal and never turned in at ration dumps, but such supplies were limited and lasted only a short time.41 As increasing difficulty was experienced in maintaining even a 2,000-calorie ration, quartermasters utilized to the maximum the few sources of supply in mountainous, jungle-bound Bataan.
One of these sources was the peninsula’s rice crop, grown in a narrow belt along Manila Bay. It was the harvest season, and the grain stood in the open fields, stacked but still mostly unthreshed. Many fields were under artillery fire, and unopposed Japanese planes bombed and strafed laborers as they attempted to thresh the grain. Since there were no trees or other shelter, the constant danger made the Filipino farm hands reluctant to work in the fields, and insufficient labor constantly plagued efforts to have the grain husked. The QMC accordingly brought the rice to two mills that had been removed from their original sites between the attacking and defending forces and reassembled near the main ration dump.42 These mills began operations in mid-January and continued to operate until the supply of palay (unhusked rice) became exhausted a month later. One Quartermaster officer estimated that, if modern farm machinery had been available, the amount of palay recovered could have been increased several times.43 Nevertheless the mills in four weeks of operations turned out every day about 30,000 pounds, only 20,000 pounds less than the amount consumed.
Fresh meat was obtained principally by the slaughter of abandoned carabao, which, before the invasion of the peninsula, had been used as draft animals by Bataan farmers.44 Cavalry horses, Army pack mules, and pigs and cattle from Cavite Province were also butchered. In conjunction with the Veterinary Corps the QMC established a large abattoir near Lamao on the lower east coast. Small slaughterhouses, consisting of little more than platforms, were built over rapidly flowing mountain streams whose fresh water permitted thorough cleansing of carcasses. More than 2,800 carabao and about 600 other animals were slaughtered. Carcasses were sent daily direct to Quartermaster dumps, where combat troops collected them. When forage and grazing areas ran out in February, the carabao remaining on Bataan were slaughtered and the beef so obtained was shipped to Corregidor for preservation in the cold-storage plant. From then on until the beef supply was exhausted, nightly shipments were made to Bataan for issue to troops. All together, approximately 2,000,000 pounds of fresh meat were made available to soldiers and about 750,000 pounds of edible offal to civilian refugees. Field units also secured an undetermined amount of fresh meat from some 1,200 carabao they themselves captured and butchered. They even consumed dogs, monkeys, iguanas—large lizards, whose meat tasted something like chicken—and snakes, of which there
was a plentiful supply, especially of large pythons, whose eggs are considered a delicacy by some Filipinos.45
Before the war lucrative fishing had been carried on in Manila Bay, which teemed with aquatic fife, and the QMC naturally tried to tap this rich source of food. It established a fishery at Lamao, the center of the industry, and sent local fishermen out on nightly expeditions. Daily catches finally reached about 12,000 pounds, and the QMC expected to increase this figure. But the fishermen dashed this hope by refusing to work any longer under growing dangers that emanated from friend and foe alike. Beach defense troops, uncertain of the identity of approaching boats, persistently shelled them as they neared shore. To this menace was added that of Japanese artillery fire. Reluctantly, quartermasters abandoned an enterprise that might have supplied much needed food in the days of semi-starvation that lay ahead.46
Procurement of salt from sea water was still another Quartermaster expedient. Only limited supplies of this vital item had been brought into Bataan, and there were no salt beds for replenishing the original stocks, which suffered rapid depletion because of extensive use in baking bread and in preserving meat. Quartermasters alleviated the shortage by boiling sea water in large iron cauldrons. Production averaged approximately 400 pounds daily, about a quarter of the minimum requirement of 1,500 pounds. This was too small an amount to permit issue of salt more often than once every few days.47
The value of local food sources on Bataan in prolonging the defense can hardly be overestimated. While they did not provide a wide variety of food, they did furnish considerable additions to Quartermaster stocks of meat and rice.
The QMC had even smaller stocks of clothing than of food. These stocks, scarce at the beginning of the war, were almost depleted when the withdrawal to Bataan commenced. There were approximately 80,000 men to be clothed. Yet, according to a rough estimate that probably did not understate the amounts, clothing stocks early in January contained only 10,000 trousers and an equal number of shirts, drawers, and blue denim suits. Larger but still insufficient stocks were available in other important items. There were estimated to be 50,000 pairs of service shoes, 50,000 pairs of issue socks, 75,000 pairs of commercial socks, 20,000 issue undershirts, 50,000 commercial undershirts, and 25,000 commercial drawers. Obviously, these stockages could not meet the requirements of 80,000 men during a siege destined to last almost four months and to be waged in mountainous, forested terrain that quickly wore out even the best footwear and clothing. Tangled vegetation tore shirts, trousers, and underwear, and constant hard usage in rough country made the most substantial shoes unserviceable within a month. The QMC obtained some clothing and footwear through reclamation of articles salvaged from the battlefield, but the quantity was too small to help materially. Practically speaking, there
Troop formation on Bataan, 10 January 1942.
were almost no stocks that could be issued in place of worn-out garments.48
Whereas the U.S. Army and the Philippine Scouts were well clad and well equipped when they took the field in December the Philippine Army even then lacked many essential items. In general, its troops had no blankets, helmets, mosquito nets, or raincoats, all necessities in a malarial area like Bataan. Their shoes were conventional Filipino sneakers that the troops had nearly worn to pieces even by the time of arrival on the peninsula. As soon as the Commonwealth soldiers reached Bataan, they tried to buy footwear from the civilian population, but could obtain little in this
way. The few available U.S. Army service shoes proved useless, for Filipinos, barefoot most of their lives, had feet far too broad for these narrow shoes. Commonwealth troops necessarily reverted to their custom of going barefoot. Even such military commonplaces as shelter halves and tentage were almost totally lacking, and their absence caused considerable hardship in the cool nights of mountainous Bataan. Indeed, the scarcity of clothing, footwear, and shelter in the Philippine Army played a prominent part in the large incidence of malaria, hookworm, and respiratory diseases.49
About 500,000 gallons of gasoline and a fairly satisfactory supply of kerosene and
motor fuel oil were on hand at the beginning of January. Although these supplies did not include large stocks of the most appropriate gasolines and lubricants, they could be made to last several months with strict economy and careful substitution. Accordingly, when mid-January reports revealed usage of gasoline at the alarming rate of 14,000 gallons a day, an amount sufficient to deplete stocks within a month, or almost two months before rations were expected to be exhausted, the QMC ordered gasoline and lubricants to be conserved so as to last as long as food. This objective was achieved by the severe curtailment of truck, ambulance, and road-machinery operations. Daily consumption of gasoline was cut, first to 4,000 gallons, and later to 3,000 gallons. Such drastic restrictions made it difficult for trucks to maintain regular supply deliveries.50
The Bataan Quartermaster Depot, with headquarters at Lamao, was charged with the supply of Quartermaster items and the establishment and management of all dumps and distribution points for rations, for clothing and equipage, and for gasoline and oil. It also operated field bakeries and salvage and reclamation services. The Motor Transport Service set up and ran motor pools and motor maintenance and repair shops, and the Army Transport Service supervised movements by water, a responsibility that included the ferrying of supplies and troops between Corregidor and Bataan and the chartering of blockade-runners and other vessels.
All these operations suffered from the shortage of officers and enlisted men and from the paucity of Quartermaster units. Units and labor pools both had to be improvised. Hastily established organizations increased their limited manpower by the more or less regular utilization of nearly 5,000 Filipino refugees. Some 1,500 civilian drivers were added to the enlisted men from the two truck companies of the 12th Quartermaster Regiment and from the 19th Truck Company (Air Corps) to form twenty-four provisional truck companies and one provisional car battalion. Refugees constituted the bulk of three improvised graves registration companies and did most of the work required in the establishment of cemeteries and the burial of the dead. Civilians helped enlisted men repair and reclaim several hundred trucks and large quantities of clothing. They formed the bulk of the labor pools employed in loading and discharging operations at navigation heads, dumps, distributing points, and salvage and reclamation centers. As many as 1,200 civilians were employed in discharging barges during the early days of the fighting on Bataan. Labor pools and improvised units were commanded by some 200 Quartermaster officers, half of whom had been commissioned in the Philippines under authority of a War-Department radiogram of 10 December that gave General MacArthur the extraordinary power of making individuals, civilian or military, temporary officers.51
The Quartermaster units assigned to the Regular Army and the Philippine Scouts at the outbreak of war were used largely for the supply of front-line troops. This was the major function of the 12th Quartermaster Regiment, less the two truck companies as-
Quartermaster corps baker on Bataan baking biscuits for the defenders, 4 February 1942.
signed to the motor pools, and of the two pack troops. At Lamao and later at Cabcaben the 74th Field Bakery Company provided about 25,000 pounds of bread a day as long as flour was available. It achieved this result by adding to its original meager equipment of six field ovens improvised Dutch ovens built of rice straw and mud.52
Running the Blockade
As the defense of Bataan continued, the growing scarcity of rations more than ever constituted the major Quartermaster problem. The only real hope of relief lay in help from the outside, but this hope waned as the
hostile blockade around Luzon daily became tighter and more menacing and enemy aircraft and naval ships gained more effective mastery of the western Pacific. On land and sea and in the air the Japanese were a barrier between MacArthur’s men and the replenishment of their swiftly dwindling food stocks. This barrier had to be pierced if starvation was not to cause the early surrender of Bataan. The best chance was by sea. Such an effort would demand the strictest secrecy and the utmost daring. Even if these requirements were met, loss of ships would be heavy and prospects of obtaining a significant volume of food far from bright.
Assistance from the outside, it was hoped, might come from Australia, which had
surpluses of most of the meats, fruits, and vegetables familiar to American soldiers and which served as a receiving point for supplies coming from the United States; from the Netherlands Indies, producers of coffee and other tropical products; from Mindanao and the Visayan Islands in the central Philippines, still almost entirely in American possession, where rice, sugar, tobacco, bananas, and mangoes were available; or even from the fertile provinces of southern Luzon, which, though now in Japanese hands, provided rice, sugar, bananas, coffee, citrus fruits, coconuts, cattle, pigs, and chickens in abundance.
Early in January plans for sending rations and other scarce supplies through the blockade were developed by the War Department and USAFFE headquarters. These plans visualized Australia as the primary source of food, and the Netherlands Indies, the central and southern Philippines, and the provinces of Batangas and Cavite in southern Luzon as secondary sources. The Cebu Quartermaster Depot was to be responsible not only for procurement of supplies in the central and southern islands but also for assemblage of supplies brought in from other outside sources and for their shipment to Corregidor. From that island fortress supplies would be taken under cover of darkness across the two miles of water to Bataan.53
Interisland Efforts
Large ships were unsuitable for running the blockade between the southern islands and Luzon because they could be too easily sighted by hostile air and naval patrols and because Corregidor lacked the means of berthing and unloading them. Nor could coal- and oil-burning vessels be employed, for they emitted telltale smoke that would reveal their presence to the enemy. Small but fast interisland motor ships had to be used. Col. Manuel A. Roxas, detailed by President Quezon as liaison officer to General MacArthur, helped Drake obtain such ships from the Philippine Government and Filipino citizens. All together forty-nine motor ships, each with a capacity of 300 to 1,000 cargo tons, were secured by the Army Transport Service at Corregidor and Cebu City. Of that number, a large majority were eventually lost, destroyed, or captured while engaged in blockade-running.
Two 400-ton motor ships, the Bohol II and the Kolambugan, were assigned to the dangerous run through the mine fields between Corregidor and Looc Cove, the collecting point for food procured by American agents in Cavite and Batangas. Looc Cove lay just south of Manila Bay and only fifteen miles from the island fortress. Since it was in enemy-held territory, these ships had to make the trip from Corregidor and back in one night to avoid detection. Accordingly, one of them started out on its hazardous mission on practically every moonless evening during the three weeks following 20 January. Japanese patrols were so active on shore, however, that American agents usually gave the vessels a warning signal to turn back. The ships actually made only two round trips apiece and in mid-February had to abandon their operations altogether. Though they completed few passages, the vessels did add about 1,600 tons of food, chiefly rice, to the Bataan food stocks.54
The other motor ships were stationed at Cebu City, Iloilo, or other ports that lay 400 miles or more below Manila Bay.55 Of
these ports Cebu City was the most important. The Quartermaster depot at that place since the start of hostilities had been procuring supplies in the Visayan Islands and Mindanao for shipment north to Corregidor. Established in November 1941, this installation had originally been scheduled to receive from the Manila Depot all the stocks required to feed and clothe the troops in the central and southern provinces, troops organized as the Visayan-Mindanao Force under Brig. Gen. William F. Sharp. Now, instead of securing rations and clothing from the north, it had to canvass Mindanao and the Visayan Islands for the supplies needed not only by the troops in its distribution area but also by the 80,000 troops on Luzon. To carry out this huge new mission, it set up district procurement offices in the provinces of Cebu, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Panay, Bohol, Leyte and Samar, and Mindanao. By 10 April 1942, when the Japanese captured Cebu City, it had acquired locally a twelve-month food supply for troops in Cebu and Panay, and at least a six-month supply for those on other central and southern islands. In addition, it had collected in the hills back of Cebu City and in warehouses in Cebu Province and in Panay and Mindanao some 12,000 tons of food, medicine, gasoline, and miscellaneous supplies for shipment to Corregidor. In part these large stocks had come from Australia; in part, from the central and southern provinces.56
The Cebu Depot utilized the interisland motor ship fleet to start thousands of tons northward. The first ship to perform this feat was the 1,000-ton Legaspi. In accordance with arrangements previously worked out by the Governor of Panay and General Drake, the Legaspi on 20 January picked up a cargo of foods assembled by American agents at Capiz, a small but well-protected port in northern Panay, and two nights later delivered its load at Corregidor. It made one other successful run, but on its third trip the Legaspi, entering a small port in northern Mindoro for concealment during the daytime, was sighted and shelled by a Japanese gunboat. The crew ran the hapless ship ashore and scuttled it.57
Two other motor ships from the southern Philippines successfully penetrated the blockade. The Princessa, sailing from Cebu City with 700 tons of rice, flour, corn meal, sardines, dried meats, sugar, and pineapple juice, all of which had been procured in the southern islands, reached Corregidor in mid-February. Later in the same month El Cano, carrying 1,100 tons of balanced rations, which the 3,000-ton Army-chartered freighter, Coast Farmer, had brought from Australia to Arrakan in northern Mindanao, arrived at the island fortress. But three other motor ships, also carrying balanced rations from the Coast Farmer, were shelled and sunk by Japanese naval vessels off Mindanao. Ten other motor ships, loaded in the southern islands with cargo for Corregidor, were sunk by the enemy or scuttled by their crews to avoid capture. General Drake estimated that 7,000 tons of food, gasoline, and oil were lost on their way to Luzon. He ascribed this disaster not only to increased enemy activity but also to excessive use of radio communication and to failure to observe the strictest secrecy. These losses ended blockade-running by motor ships out of the central and
southern Philippines. Unless American air and naval support was available to convoy ships attempting to pierce the apparently impenetrable screen of Japanese naval vessels, further blockade-running was almost certainly hopeless. To attempt it would probably sacrifice gallant crews in a futile gesture.
Recognizing the realities of the situation, Maj. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, Mac-Arthur’s chief of staff, instructed Drake about 1 March that no more vessels were to try to run the blockade either from Corregidor or from the southern islands unless he issued express orders for such efforts. When General MacArthur and his party left Corregidor for Australia on 12 March, General Sutherland repeated these orders to Drake. No instructions came to resume blockade-running, and the vessels remained at their moorings until they fell victim to Japanese bombs or naval gunfire or were destroyed to prevent seizure. No supplies reached Corregidor from the outside world during the five weeks before Bataan surrendered, except for very limited quantities brought in by plane and submarine. These deliveries almost surely helped prolong resistance on the peninsula. Yet in relation to Bataan’s requirements, they were insignificant.58
Australia
Meanwhile, U.S. forces in Australia had been attempting to carry out their part of the relief program. When they first reached that continent in December 1941, they were directed by the War Department to ship air equipment, ammunition, and weapons to the Philippines; rations, significantly, were not mentioned.59 But at the start Army supplies in Australia were limited, and part of them was needed to stock the Air Corps in the Netherlands Indies. Moreover, the U.S. forces had as yet no organization capable of quickly making the long hazardous voyage to Luzon and no sense of urgency such as they later developed. Nevertheless “Most of the supply activities in the early weeks related to supplying the Philippines. Boats were chartered by the QMC. Crews were engaged and stevedoring gangs engaged to load boats with supplies.”60 The Willard A. Holbrook, an Army transport, which had arrived in Australia in mid-December, started from Brisbane for the Philippines on 28 December with the 147th Field Artillery and the 148th Field Artillery (less one battalion) and their ammunition, supplies, and equipment but was diverted to Darwin in northern Australia because it was feared that no Philippine port would be open to receive it.61 This fear indeed prevented attempts to send any ships northward during the month and a half following the arrival of American troops in Australia. Yet December and early January were perhaps the best times for an attempt at running supplies through to MacArthur’s men since the blockade was then far from airtight and the Visayan Islands were still in American possession.
When the defense of Bataan began, Drake immediately informed the U.S. forces in Australia, both by radio and by air mail, of his pressing need for food. He requested that balanced field rations be shipped to
Cebu and that they be sent in 1,000-ton lots to facilitate handling. He made a detailed breakdown of the required ration in pounds for each component so that the specific needs of the Luzon forces would be known. Having received no reply by the end of January, Drake sent a personal letter by special courier to Lt. Gen. George H. Brett, Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA), emphasizing the critical scarcity of food and urging haste in the dispatch of rations.62 Meanwhile, on 18 January, following an insistent message from MacArthur, Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, had radioed Brett that delivery of rations was imperative. He ordered money to “be spent without stint,” and suggested that “bold and resourceful men,” well supplied with dollars, fly to islands not yet in Japanese hands to buy food, charter ships, and offer cash bonuses to crews for actual delivery of cargoes.63
The Joint Administrative Planning Committee, operating under U.S. Army Forces in Australia, thereupon immediately formulated plans for blockade-running from both Australia and the Netherlands Indies. The latter islands were selected because substantial amounts of rations and particularly of ammunition were already there in the hands of American air forces or were at sea en route to the Dutch archipelago, because these islands lay closer to the Philippines than did Australia, and because it was believed that small, fast coasters could be procured easily from local sources. The committee set the first objective of both Australia and the Netherlands Indies as the shipment of 3,000,000 rations, a 60-day supply for 50,000 men, and of large quantities of ammunition. Shipments would be made roughly in the proportion of six tons of rations to one ton of ammunition.64
The task thus undertaken was a formidable one. There were few small, fast ships capable of carrying enough fuel for the long voyage of 2,500 or more miles. Moreover, the few which could meet this requirement were usually unprocurable because all vessels were controlled by one of the Allied governments, and so widespread was the defeatist attitude toward blockade-running that these governments almost invariably withheld permission to use them. Finally, if a ship could be chartered, its crew was reluctant to embark on so perilous an enterprise.
In Australia suitable ships were not procurable in the early days of the program, and the Coast Farmer, which had recently arrived from the United States in convoy, was earmarked for blockade-running in spite of its inability to attain a speed of more than ten knots an hour. It departed from Brisbane on 4 February with a cargo that included 2,500 tons of balanced rations, and fifteen days later pulled into Arrakan, a port which, though inferior, had been selected because of fear that the slow speed of the Coast Farmer would prevent it from reaching the finer and better-protected harbor of Cebu.
One other vessel, meanwhile, the small Filipino freighter Don Isidro, had been obtained. On the same day that the Coast Farmer left Brisbane the Don Isidro sailed from Fremantle in southwestern Australia
and headed for Batavia, Java, to pick up a cargo of ammunition from Army stocks there.65 Rations for both ships were obtained from stocks that the Australian Government, in accordance with previous arrangements, had sent to Brisbane and Fremantle, the two ports chosen for use by blockade-runners.
Eventually, about ten or twelve vessels, mostly old and rather decrepit Filipino or Chinese coasters, were procured in Australia. Though they were few in number, their total tonnage was enough to furnish the Bataan forces with the supplies needed to prolong their resistance. But while arming of ships and use of dummy stacks and neutral or Axis flags—in fact, “all imaginable types of deceit”—were authorized to protect boats from bombing, shelling, and capture, only two vessels, aside from the Coast Farmer, ever reached the Philippines.66 These were the Dona Nati and the Anhui, both of which started from Brisbane in mid-February and arrived at Cebu early in March. The Dona Nati, it was estimated, carried 5,000 tons of rations, and the Anhui, 2,500 tons. Two other ships, the Hanyang and the Yochow, started from Fremantle, but mutinies broke out when the dangerous waters north of Australia were reached, and the vessels made for Darwin, where they were discharged.67
Netherlands Indies
In the Netherlands Indies, Col. John A. Robenson, a cavalry officer who had commanded some 5,000 troops at Darwin in northern Australia, was in charge of the blockade-running program. He had been ordered to Java for this purpose on 19 January, the day after General Marshall’s message stressing the need for intensive blockade-running efforts was received. On his departure from Australia ten million dollars had been placed at his disposal to be spent in any fashion he considered advisable, and he was empowered to request cooperation from all military and civilian authorities.68
Colonel Robenson had been informed that MacArthur had called the breaking of the blockade a matter of “transcendent importance,” “the key to my salvation,” and he acted in accordance with this conception of his mission. But soon after his arrival at Soerabaja, Java, he discovered that his objectives were not to be easily achieved. The U.S. Navy at first would not release any ships, and requests for British and Dutch ships were likewise turned down. Even a request for small coasters from Singapore met a similar fate, though it was made after the British, obviously about to take a final stand in Malaya, had retreated across the causeway that joined Singapore Island to the mainland. Naval opinion in general plainly thought the release of ships tantamount to their destruction.69
Better results attended Robenson’s attempts to procure rations and ammunition as cargo for such ships as he might later be able to charter. Late in January the
President Polk, a medium-sized American freighter, arrived at Soerabaja with a full load of these supplies, and after several days of discussion Robenson obtained permission to use them. About this time a courier brought him the report that Drake had prepared for Brett on the plight of the Bataan Force. Robenson found it “pretty shocking.”70
Early in February, Rear Adm. William A. Glassford permitted Colonel Robenson to use the Florence D, a Filipino freighter controlled by the U.S. Navy, though he regarded the effort to break the blockade as a forlorn hope. At the same time the Don Isidro arrived at Batavia from Fremantle. Thus, after nearly two weeks of unrewarded work, Robenson finally had supplies and at least two ships. But a crew had to be secured for the Florence D. To get it, Robenson offered the ship’s Filipino crew, anxious in any event to get home, handsome bonuses, ranging from more than $10,000 for its captain to lesser amounts for his subordinates, and life insurance of $5,000 to $500. All the Filipinos volunteered for the voyage, and on 14 February the Florence D set sail. About the same time the Don Isidro departed from Batavia. Both vessels proceeded through the Timor Sea until they reached Bathurst Island north of Darwin. Here they turned north and on 19 February Japanese planes, roaring overhead on their way to the Netherlands Indies, bombed the blockade-runners and left the Florence D a burning, sinking wreck and the Don Isidro a disabled hulk that had to be beached on Melville Island.71
Japanese had meanwhile begun to bomb the chief centers in Java and plainly indicated that they would soon attempt a landing in force. On 14 February, therefore, the Dutch at last released four rusty old freighters, one of which, the Taiyuan, Robenson designated for immediate use. Its Chinese crew, however, refused to sail. Only by offering large bonuses and other financial inducements was it finally possible to obtain a crew. The Taiyuan sailed on 26 February, the day the Battle of Java commenced, with a cargo of 720,000 rations. It was never heard from again.72
Though disappointingly few ships ran the blockade to the Philippines, the three that did arrive there from Australia discharged about 10,000 tons of rations, or 2,000 more tons than had been set as a goal for that continent’s initial contribution. In addition, they landed 4,000,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition, 8,000 rounds of 81-mm. ammunition, and miscellaneous medical, signal, and engineer supplies. Unfortunately, the arrival of these ships at Philippine transfer points did not materially alleviate the desperate plight of the hungry forces on Luzon, for, of the supplies received from Australia, only the few miscellaneous items and the 1,100 tons of rations that El Cano carried ever reached Corregidor. These rations normally would have represented about a 4-day supply for about 100,000 soldiers and civilians, but the quantity actually available was considerably reduced by the “heartbreaking condition” of the shipment. “Practically all containers were broken and their contents piled together” in the holds.73 Onions and potatoes, transported on the deck of the ship, had become so rotten that they were inedible. All the food had to be carefully inspected, and much of it thrown out before issues could be made. Drake attributed these deplorable losses to
the use of ordinary commercial packing containers incapable of withstanding rough handling and numerous transfers. But for a few days Australian canned meat did give the troops on Bataan a little more than their usual meager fare.
The Japanese invasion of the Netherlands Indies and the accompanying increase of hostile air and naval strength in that area served to make blockade-running from the south even more hazardous. Recognizing the difficulties under which the Army in Australia labored in its efforts to help him, MacArthur suggested on 22 February that the Philippines be supplied direct from Honolulu. He pointed out that the forces in the antipodes had many other responsibilities and could not concentrate on Philippine supply, to them merely “a subsidiary effort.”74 Shortly afterwards, Brig. Gen. Patrick J. Hurley, Minister to New Zealand and former Secretary of War, who was serving temporarily in USAFIA as Gen. George C. Marshall’s personal representative in organizing blockade-running, radioed his chief that risking ships from Australia was “no longer justified.” Routes that might be followed to avoid enemy-controlled areas were, he pointed out, as long as those from Hawaii to the Philippines, and not as safe. General Brett as well as Hurley concurred in Mac-Arthur’s recommendation that supplies be sent from Honolulu.75
The War Department informed Brett that an effort to supply the Philippines from Honolulu was already under way. A converted 1,000-ton destroyer had left New Orleans for Hawaii and plans for using six other converted destroyers had been developed. In accordance with MacArthur’s request the destroyers would carry 2,375 tons of rations, 369 tons of ammunition and other ordnance supplies, 55 tons of medical supplies, and 61 tons of signal supplies. Unhappily for the men now starving on Bataan, there was not enough time to execute these plans, for within one month the peninsula fell. In any event prospects for success were dubious because of Japanese control of western Pacific waters.76
The institution of this new phase of the effort to supply Bataan did not relieve USAFIA of its role in the relief program, and late in March Marshall was still urging MacArthur, who had been ordered to Australia as commander of the U.S. Forces in the Far East, to intensify his efforts to relieve the Philippines by all available means—planes, submarines, or surface ships.77 Submarines, in fact, had been used since mid-January to run the blockade from Australian or Netherlands Indies ports. All together, five reached the Philippines. One, carrying ammunition, arrived at Corregidor early in February. Later in the same month another, also loaded with ammunition, reached Parang in Mindanao. Two others, carrying rations and medicines, arrived at Cebu City; one of them delivered a fifth of its cargo, about twenty tons of rations, at Corregidor on the day Bataan surrendered, but the other, arriving the following day, jettisoned its cargo. A fifth submarine reached the island fortress with mail on 3 May, just before it fell. The carrying capacity of all these vessels was limited, for they were ordinary torpedo-carrying submarines, not cargo carriers.78
The question naturally arises whether food shipments from Australia had been worth the risks involved. About 1,100 tons of balanced rations in poor condition did reach Bataan after transshipment from Mindanao, but in all probability the Luzon Force would have received an equal amount of food from the central and southern Philippines had these supplies from Australia been unavailable. One advantage of using rations from Australia was that they contained the elements prescribed by the Army and hence were better balanced and more acceptable to American troops than food from the Visayas and Mindanao would have been. But to the Filipinos, who composed the bulk of the Luzon Force, Philippine food would have been as acceptable as U.S. rations, and to American troops on the verge of starvation it surely made little difference from what country their subsistence came. Another reason for transporting food from Australia was uncertainty concerning the ability of the Cebu Depot to provide enough rations from local sources for both the Luzon Force and the Visayan-Mindanao Force. Yet experience demonstrated that this installation could furnish sizable stocks of food, although probably not enough to have provisioned Bataan indefinitely. But the main justification for the decision to send rations from Australia is that strategists planning a protracted defense of Bataan could not be sure in January or even early February that the Japanese blockade would prove all but unbreakable. They had to assume that opportunities might develop to furnish the peninsula food in more substantial quantities than the Cebu Depot could conceivably supply, and they had to be ready, if possible, to benefit from such opportunities.
As the situation in the western Pacific actually developed, the crux of the whole problem of food relief lay not in the inability of more ships to make the long voyage from Australia but in the inability of any ships after the end of February to proceed from Mindanao and the Visayas to Corregidor. As long as this part of the blockade could not be run, it made no difference how many tons of rations Australia—or even the United States and Hawaii—shipped or the Cebu Depot accumulated.
Bataan: Last Phase
Throughout January and February the men on Bataan subsisted on the meager half rations meted out at morning and late afternoon meals. The amount of food furnished at even these scanty meals gradually declined. When the half ration was inaugurated on 6 January, it theoretically supplied each U.S. Army soldier with 6 ounces of flour a day, but the stock was so restricted that the allowance had to be cut, first, to 4 ounces, then to 2 ounces, and, finally, late in March, eliminated altogether. At the start of half rationing daily issues of 6 ounces of canned or fresh meat were prescribed. But by 23 March diminishing stocks had forced reduction of the allowance of canned meat, usually corned beef, to 1.22 ounces. Strenuous efforts were made all along to provide 6 ounces of fresh carabao or other meat every third day. Like other stocks of food, canned vegetables, limited from the beginning in variety and quantity, shrank as the weeks passed and afforded only an increasingly monotonous diet. Within a month after the withdrawal to Bataan, butter, coffee, and tea had vanished from the menu. Stocks of sugar and evaporated milk had been almost exhausted and were issued only in inconsequential amounts. Little tobacco
was available in any form. On 22 March the ration had fallen to 17 ounces, or only about a third of the 46.2 ounces provided in a full ration, and it was recommended that the issue be further reduced to 12.67 ounces.79
The Philippine ration underwent a similar reduction. Daily issues of rice, which served the purpose of flour in the American ration, gradually dwindled from 10 ounces at the start of rationing to 3 ounces in mid-March. Stipulated issues of meat or of fish, which, under this ration, was frequently substituted for meat, declined in January to 4 ounces, 2 ounces less than were prescribed under the U.S. ration. By 23 March Philippine, like U.S., troops were getting only 1.22 ounces of meat or fish. Except for flour, which was not issued to Filipinos, other foods were prescribed in the same quantities under the two rations.
Normal wartime obstacles to equitable distribution of subsistence were intensified by the extraordinary conditions on Bataan. Front-line troops indeed received even less than the prescribed fare.80 Transportation difficulties retarded deliveries and made it almost impossible to carry supplies in the stipulated quantities. After January the only passable road was the coastal route running from Orion on the Manila Bay side of the peninsula to Mariveles on the southern tip and then up the west coast on the China Sea side to Bagac. The jungles covering most of the peninsula were virtually impenetrable; and the few foot and pack trails were rank with tropical vegetation. From early February most of the defense line could be reached only by the arduous process “of clambering in and out” of densely overgrown ravines that “radiated like the ribs of a fan from the summit of Mariveles Mountain,” six miles south of the front.81
Limitations on the use of vehicles, caused by the shortage of gasoline, added to the difficulty of delivering supplies on schedule. Equally serious was the highjacking of food, especially by Filipinos, most of whom had little training or discipline in supply matters. Even Philippine Army military police, who had been placed along the roads and trails to guard against such practices, occasionally helped themselves to food from vehicles they had halted, ostensibly to inspect the cargo. Food was always mysteriously vanishing from supply dumps and organization kitchens. Pilferage of this sort normally would have passed unnoticed, but rations were so small that soldiers at once detected the slightest diminution and freely accused rear echelons of “living on the fat of the land” and division quartermasters of inequitable distribution.
The provision of fresh meat illustrates how hard it was to furnish front-line troops with the prescribed ration.82 Fresh meat was scheduled to be issued every third day, yet men at the front seldom received any more often than once every week or ten days. Even when they received supposedly fresh meat, it was as frequently as not maggoty or otherwise spoiled. Such deterioration was
inescapable, for the meat had to be transported in unrefrigerated open trucks on hauls that lasted ten or twelve hours during the heat of the tropical day. The long trip, moreover, afforded highjackers many opportunities for plunder.83
By late March, with the blockade completely shutting off all outside shipments, the subsistence stocks on Corregidor offered the only real hope of an increase in the Bataan ration. In the last half of December the Manila Quartermaster Depot had built up on the island fortress a defense reserve of Quartermaster supplies sufficient to last 10,000 men for 180 days. Though there were then actually only about 9,000 men in the harbor forts, MacArthur on 24 January had directed that subsistence reserves be further increased to provide for 20,000 men until 1 July 1942. This meant that food had to be shifted from Bataan to Corregidor. Of the substantial surplus thus created on the island, only a small part was ever returned to the peninsula. For a few days at the very end of the campaign some rations were belatedly shipped to the starving men on Bataan.84
Throughout the Bataan campaign the Harbor Defenses forces enjoyed more food and better balanced rations than did those on the peninsula. Rations at the harbor forts, it is true, were cut, nominally in half, early in January, when those on Bataan were reduced, and only two meals a day were served thereafter. Various factors, however, combined to give troops on Corregidor and at the other forts more and better food than those on the peninsula. There were virtually no transportation difficulties, little pilferage, and practically no hoarding. These factors, together with the availability of comparatively abundant food stores, rendered it inevitable that the Corregidor garrison often actually received better meals than quartermasters on Bataan could possibly give its hungry defenders.
A comparison of the rations in effect on Corregidor and Bataan reveals the inequality. About the middle of March the Harbor Defenses ration was well-balanced and provided about 48 ounces for Filipinos, who were normally lighter eaters than U.S. troops. At that time rations on Bataan usually totaled only 14 to 17 ounces. Even after the Corregidor rations were reduced on 1 April, they still greatly exceeded those on Bataan, Americans receiving 30.49 ounces and Filipinos 25.85 ounces. These reduced rations provided vegetables, fruits, and cereals, 8 ounces of fresh or canned meat, and, for Americans, 7 ounces of flour. In contrast to this not insubstantial fare the Bataan rations for weeks had provided no vegetables, fruits, or cereals, only 1.22 ounces of canned meat or, every third day, 6 ounces of fresh meat, and for Americans, 1.44 ounces of flour.85 Rice was used largely as a substitute for flour, 8 ounces being issued to Americans and 10 ounces to Filipinos. Aside from these items, the Bataan rations provided only about PA ounces of canned milk, PA ounces of salt, and r/2 ounce of sugar. In the closing weeks of the peninsula campaign, as supplies were depleted, even these meager issues were cut or eliminated.
The striking disparity between the Bataan and the Corregidor ration was plainly
demonstrated to the defenders of the peninsula by incidents like that of 18 March, when military police halted a truck laden with rations for a few Harbor Defenses antiaircraft batteries, which drew their supplies direct from Corregidor, and discovered that it contained ham, bacon, sausage, raisins, canned peas, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and peaches, none of which were available to the other troops defending Bataan, as well as large quantities of cigarettes.86 Such incidents could not be kept secret, and in exaggerated form they were reported throughout the peninsula to the detriment of an already sagging morale.
The disparity between the issues of tobacco on Bataan and Corregidor particularly stirred the resentment of the Luzon Force. In general only one cigarette a day was issued to soldiers on the peninsula. Occasional efforts were made to issue five to men in the front lines.87 Corregidor, on the other hand, had a relatively large supply of tobacco, and officers going from Bataan to that island often purchased cigarettes and pipe tobacco in substantial quantities.88 The shortage of cigarettes on Bataan was relieved temporarily early in March by the arrival of a million and a half cigarettes that had been run through the blockade, but this relief lasted for only a few days.
Another cause for dissatisfaction was the fact that the 1,500 marines on Corregidor drew their rations from the Harbor Defenses Quartermaster, although they had brought their own food supplies. On arriving at the fortress the marines had offered their dry provisions to the Subsistence Officer, but since these supplies did not constitute a balanced ration, they had been told to retain their stores intact. On 3 April General Drake called attention to this situation and suggested that the time had come for the marines to consume their own supplies.89
As the food situation on Bataan rapidly deteriorated during March, increasing consideration was given to the possibility of tapping the Corregidor reserves. But these reserves were based on plans to defend the island until 1 July. Unless this date was altered to at least 1 June, no relief could be sent to the peninsula.90 The date was so altered, effective on 1 April, when the Harbor Defenses ration was reduced to 30 ounces and the daily shipment of small quantities of food from the Bataan reserve was started. These measures came too late to benefit the Bataan forces.
By late March these forces, even under the prescribed ration that could not always be supplied, were receiving only about 1,000 calories a day. Yet men fighting under highly adverse conditions in terrain as formidable as that of Bataan required a minimum of 3,500 calories, and medical authorities generally agreed that 1,500 calories were necessary to perform the barest functions of life. The ration, furthermore, was deficient in vitamins A, B, and C, with the result that beriberi affected virtually all troops. As early as 16 February, there had been “many indications of accumulative malnutrition.” In the morning men’s legs felt “watery” and at intervals pumped “with
pains that swell and go away again.” Breakfast restored a normal feeling for an hour or so, but lassitude then followed.91 Between mid-February and mid-March a tremendous increase occurred in the number of soldiers rendered ineffective because of malaria, malnutrition, and dysentery.
The commander of the I Corps attributed these alarming developments to the steady reduction in the quantity and quality of rations, to lack of quinine and other medicines, and to inadequate clothing and shelter. In some degree, he added, 75 percent of his command was incapacitated. Since rear establishments lacked rations to rehabilitate those suffering from malnutrition, he set up stations where food issued to his command was utilized to give patients slightly more than regular fare. But his efforts bore little fruit, and by mid-March large-scale offensive action by the I Corps had become impossible.92 Physicians estimated its combat efficiency to be less than 45 percent. At the same time the commander of the II Corps asserted that the combat efficiency of that organization had fallen to about 20 percent.93
The last days of March saw further deterioration of the ration situation, and on the 28th Wainwright warned General Marshall that food stocks would last only until 15 April. Unless they were replenished, he declared, Bataan would be starved into surrender. Late in March MacArthur and Wainwright had agreed that a desperate attempt must be made to run supplies tied up at Cebu and Iloilo through the blockade to Corregidor. According to their tentative plan, motor ships, lying idle in the central islands since late February, would again become blockade-runners.94 As this daring venture would be foolhardy unless a convoy of planes was provided, MacArthur agreed to send aircraft from Australia. Wainwright also planned to use the few remaining motor torpedo boats as a naval convoy. The Cebu Quartermaster Depot understood that American bombers would arrive about the night of 1-2 April, attack Japanese airfields along the route to Corregidor, and then, basing themselves on American-held airfields in Mindanao, patrol the sea during the perilous northward movement of the blockade-runners. On 1 April eight ships, fully loaded with rations, medicines, ammunition, gasoline, and oil, waited at Cebu and Iloilo, ready to start for Corregidor when the planes should appear. Days passed, but no planes came because plans for the special air mission could not be completed until 7 April at a conference in Melbourne after which several more days were needed to prepare for the flight from Darwin in northern Australia.95 On the morning of 10 April the enemy landed and captured Cebu, but not before the waiting ships and their cargoes had been destroyed to avoid capture.
On 11 April ten B-25’s and three B-17’s left Darwin and arrived safely at the Del Monte airfield on Mindanao. During the next two days attacks were made against
shipping and docks at Cebu, against enemy facilities at Davao, and against Nichols Field at Manila. While these attacks were fairly successful, the small number of bombers and the meager protection afforded by the six battered pursuit planes available on Mindanao make it fairly obvious that, if the blockade-running enterprise had been undertaken, it would have ended in disaster.96
Rations during the final two weeks on the peninsula provided less than 1,000 calories a day. Rice, more plentiful than other foods, was now issued to all troops at a daily rate of about ten ounces and became the main food of Americans as well as Filipinos. It was indeed relatively so abundant that other available foods were rationed to last as long as it did. The extreme scarcity of other items at this time is illustrated by the headquarters mess of the 45th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Scouts. Besides rice, it received one can of salmon a day for fourteen officers and, occasionally, a small quantity of sugar, but never enough to be of real significance. Everywhere malnutrition, malaria, and dysentery demoralized the defenders. They were no longer capable of offensive action or even sustained resistance. The 31st Division, Philippine Army, which in early February had driven the Japanese from its immediate front, had “by lack of clothing, equipment, food, and medicine been reduced to a demoralized and uncontrollable mob.”97 The surgeon of the Luzon Force reported that men were “becoming so weak from starvation that they could hardly carry” their packs. At the end of March, he noted, examination of the 45th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Scouts, revealed that 65 percent of the troops exhibited signs of malnutrition. More than half the troops were afflicted with edema, night blindness, or other symptoms of dietary deficiency. The “well men,” the surgeon continued, were “thin and weak from starvation.”98
Ill and undernourished, the Bataan forces could not effectively resist the final Japanese offensive, which was launched against the southern part of the American front on 3 April. Units gradually disintegrated and by the 7th were abandoning arms and running away. Still hoping against hope for some kind of relief, General Drake radioed The Quartermaster General, Maj. Gen. Edmund B. Gregory, describing the critical food shortage and urging that air shipments of food concentrates be forwarded immediately from Cebu, Australia, and China.99 The following day General Marshall radioed General Wainwright that the Chinese Government had volunteered to supply planes for such shipments. But it was too late to relieve the desperate situation, for on this same day attacking forces outflanked their opponents’ lines and rendered further resistance impossible. On the southern front Americans and Filipinos fled, pursued by enemy infantry, bombers, and tanks. Surrender was imperative to avert wholesale massacre. On 9 April Maj. Gen. Edward P. King, Jr., commanding the Luzon Force, took this inevitable step, and the valiant resistance of the men of Bataan passed into history.100
“The capitulation of Luzon Force,” its surgeon declared, “represents in many respects a defeat due to disease and starvation rather than to military conditions.” Physical deterioration, he continued, had progressed so far that it “became a determining factor in tactical operations.” Even if the Japanese had not launched their final attack, surrender in all probability could have been postponed only a few days. So bad had health conditions become that during the three days preceding capitulation the last rations were used to feed the troops better than they had been fed for weeks. Flour, which had not been issued for some time, was dealt out at the rate of 2.88 ounces a day. The allotment of 1.22 ounces of canned meat, in effect since 23 March, was doubled. So was the rice ration, 17 ounces being given to Americans and 20 ounces to Filipinos. When King surrendered, all subsistence on Bataan, including 45,000 C rations, held to the end for emergency use, had been exhausted except for a single issue of a half ration.101
On the day of the capitulation, no other essential supply was as scarce as rations. It is true that there never had been sufficient mortars or .50-caliber machine guns and that heavy loss of firearms during the campaign had seriously reduced the number of automatic weapons, but these scarcities were not so severe as to demand capitulation. Ammunition stocks, too, though lacking antiaircraft shells and short of artillery shells, were still plentiful enough to last for another month at the existing rate of consumption. Supplies of engineer equipment and motor vehicles, while not large enough for the most efficient operations, were still adequate to meet minimum requirements. The shortage of gasoline was more serious, for it increasingly hampered all activities involving motor transportation. But on the night of 8 April, 50,000 gallons, sufficient to last twenty days, remained in Quartermaster dumps. In preparation for surrender on the following morning all this stock was destroyed except for 10,000 gallons which, the Americans hoped, the enemy would utilize to transport their weary, starving prisoners of war.102
Quartermaster Operations on Corregidor
After the capitulation the Japanese set up their artillery on the southern shores of Bataan, two miles from Corregidor, and began intensive shelling of that small but powerful fortress commanding the entrance to Manila Bay. The three harbor forts—Drum, Hughes, and Frank—were also subjected to bombardment. During this period Corregidor became the center of American efforts in the Philippines. Though a protracted defense appeared hopeless, General Wainwright determined, if possible, to hold the island until at least the beginning of June.
Even in the final weeks on Corregidor food never became as scarce as it had on Bataan at the end, in spite of the fact that soldiers and civilians evacuated from the peninsula immediately before and after the surrender of the Luzon Force had swelled the number of individuals to be fed to about 11,000. Meals, though unbalanced in their constituents, were served at a half-ration rate. This comparatively high rate Was possible because Quartermaster supplies had sustained no significant damage. Since December they had been stored in Malinta Tunnel, where they were safe from hostile
Surrender to the Japanese. American prisoners sort supplies under the supervision of Japanese soldiers, Bataan, 11 April 1942.
bombing and shelling. This huge excavation ran from east to west for about 800 feet beneath 500-foot-high Malinta Hill; it was approximately 25 feet wide and 15 feet high and had lateral branches 150 feet deep, 15 feet wide, and 15 feet high. When Corregidor surrendered on 6 May, this tunnel contained enough food to have provided half rations until about 20 June. In view of this relatively favorable situation, illness was much less common than it had been on Bataan. While diarrhea and minor respiratory diseases afflicted many soldiers, the more serious maladies, such as dysentery and beriberi, rarely appeared. Most of the garrison, however, showed signs of exhaustion, and as enemy activity was intensified, these symptoms multiplied. But it was not physical exhaustion that brought about the surrender as much as it was overwhelming Japanese superiority in planes and equipment.103
Of the bitter disappointments associated with the fall of the Philippines the QMC had a full share. In no other campaign in the Pacific were men so ill fed and so ill clad, and in no other campaign was such bitter criticism directed at the Corps. Lack of food elicited the most vigorous denunciation. During the siege of Bataan, according to Col. Irvin Alexander, an infantry officer
detailed to the QMC, “the Filipinos were uncomplaining, but as the American soldiers grew hungrier the more vocal they became. Looking for someone to blame and not knowing where to place the blame they picked on the QMC.” According to Colonel Alexander, “this bitterness continued on into prison camp and no doubt many survivors believed they were starved on Bataan because of the failure of the QMC to perform its duties properly.104
This criticism was unjustified, for the failure of the QMC sprang largely from conditions beyond its control, not from any neglect of duty. It had, in fact, taken every step demanded by long-laid plans for meeting a war emergency. In the summer of 1941 it had submitted requisitions to the War Department for defense reserve stocks large enough to last 50,000 men for six months. At the same time it had sent in requisitions covering the initial supply and equipment of the Philippine Army. Surely, it was not a Quartermaster fault that hostilities started before any of these supplies, except 1,000,000 gallons of gasoline and 500,000 C rations, arrived in Manila. Nor was it the fault of the QMC that it was suddenly forced to share nonperishable rations, clothing, and equipment, which had been accumulated for 20,000 Regular Army troops and Philippine Scouts, with the 60,000 men of the woefully undersupplied Philippine Army.
Neither was the QMC responsible for the failure to store rations on Bataan immediately after hostilities started, as had been directed by WPO-3. This failure was attributable rather to the decision of higher military authority to discard WPO-3 and “fight it out on the beaches,” a change of plan that compelled the QMC to disperse food stocks among all the supply depots in Luzon. Higher authority perhaps also contributed to the shortage of rations on Bataan by its prohibition, in the opening days of the war, of the procurement of rice that the Philippine Government thought might be required by Filipino citizens. Finally, the collapse of the defense against the invaders within two weeks and the consequent withdrawal to the fastnesses of Bataan within a single week placed an impossible task on the QMC. The retreat was hurried; railroad transportation was no longer available; and a substantial number of trucks had been commandeered by combat organizations. These chaotic conditions forced the QMC to abandon or destroy an appreciable part of its subsistence stocks.
Since the food stores of 8 December had, not sufficed to furnish full rations for the contemplated six-month stand on Bataan, even before suffering heavy withdrawals prior to hasty retirement to the peninsula, nothing that the QMC could have done would have squeezed full rations out of the scanty supplies. Once on Bataan, the QMC had exploited to the maximum the limited local food sources. Moreover, in Mindanao and the Visayas it had conducted a heartbreaking attempt to send surface ships loaded with food through the ever tightening blockade.
The failure of outside efforts to replenish essential supplies raises the question whether this was an unavoidable consequence of the weakness of American military, naval, and air forces in the western Pacific. To a very great extent, of course, it was. Yet the successful runs made by the few available torpedo-carrying submarines—all of limited capacity—suggests that the best chance of bringing in supplies may have lain in cargo-carrying submarines built to handle at least
500 tons as compared with the 150 or so tons transportable by the ordinary torpedo-carrying type. Unfortunately, no cargo-carrying submarines could be obtained either in the Pacific or elsewhere. Finally, American weakness in the air rendered supply by plane impracticable. But had more airfields, bombers, fighters, and, above all, more transport planes been available, Bataan, as subsequent experience in Burma demonstrated, could have been provisioned at least in part by air.
Generally speaking, supply operations on Luzon suggest that in making plans and in executing them too little attention was devoted to the potential significance of rations in a position as exposed as the Philippines. Though the archipelago lay thousands of miles from its major base, the United States, and at the very end of a supply line that was highly vulnerable to attack, the War Department assigned it low shipping priorities until the summer of 1941. Even then rations still had low priorities, and essential provisions never arrived. In retrospect, planning may also be criticized for not recognizing all the logistical implications of the protracted defense of such easily isolated positions as Bataan and Corregidor. Though it was anticipated that both positions would probably come under siege, in which event they were to be defended as long as was humanly possible, planners did not provide for unusually large supply reserves. Nor did they foresee that thousands of civilian refugees would have to be fed on both Bataan and Corregidor. In executing the plans for defending Luzon after hostilities had started, higher military authorities appear not to have fully realized at first the pressing importance of assuring rations for beleaguered forces in a blockaded Philippines. Habits of thought, produced by the almost universal peacetime abundance of food and the ordinarily routine character of its procurement, doubtless account for this lack of vision. Few survivors of Bataan today would deny that generous subsistence reserves, high shipping priorities for food, and provision for unforeseen emergencies are imperative safeguards for positions that may be isolated under comparable circumstances in the future.