re: #172 William Lewis

MacArthur was an incompetent and left the PI vulnerable to the Japanese because of it. His misuse of US airpower should have, after allowing most of it be destroyed on the ground, in itself had him sacked. We lost a good Admiral in Kimmel who had tried to ready Pearl for the coming war and lionized an idiot who did nothing but throw away the Philippines and his men.

A lot of men and material was wasted on the unnecessary PI campaign that would have been better used in the real undoing of the Japanese via the island campaigns.

The fact that he was give a MOH instead of a firing squad is one of the saddest in American history.

I don’t agree about the 44-45 Philippines campaign. It saved the lives of many who had been faithful to the US and it led the IJN into a counter-attack that finished it as a cohesive navy. And finally it cut Japan off from the oil of Sumatra and Borneo and that cut off was of crucial importance.