035 - War Plan Orange 3

The American battle plans for the Pacific War (code-named and color-coded “Orange”) were built around the idea of a “dreadnought war”, where battleships would go head to head. However, the all-out battleship wars of the First World War became outdated for two very interconnected reasons. First, Naval Aviation was so powerful that warships, especially battleships, were helpless against modern bombers, fighters, and torpedo planes. Secondly, most of the American battleship fleet still lay at the bottom o Pearl Harbor.

American General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE), wanted to hold and defend all of the Philippines. He had divided his forces equally throughout the Philippines and its expansive 7000-island chain. Additionally, the United States, who was allies with the Japanese in WWI, had not planned for an amphibious assault. Consequently, the Japanese Army, complete with a tank-based invading force,quickly overran the USAFFE Forces.

Approximately two weeks after the ^th-8^th attacks, President Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to Corregidor Island while the Filipino Forces (known as Philippine Scouts) were largely left to fend for themselves. Unlike the Imperial Japanese Army, these small bands of guerrillas often armed with single-shot rifles and had to make due with farm trucks converted into military vehicles.
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Even before the retreat, USAFFE Forces had mobilized troops of Filipino villagers, who acted as guerrillas and rebels against the invading Japanese Army.

While the forces were not adequately armed to defeat a well-equipped Japanese Army, the Filipino Rebels held out for the first half of 1942 and continued to confound the Japanese, making this Japanese conquest useless for the remainder of the War.

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