Lull, Attack, Lull

The manpower ratio was approximately constant: Douglas MacArthur's 20,000 men against the Jap's 150,000-200,000. The technique was approximately the same: a lull, then a fierce, full-strength Japanese attack against some point on one of the smallest fronts of World War II. The outcome was hearteningly familiar: after three days of intensive attack last week, the Jap retired to catch his breath, to count his heavy casualties, to scheme up an-(continued on p. 26) other go at Bataan Peninsula's defenders.

Like its ten predecessors, it was a busy week for Douglas MacArthur and his men. The Jap's preponderance in manpower allowed him to relieve his infantry at 48-hour intervals, thereby pumping a steady supply of fresh strength into the front lines. His artillery, which hammered Manila Bay's defending forts from concealed positions across the Bay, was usually fired only in the morning when, with the sun directly behind it, gun flashes were hard to detect. Aerial superiority enabled Japanese dive-bombers to return again & again over U.S. positions, in spite of withering anti-aircraft fire. In the lull that followed the latest unsuccessful thrust against MacArthur, Japanese troops took uncontested possession of Masbate Island, in the middle archipelago south of Luzon, which has an excellent airfield less than 300 miles from Bataan.

General MacArthur continued to direct a defense that matched the Japanese attack in cunning. His line of communications between the Peninsula and Fort Corregidor remained open. His shore defense guns continued to blast Jap flanking attacks. His artillery counterfire from Manila Bay's forts, in his own terse words, "has been effective." His ack-ack guns and runty Air Force were deadly: last week they brought down 15 Japanese planes, including two dive-bombers that mistakenly strafed their own infantry (a regiment of General Akira Nara's 65th Division) with heavy casualties. His observation that the invaders were seeking entrenched positions was evidence that General MacArthur still had the temerity and strength to counterattack.

But this week Douglas MacArthur well knew that he was on the threshold of his deadliest test yet. Winston Churchill's announcement of Singapore's fall was not 24 hours old when a terse Philippine communique revealed:

"There was heavy enemy artillery fire in Bataan during the past 24 hours. Intermittent infantry fighting was in progress on several sections of the front. Enemy aviation was active throughout the day. . . ."

The weekend lull was, perhaps, the last.

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