MacArthur, a spectacular failure as a commander in the Philippines with an endless eye on the US Presidency, converts himself into a hero while commanders at Pearl Harbor who performed rather better than him (any commander who did anything on the first day of being assaulted by the Japanese did better than MacArthur who did nothing, including failing to carry out pre-arranged orders such as bombing Formosa while his air force commander sought orders and on his own initiative put his planes into the air to minimise losses from Japanese attacks).
Why was MacArthur immune from well-deserved investigation of his woeful 'defence' of the Philippines?
On the other side, General Yamashita planned in short time and fought a successful campaign against the British Commonwealth forces in Malaya, which surprisingly resulted in Tojo denying him the honours he deserved and instead relegating him to a backwater post in Manchuria.
It is remarkable that a second rate failure like MacArthur was given the opportunity to do a Lazarus in succeeding years in not particularly clever operations against a steadily declining enemy weakened in large part by the operations of the USN which increasingly isolated IJA land forces by denying them logistical support to enable MacArthur's successful thrust back to his obsession with the Philippines, which was of questionable importance in the overall assault on Japan.
It is equally remarkable that Yamashita, who was probably the most distinguished and successful commander in Japan's southern thrust, was denied the opportunity to engage further in that thrust by being sent to Manchuria by Tojo, only to be finally dragged back to combat operational command late in 1944 for the defence of the Philippines.
The net result was that Japan denied itself a commander who could have made a major contribution to Japan's aim of isolating Australia while America placed a demonstrably failed commander in Australia to resist Japan's aim of isolating Australia, when both Japan and America knew that it was critical to prevent Australia being used as a base for America to strike back at Japan.
There are countless other examples of inexplicable decisions motivated by political or at least not militarily ideal aims, such as moving Wavell from the Middle East where he was regarded as inadequate to the Far East / Pacific at exactly the time that Churchill and others feared a Japanese attack where Wavell proved inadequate, although ably assisted by the absence of forces Churchill chose to ignore were required.
How is it that such decisions are made by the politicians who run the show on all sides?
So far as Yamashita is concerned, it seems that Tojo saw him as a potential rival.
The same might be said of MacArthur and Roosevelt, although that rivalry wasn't overt for a year or two after Bataan etc. Or maybe Roosevelt saw it coming.
As for Churchill and Wavell and Malaya / Singapore, that was just Churchill at his arrogant ignorant best thinking that his refusal to provide Malaya / Singapore with what his military advisers had advised was necessary wasn't, as he had done from Gallipoli in 1915 to Greece and Crete in the year before his stupidity lost Singapore in what he rightly called the greatest defeat of British arms, shortly after he had given orders for the tens of thousands of British Commonwealth troops to fight to the death of the last man.
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