Bataan — Road of Horrors

Long before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, bringing the United States into the war, hostilities were in the works. Although the December attack on the Hawaiian naval base was a surprise in terms of its exact timing, both sides knew that war was probable, if not inevitable. Military planners had been anticipating some such conflict since the mid-1930's.

Even earlier, military preparedness planners had considered it necessary to be ready for a Pacific naval war. Historian Russell Weigley notes that U.S. unpreparedness for such a war was considered to be so problematic,

especially after the Washington Treaty of 1922, that the planners of the twenties and thirties never had much confidence in their handiwork. The Army planners felt little hope that the garrison of the Philippine Islands could hold out, even in such a restricted area as the Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor, until the fleet arrived with reinforcements.

Almost twenty years in advance, it was known that American and Filipino forces would face almost certain defeat in the face of Japanese attack. And that's what happened. Timed to happen quickly after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines began on 8 December 1941. Historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski write that

the defense of the Philippines depended upon the Asiatic Fleet, the Far Eastern Air Force of about 140 aircraft, 31,000 American and Filipino regulars, 100,000 Filipino levies, and the fertile brain of Douglas MacArthur. None proved adequate to meet the Japanese invasion. Through command lapses that still defy explanation, the majority of the AAF bomber and fighter force burned to junk on the ground from a bombing attack on December 8. The remaining planes and the Asiatic Fleet could not stop invasions throughout December in both northern and southern Luzon, and the Navy fell back to join the Anglo-Dutch squadron defending the Malay Barrier. MacArthur himself did not enjoy one of his finest hours in command, for, alternating between romanticism and despair, he threw his feeble ground forces against the Japanese army rather than retreat immediately to the Bataan peninsula according to plan. By the time his battered forces eventually reached Bataan, they had already suffered serious losses; more importantly, they had abandoned their food, supplies, and munitions that might have prolonged their resistance or at least reduced their subsequent suffering. Under field conditions that beggar the mind, the Philippine army fought until early April 1942. Disease, malnutrition, and ammunition shortages doomed Bataan's staunch defenders. Their comrades on Corregidor Island resisted an additional month, then General Jonathan Wainwright, who assumed command after FDR ordered MacArthur to Australia, surrendered the remaining forces throughout the Philippines. Thousands of American and Filipino servicemen and civilians faded into the mountains to form guerilla units that harassed the Japanese for four years. Wainwright cabled Washington, "With profound regret and with continued pride in my gallant troops, I go to meet the Japanese commander. Good-bye, Mr. President."

The American-Filipino force had held out as long as possible. Indeed, very quickly after Pearl Harbor, the senior officers in the United States military knew that they would need to devote maximum effort to the defense of the Philippines, and they knew exactly as certainly that such a defense was doomed to failure. Historian Michael Korda describes how two brilliant minds, Eisenhower and Marshall, stood at the center of this complex, stressful, and historic moment. General Eisenhower, at that time reporting to General George Marshall, drafted a strategic overview of the situation in the Pacific for Marshall:

He faced the painful facts: no major reinforcements could reach the Philippines without the protection of the battleships of the Pacific Fleet, which still lay smoldering at Pearl Harbor. The first priority must therefore be to set up a secure base in Australia, and "to procure a line of communications leading to it," which meant moving instantly to save Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, and New Caledonia, even at the risk of further Japanese advances elsewhere. (This conclusion may seem obvious now, since we know that the plan succeeded, but nobody else at that time had reached it, stated it clearly, or proposed to make it America's first and most immediate priority.) In the meantime, every effort had to be made to supply the American and Philippine troops by air and submarine for as long as possible, "although the end result might be no more than postponement of the inevitable."

Committing effort to what was probably a lost cause had two reasons: first, a moral statement to the civilians and soldiers of the Philippines and to the American troops; second, it kept the Japanese military tied up. General Eisenhower presented his ideas to General Marshall:

When Ike went back in to present Marshall with his conclusions, he finished by saying, "General, it will be a long time before major reinforcements can go to the Philippines, longer than any garrison can hold out with any driblet assistance, if the enemy commits major forces to their reduction. But we must do everything for them that is humanly possible. The people of China, of the Philippines, of the Dutch East Indies will be watching us. They may excuse failure but they will not excuse abandonment."

American forces, already reduced by the Pearl Harbor attack, were stretched thin, attempted to establish a base in Australia, protect lines of communication and supplies across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean, and strengthen the defenders of the Philippines. Marshall agreed with Eisenhower's assessment of the situation, and agreed to Eisenhower's plan of action:

Marshall merely replied, "I agree with you. Do your best to save them," and sent Ike off to begin the process of building up a base in Australia, while getting anything he could to the Philippines. In effect, Marshall had asked Ike for his recommendations, and then given him the task of carrying them out.

The various branches of the United States military do not automatically operate in harmony. Different officers have conflicting ideas of what should be done. It is incumbent on the high command to create harmony, hopefully by persuasion, but if necessary by direct orders.

One of Ike's first moves was to overrule the Navy, which after Pearl Harbor had wanted to recall all the supply ships on their way to the Philippines to United States ports, and send them on to Australia instead, guarded by the cruiser Pensacola. Ike worked closely with Marshall, drafting many of the Chief of Staff's most crucial messages, many of which dealt with the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Philippines. MacArthur's plan to "stop the enemy on the beaches" of the Philippines had failed from the first moment - at the first sight of the Japanese landing on the beaches, the Philippine soldiers threw down the newly issued Enfield rifles that Ike had procured for them, and ran.

Prior to working for Marshall, Eisenhower had worked for MacArthur in the Philippines, and so understood the situation exactly.

Ike was, unsurprisingly, clearheaded on the subject of MacArthur. The Philippines was a lost cause, and in his opinion MacArthur should fight it out to the end, with whatever help could reach him - Ike, when the time came, would be against evacuating MacArthur from Bataan, and also against awarding him the Medal of Honor - and then surrender. He drafted Marshall's calm and fact-filled replies to MacArthur's complaints that no supplies were reaching him and that he and the Philippines were being abandoned. Ike also had a hand in drafting Roosevelt's reply to an angry, anguished plea from President Quezon - with the support, rather surprisingly, of MacArthur, who had swung from improbable optimism to describing the situation as "about to be a disastrous debacle" - to let the Philippines be granted immediate independence and be "neutralized," with the immediate removal of both American and Japanese troops.

The end was inevitable, and clear to everyone except FDR. While even MacArthur saw the defeat coming, Roosevelt would be shocked to learn of it. The exchange with the Filipino president, and the agreement between Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Marshall about the fate of the Philippines

brought home at last, even to optimists like the president, "the very somber picture of the Army's situation" and the possibility of a major defeat there. This picture was shortly to be confirmed by the news that Manila had fallen and that MacArthur had retreated to Bataan, where 15,000 American and 65,000 Filipino troops were trapped. In his reply to Quezon, Roosevelt rejected Quezon's proposal as unacceptable, and pledged that "so long as the flag of the United States flies on Filipino soil ... it will be defended by our own men to the death," an answer which infuriated Quezon. Roosevelt's cable to MacArthur ordered him to fight on "so long as there remains any possibility of resistance," and said, even more uncompromisingly: "The duty and necessity of resisting Japanese aggression to the last transcends any other obligation now facing us in the Philippines." MacArthur's belief that he had been "betrayed" by Roosevelt, Marshall, and Ike, who had promised reinforcements and supplies and then withheld them or routed them elsewhere is not borne out by the facts. True, the president made optimistic promises; and true, Marshall did his best to make the tone of his messages more encouraging than Ike's very much bleaker drafts. But in the absence of a fleet and an air force to protect them, no significant number of supply ships could have reached the Philippines in time to change the outcome, and it seems unlikely that so experienced a commander as MacArthur did not know this.

MacArthur, in any case, seemed to waffle back and forth between accepting his fate and denying it. After the inevitable defeat of American and Filipino forces, and the fading of those in the heart of the larger islands into guerilla forces, the most tragic fate, as the Washington Times reports, befell the force on Bataan,

the 30-mile peninsula that bounds Manila Bay on Luzon, largest of the 7,000-island Philippine archipelago, a U.S. dependency in 1941. Within hours of striking Pearl Harbor, Japan launched another surprise attack here. Unable to repel the invaders, American and Filipino defenders soon fell back to the natural bastion of Bataan and its island redoubt, the “rock” of Corregidor.

The Japanese had an easy time defeating the Americans who had retreated to a peninsula, without any naval craft for evacuation. It became clear at this point that the POW's would receive treatment which was neither humane nor human.

Then came the inevitable, humiliating surrender and infamous Death March, in which GIs were herded north for 60 miles — nonstop without food, water or rest en route. Prisoners who fell by the wayside were dispatched by bayonet. They were beaten, stabbed, shot, beheaded, chained together and toppled into a ravine.

This was merely the prelude to torture and atrocities which are almost beyond description. The American soldiers who “fought valiantly against suicidal waves of Japanese troops — and against starvation, fatigue, jungle heat, tropical diseases and volcanic terrain” would now face more painful, more humiliating, and more dispiriting circumstances, sadistically inflicted upon them by the Japanese.

Japan’s high command, driven by monocultural certitude, regarded westerners as a race apart, a race beneath. Further, since Japan never signed the Geneva Convention, she ignored its proscriptions against torture and executions.

The Bataan peninsula fell into Japanese hands on April 9, 1942, when the Americans surrendered. More than 60,000 Filipino and 15,000 American prisoners of war were forced into the infamous Bataan Death March. Thousands of Filipino soldiers, and hundreds of American soldiers, died as they marched to the camp where they would be held as POW's. The route was approximately 80 miles, and the prisoners received neither food nor water nor rest. At the end of the march, they were herded into boxcars and taken the last few miles by train to the camp.

The Bataan Death March came to symbolize many of the other atrocities committed by the Japanese soldiers during WWII in the Pacific. The torture and inhumanity remains shocking and gruesome to this day.

Presidential Humility

The best form of government will lead to bad results, if the individuals who fill that form act badly; the worst form of government can lead to successes, if the people who occupy that form's offices act honorably. Therefore we examine not only the policies of those in office, but also their characters.

Humility is always a virtue, but all the more so In the executive branch of government. Those who occupy this branch must view themselves as facilitators, managers, caretakers, or stewards of the republic. To be sure, leadership is occasionally necessary, often in foreign policy, and especially in war. But the egotistical executive will fancy that his leadership is everywhere necessary.

Aware of the temptation posed by pride, Calvin Coolidge, himself a model executive, wrote:

It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man. When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions.

This thought was doubtless in the minds of the Founding Fathers as they wrote the Constitution. In 1788, Alexander Hamilton wrote The Federalist Papers number 70, in which he noted:

Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking, with horror, to what desperate lengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice in the human character.

With this awareness, the Founders wrote the Constitution with the famed system of "check and balance" and "separation of powers." But beyond these external checks on the innate flaws of human nature - everyone's inborn susceptibility to temptations of pride - it is good if an executive has internal checks on the ego.

Madison's Union

President James Madison, speaking at his inauguration in March of 1817, was able with satisfaction to look back at the Revolution of 1776, at the country's success in defending itself in the War of 1812, and at the economic and geographic growth of the nation. Having seen the Bill of Rights through the ratification process from 1789 to 1791, he was an experienced legislator, and a proven supporter of personal freedoms.

The early history of the United States can be seen as a paradox: how could the nation moved away from the Articles of Confederation toward the Constitution, in order to have a somewhat stronger central government for purposes of military self-defense and coherent foreign policy, while at the same time preserving individual liberties and independent state governments. It was with this tension that Madison and others wrestled. He noted that

In explaining my sentiments on this subject it may be asked, What raised us to the present happy state? How did we accomplish the Revolution? How remedy the defects of the first instrument of our Union, by infusing into the National Government sufficient power for national purposes, without impairing the just rights of the States or affecting those of individuals? How sustain and pass with glory through the late war? The Government has been in the hands of the people. To the people, therefore, and to the faithful and able depositaries of their trust is the credit due. Had the people of the United States been educated in different principles, had they been less intelligent, less independent, or less virtuous, can it be believed that we should have maintained the same steady and consistent career or been blessed with the same success? While, then, the constituent body retains its present sound and healthful state everything will be safe. They will choose competent and faithful representatives for every department. It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

Almost two hundred years later, this same tension continues to make itself felt in American politics. The rights of the individual, and the self-determination of each of the fifty states, stands across from the need for a centralized government which is strong enough to militarily defend our interests and to present to the world a coherent foreign policy. Historian Laura Ingraham writes:

So our federal government has two big problems. One, our country is too large and diverse to be adequately covered by a single set of policies. Two, because the country is so big, it is very difficult to even for members of the House to adequately represent the people who elect them. Neither of these problems is going away anytime soon. Certainly the country is not going to get smaller. And I don't think anyone really believes we should have thousands of members in the House of Representatives - talk about "big government." The congressional dining room would become a drive-through and C-SPAN would constitute half of your cable lineup. In light of these facts, how can we truly give "Power to the People"?

Like James Madison, Laura Ingraham considers John Locke's principle that the sovereignty - the legitimacy - of a government is derived from the consent of the governed. "Power to the People," as the slogan goes, is also "Power from the People." Power is given to citizens when it is recognized that it is they who lend power to the government. Locke's principle is most effectively implemented by smaller local governments, which are more flexible to respond to regional conditions, and which are easier for the individual citizen to access. It's easier for a citizen's expressions and communications to impact his city council than his national Congress.

Federalism is a big part of the answer. In general, it is far better that issues be decided by a town council than a state legislature, and better that issues be decided by a state legislature than the federal government. Each step up that ladder takes governmental power farther away from the people it's meant to serve and puts more power in unreachable government bureaucracies.

When we compare the national government in Washington with state, county, and city governments, we note that the national government piles up ever-larger amounts of debt quickly, while most local governments have enacted rules which prevent them from having debt at all; the national government increases taxes often and significantly; local governments are more likely to concentrate on ways to keep taxes as low as possible. By definition, local governments can more accurately reflect the cultures of those in their territories, while the large national must choose a course which corresponds to the views of a very small segment of the nation's citizens.

Stabilizing the Defeated Mexican Government

Historian Irving Levinson offers a more nuanced account about the war, conducted between 1846 and 1848 between the United States and Mexico, and its political and social dynamics than is given, according to him, by typical textbook narratives:

to many, the fighting that began on 8 May 1846 at Palo Alto, Texas, and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on 2 February 1848 constitutes the military history of the United States of America’s war with Mexico. This framework has remained fundamentally unchanged for more than 150 years. Then, as now, the war stands as a conventional nineteenth-century conflict fought by armies of two sovereign states in set-piece battles as well as in ongoing partisan warfare. This paradigm is seriously flawed and ought to be replaced.

Within Mexico at that time, various demographic factions – delineated along economic, racial, and other variables – prevented much of a consensus on policy, and certainly made any mandate by a mathematical majority impossible. The country was so fragmented that as one group offered intense, guerilla-style resistance to U.S. soldiers, major cities gave no resistance – not even objection – to being occupied by the U.S. Army, and in some cases seemed to even benefit from such occupation:

when U.S. forces entered Mexican territory, they crossed into a nation divided along lines of class, race, and rights. The U.S. Army marched into a nation at war with itself as well as at war with the invader. This particular duality remains essential to understanding the subsequent course of events that involved governments, armies, and civilians.

Wise military leaders – Levinson chooses Winfield Scott as an admirable example – understood this dynamic, and went to great lengths to demonstrate benevolence toward the citizens of the occupied cities. At the same time, U.S. forces in the region were dependent upon long supply lines through unsecured territory; supply convoys needed large numbers of soldiers to guard them along the way. Despite peaceful and masterful occupation of cities, therefore, the U.S. troops were at risk because supplies were uncertain, and the larger U.S. strategy endangered because many men were tied up guarding supply lines instead of attacking military targets.

Levinson compares and contrasts the U.S. presence in Mexico with the occupation of Spain by Napoleon’s troops. That latter event, thirty or forty years prior to the U.S. conflict with Mexico, was the actual origin of the term ‘guerilla’ warfare; whether it was the origin of the form of warfare itself, and not merely the word, is subject to debate: one might possibly conceive of Germanic resistance to Roman soldiers between 50 B.C. and 476 A.D. as guerilla warfare. Levinson’s point is, however, that Winfield Scott did better than Napoleon, because Scott, while facing the same type of hit-and-run adversary, did a much better job of forming friendly relations with that segment of the local population which was willing to countenance the possibility of a mutually beneficial arrangement with the occupying U.S. forces.

The guerilla-style efforts at disrupting U.S. supply lines were effective; they might have even crushed the U.S. military operations in Mexico, but they did not, largely because a significant segment of the population was indifferent to, or even slightly supportive of, the U.S. presence. This comfort with the presence of U.S. troops was the result of some Mexicans’ ambivalence with their own government.

At this point, Levinson’s narrative omits a detail included by fellow historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski. Their account of the same events notes that, at one point, Scott, realizing his vulnerability in depending on long and difficult-to-defend supply lines, decided to operate his army without a supply line, living off the land for needed materials. Levinson’s description of the effective guerilla operations, and their effect on those supply lines, reciprocally sheds light on Scott’s decision to abandon temporarily those lines and work without them.

As the war progressed, and the Mexican military increasingly turned its resources toward offering resistance to U.S. operations, those segments of Mexican society most opposed to the Mexican government saw an opportunity, and rebellions arose in various parts of the country. The Mexican military could not simultaneously harass U.S. troops and quell rebellions. Faced with their inability to fight basically two wars at the same time, the Mexicans – or more exactly, the Mexican government – was willing to negotiate a peace treaty. “The 2 February 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the almost equally important truce agreement of 6 March 1848” ended the war, but did not end U.S. military activity in the country. The latter document pledged U.S. military support for the Mexican government’s efforts to put down rebellions. In addition to direct military action, the United States also sold significant amounts of weapons to the Mexican army at deeply discounted prices.

Levinson’s article is important because it reminds to be alert for situations in which there is a significant internal division in one of the belligerents. Such cases appear at different points in history: in the incident involving the U.S.S. Panay, in 1937, there were three countries involved – Japan, China, and the U.S. – there were in essence six parties, because each of those countries had two major internal factions: in China, the Communists opposed the Nationalists; in Japan, the militarists were eager to expand the war, while the civilian government was not; in the United States, isolationists opposed internationalists. Mexico during the 1846-1848 war was even more fractured: there were divisions of race, divisions of wealth, and divisions of political agendas. Mexico’s internal schisms led to its inability to defend itself from the U.S., and ironically also led to military aid from the U.S.: having defeated Mexico, the U.S. found it necessary to then stabilize Mexico in order to form a lasting peace.

A final lesson to be learnt concerns the distinction between victory in battle and success in war. In Mexico, as would be the case at the end of the Second World War, the U.S. Army could destroy any enemy formation that the Americans wished to destroy. But domination of the battlefields did not guarantee the emergence of the desired postwar political result. In Mexico, a stabilization program for a cooperative government emerged as the prerequisite for peace. Similarly, the willingness of prominent Japanese and Germans made possible the transition of both nations from defeated tyrannies to emergent democracies. Clearly, Scott recognized such reality even if civilians above his grade did not. And so let us, even if it be late in the day, now praise a famous man.

The U.S. Army not only occupied, but placed its men and resources into the service of, the government it had so recently defeated – an irony. The management of the situation on the ground immediately after the peace treaty and ceasefire agreements was essential to creating a stable situation. Managing, and maintaining good working relations with, the locals during and after the war was as important as the actual battles themselves.

Reshaping the USMC

When thinking of U.S. military leaders, lots of names come to mind – Washington, Grant, Pershing, Eisenhower, Patton – but the name Ben Fuller probably does not come to mind. Although relatively unknown, he guided the United States Marine Corps through some important developmental phases.

Ben Hebard Fuller was born in Michigan in 1870, and educated at Annapolis. Fuller’s first important assignment was to the Philippines in 1899, reflecting a new era in U.S. foreign policy and correspondingly new types of military deployment. Fuller’s career also coincided with William Fullam’s controversial vision of a totally new role for the Marines. Over the next two decades, Navy officers and Marine officers would debate whether the USMC was mainly a police force onboard and in port, or whether it would assume activities on land – activities larger than merely the occasional landing party.

In 1928, Fuller had been promoted to the position of assistant commandant and brought into USMC headquarters. A document entitled “Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia” had been prepared and would dictate much of the USMC’s training and planning over the next decade – leave the Marines amazingly well-prepared for the outbreak of WWII.

By contrast, the First World War had seen Marines used as infantry, apart from any amphibious landing. Ben Fuller saw no action in WWI, being posted elsewhere. Although his lack of combat experience probably slowed his advancement through the ranks, he was seen as valuable and ultimately promoted in part because of his extensive training – in institutions like the Naval War College and the Army’s Field Officer’s Course – which made him a capable tactician, strategist, and theoretician.

Historian Merrill Bartlett has written a hagiographic account of Ben Fuller’s career in the USMC. Bartlett’s panegyric takes the form of a reappraisal – Bartlett falls into the noble tradition of historians who ask their readers to rethink the ‘standard account’ – seeking to rehabilitate Ben Fuller as a significant and praiseworthy Commandant of the USMC from 1930 to 1934. Inter-service power politics, which Fuller faced, are notoriously thorny, but even more so for the Marines, who stand not only vis-a-vis the Army, Coast Guard, and Air Force, but also occupy an internal status within the Navy which places them technically ‘under’ Navy command.

Among the reasons for which President Herbert Hoover appointed Fuller to be Commandant was that Fuller’s classmate from Annapolis was Chief of Naval Operations, and that the two could be expected to work well together. “But Fuller stood firm every time the admirals attempted to gain ground at the expense of the Marine Corps, and he never hesitated to take issue with” his old friend from the academy days, as Bartlett writes.

During Fuller’s career, the USMC not only retained “traditional duties in support of the Navy at sea and ashore, but also” adopted “new missions as colonial infantry, an advanced-base force, and finally an amphibious-assault force.” Under Fuller’s command, the USMC’s role “as a subsidiary of the Navy” ended. Fuller’s steadfast advocacy before Navy high command was central to the USMC’s increased independence.

In 1933, Fuller had restructured the deployment of Marines within the Navy, and restructured the chain of command; he ordered the officers to develop amphibious landing techniques, which would be important in WWII. In this same year, the Navy authorized increased manpower for the Marines, and procured equipment according to the USMC specifications instead of Navy specifications; these steps were the fruit of Fuller’s advocacy.

In the previous years, there had been considerable dispute about the roles of Marines vis-a-vis the Navy, and their role vis-a-vis the Army. The Army was eager to form a monopoly on aircraft, and so the USMC aircraft were linked closely with Navy aircraft to prevent them from being absorbed into the Army. Likewise, the Marines were defined as being

responsible for the seizure and defense of advanced bases; subsequent operations ashore would then pass to the Army. Planners argued that the Marines should only be employed as an adjunct to the Army if necessary, because in any likely scenario the Marine Corps would be busy supporting the fleet. Prophetically, the Director of the War Plans Division posited that Marine Corps air assets should always remain an integral part of naval aviation and never operate as a separate component; otherwise, it would open the way for criticism from the Army Air Corps.

Through 1931 and 1932, the economic conditions of the country combined with the schemes of the famous and infamous General Douglas MacArthur to cut the USMC to somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 to 16,000 men. MacArthur believed that the USMC “should be limited to the traditional duties aboard ship.” MacArthur’s trademark ego would allow no place a for a significant Marine Corps to compete with his Army. It was from these depths that Fuller would lift the Corps.

One wonders about the relative impact of two factors in strengthening the USMC: Fuller’s advocacy for more manpower and better equipment, versus FDR’s view that the military could be a “make work” program for unemployed civilians and boost production through procurement of equipment.

Ben Fuller died in 1937, and was buried beside his son, who had died in WWI.

Jay's Defense Policy

John Jay, writing in the third of the Federalist Papers in 1787, stated his notion about national defense, and how it would be strengthened by adopting the proposed Constitution. Under the Articles of Confederation, national defense had been a murky subject. Arising from an equally murky foreign policy, in which each of the thirteen states was free to make its own treaties with other nations, the nation's defensive structure was ambiguous. It was not clear if or how the national government had the authority to call up the militia of one of the states. This left the central government toothless, and the need for a stronger centralized military structure was obvious. But at the same time, it was far from obvious how one might create a national defense without harming the rights of the individual states, counties, towns, and individuals.

This, in a nutshell, is the paradox behind the Federalist Papers as they advocate for the ratification of the new Constitution: how to obtain the benefits of a strong national government without hindering the liberties of the individual citizen. This same tension lies behind the ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitution, found in the Bill of Rights.

Jay wrote that

Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their safety seems to be the first. The safety of the people doubtless has relation to a great variety of circumstances and considerations, and consequently affords great latitude to those who wish to define it precisely and comprehensively.

He begins by indicating that the issue of safety can be perceived or interpreted differently. Honest and intelligent men might differ as to what they mean by the phrase "provide safety" for the citizens of a nation. To clarify and sharpen the discussion, then, Jay continues:

At present I mean only to consider it as it respects security for the preservation of peace and tranquillity, as well against dangers from foreign arms and influence, as from dangers of the like kind arising from domestic causes. As the former of these comes first in order, it is proper it should be the first discussed. Let us therefore proceed to examine whether the people are not right in their opinion, that a cordial Union under an efficient national Government, affords them the best security that can be devised against hostilities from abroad.

Refining the definition, then, Jay writes that the types of safety in which the federal government will have an interest are "security for the preservation of peace and tranquility," and "against dangers from foreign arms and influence," and "dangers of the like kind arising from domestic causes." John Jay is telling us that the national government will protect its citizens from foreign military attack and from domestic criminals. Expanding the definition slightly, he includes that the constitutional government will protect its citizens also from foreign "influence" - we have rightly here to ask, what he means by this: propaganda, economic pressures, spying, etc.

Jay's ruminations on national security did not take place in a vacuum. The experience of the war (1775 to 1783) was close at hand. The Continental Congress had faced then the same tension: how to provide a military defense for the liberties of the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies - soon to be the thirteen states - without violating the same freedom which it was protecting. Mounting a defense of freedom required taxing citizens to pay for the military, as well as conscripting or impressing men to be soldiers - the draft. Yet taxes and government interference with the private lives of citizens were exactly the causes of the rebellion.

Describing how this tension played out in practical terms, historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski write that

It looked as if the colonies were embarked upon an unequal war. A population of two and a half million (20 percent of whom were slaves), without an army, navy, or adequate financial resources, confronted a nation of eight million with a professional army, large navy, and vast wealth. Yet many colonists were confident and determined. They believed in the "natural courage" of Americans and in God's divine protection. Congress admitted that colonial soldiers lacked experience and discipline but insisted that "facts have shown, that native Courage warmed with Patriotism is sufficient to counterbalance these Advantages." And a British captain wrote that Americans "are just now worked up to such a degree of enthusiasm and madness that they are easily persuaded the Lord is to assist them in whatever they undertake, and that they must be invincible." Colonists were determined because they struggled for high stakes, summed up by George Washington: "Remember, officers and soldiers, that you are freemen, fighting for the blessings of liberty; that slavery will be your portion and that of your posterity if you do not acquit yourselves like men." The Revolution was no European dynastic squabble, but a war involving an ideological question that affected the population far more than did the kingly quarrels of the Age of Limited Warfare. Large numbers of colonists ardently believed freedom was the issue, not only for themselves but for generations yet unborn.

The focus on freedom as the goal of the war provided enough motivation to allow the thirteen colonies to overcome their deficits in technology, in money, and in manpower. Other wars in the preceding decades and centuries had been rivalries between competing European dynasties. Soldiers were commoners employed by the royal houses - precious little motivation for them to risk their lives. In adventures like the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War, then, we see soldiers fighting without the concept of "total war" which motivated the colonists in throwing off the British yoke. (The phrase "total war" would come to have a negative connotation, two centuries later, when it was used by fascists against democracies, but in George Washington's time, the phrase was unknown - we apply it retroactively, as an anachronism, to denote the passion and dedication of the Continental Army.) The colonists knew that, once begun, they would either win the war, or be devastated by the British. There would be no negotiated compromise as a 'middle way' out.

Shouldering arms freely and believing freedom was the issue, Continentals never became regulars in the European sense. They became good soldiers, but they remained citizens who refused to surrender their individuality. They asserted their personal independence by wearing jaunty hats and long hair despite (or perhaps to spite) their officers' insistence upon conformity in dress and appearance. Furthermore, they were only temporary regulars. Unlike European professionals, they understood the war's goals and would fight until they were achieved, but then they intended to return to civilian life.

The Americans revived the concept of "citizen soldier" from ancient Rome - a citizen who fought for the goals of the war, not for pay, and who had a hand in determining those goals. European soldiers of the 1700's fought for pay; the Americans fought for freedom. The Americans had so thoroughly embraced the ideology of liberty that they were willing to die for it.

Americans reintroduced ideology into warfare, fought for the unlimited goal of independence, and mobilized citizen-soldiers rather than professionals. In the spring of 1783, Washington summarized the drastic implications of these changes. "It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system," he wrote, "that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal service to the defense of it...." To protect the nation, "the Total strength of the Country might be called forth." Mass citizen-soldier armies would be motivated by patriotic zeal as they fought for freedom, equality, and other abstract ideological virtues.

As abstract as the goals of war may have been, they took specific and concrete form in the minds of the Americans: the list of grievances against the King of England in the Declaration of Independence - drawn from the Intolerable Acts, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Sugar Act, the Tea Act, and others - was no mere ideological abstraction, but a physical reality. This specificity prevented the American Revolution from becoming the debacle which was the French Revolution.

Wartime Shortages

America's War of Independence - or, if you prefer, The Revolutionary War - was one in which the young United States faced perpetual deficits: a shortage of men, a shortage of money, and a shortage of material. One might add a shortage of political support among the colonists. The Continental Congress, and the governments of the individual colonies, took various steps to cope with this shortfall, e.g., printing paper money, borrowing money, and seeking the aid of the French. Another measure was the draft: the conscription or impressment of men to serve as soldiers. The word 'impressment' can also be broadened to describe the confiscation or other appropriation of property and material (food, horses, etc.). Historian John Maass notes:

The War of American Independence (1775–83) created an incessant demand for troops, weapons, provisions, and supplies in quantities most states could not readily provide. A relentless need to bring soldiers into the field, keep them in the ranks, and provide them with necessities to fight the enemy and prevail in the struggle for liberty were constant challenges for all of the nascent state governments, all of which lacked a sufficient financial foundation, manufacturing base, and logistical network to sustain a concerted war effort. North Carolina was particularly beset by these challenges. War with the Cherokees on the western frontier, persistent Loyalist hostility, and several British incursions beleaguered the state from the winter of 1776 to the end of the conflict. Financial concerns added to the considerable obstacles that confronted North Carolina upon independence, taxing its meager resources and disturbing the internal stability of its society and newly created political institutions.

A policy of conscription and impressment, however, could easily backfire. Given that one of the needs was more broad-based popular support for the war, confiscating property could easily turn citizens against the independence movement. Impressment of property, if it was to be successful, had to be done with the utmost delicacy, wisdom, and diplomacy. Those who did it well learned, e.g., that property could safely be taken from those who were firmly against the war, because there was no potential support from them anyway. Appropriating property from others needed to be done with expressions of regret, and with an eye toward distributing the burden fairly.

Conscription of men - the draft - was even more difficult, given the low level of information technology to accurately census the population. Men could easily hide or disguise their identities. In some cases, substitutes were hired to fill a conscription obligation. Those who served grudgingly often served poorly.

Given the deprivations faced by the Continental Congress - not only in terms of its armies in the field, but in terms of financing, staffing, and equipping them - the American War of Independence remains a historical David-and-Goliath narrative.