This was the brackish taste of defeat that American soldiers had not known in a major battle since Appomattox. To the grim, battle-weary soldiers of General Douglas MacArthur, backed up into the mountainous fastnesses of the Bataan peninsula, northwest of abandoned Manila, or desperately fending off Japanese attacks on the great harbor fortress of Corregidor, this was it.
It had been inevitable since the Jap smash at Pearl Harbor, his decisive slices into the Philippines' supply line at Wake and Guam. From then on it was a desperate, stubborn, downhill retreat before...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
