Ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, "another Pearl Harbor" 
of perhaps more devastating consequence for American arms 
occurred in the Philippines, forty-five hundred miles to the west. 
On December 8, 1941, at 12:35 P.M., 196 Japanese Navy bombers 
and fighters crippled the largest force of B-17 four-engine bombers 
outside the United States and also decimated their protective P-40 
interceptors. The sudden blow allowed the Japanese to rule the 
skies over the Philippines, removing the only effective barrier that 
stood between them and their conquest of Southeast Asia. This 
event has been called "one of the blackest days in American 
military history."

    How could the army commander in the Philippines—the 
renowned Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur—have been caught with all 
his planes on the ground when he had been informed in the small 
hours of that morning of the Pearl Harbor attack and warned of the 
likelihood of a Japanese strike on his forces? In this book, author 
William H. Bartsch attempts to answer this and other related 
questions.

    Bartsch draws upon twenty-five years of research into American 
and Japanese records and interviews with many of the participants 
themselves, particularly survivors of the actual attack on the Clark 
and Iba air bases. The dramatic and detailed coverage of the attack 
is preceded by an account of the hurried American build-up of air 
power in the Philippines after July 1941, and of Japanese planning 
and preparations for this opening assault of its Southern 
Operations.

    Bartsch juxtaposes the experiences of staff of the U.S. War 
Department in Washington and its Far East Air Force bomber, 
fighter, and radar personnel in the Philippines, who were affected 
by its decisions, with those of Japan’s Imperial General 
Headquarters in Tokyo and the 11th Air Fleet staff and pilots on 
Formosa, who were assigned the responsibility for carrying out the 
attack on the Philippines five hundred miles to the south. In order 
to put the December 8th attack in broader context, Bartsch details 
micro-level personal experiences and presents the political and 
strategic aspects of American and Japanese planning for a war in 
the Pacific.

    Despite the significance of this subject matter, it has never 
before been given full book-length treatment. This book represents 
the culmination of decades-long efforts of the author to fill this 
historical gap.

_________________________________________________________

WILLIAM H. BARTSCH is the author of a number of books and 
articles in the diverse fields of employment in developing countries 
and history of the Pacific War. His book Doomed at the Start, a 
study of the experiences of American pursuit pilots in the 
Philippines in 1941–42, was also published by Texas A&M 
University Press. Bartsch currently works as a consultant on 
national human resources planning and lives in Reston, Virginia.


Number Eighty-seven: Texas A&M University Military History 
Series


What people are saying about this book

"In immensely detailed, well paced, and balanced narrative, he 
describes minute by minute the attacks on the air bases, 
preceded by the belated, hurried U.S. buildup of air power in 
the islands after July 1941, and enemy preparations for their 
'other Pearl Harbor.'  Bartsch has done an astounding job on 
what is sure to become the definitive work on one of the
darkest days in American history."—WWII History