I have just watched part of a left wing John Wayne film (I did not see it all – I got so irritated I turned it off)… In Harm’s Way (1965) blames American problems in the Pacific war against the Japanese, on stuffed shirt Conservative officers – people who call the war ‘Mr Roosevelt’s war’ as people from their evil wealthy families called WWI ‘Mr Wilson’s war’.
Of course there is no mention of the film that President Roosevelt deprived the Pacific front of resources so that he could prop up Soviet Russia. Nor was this policy confined to the United States. Why did Singapore have no Spitfire fighters for air defence? Because the Spitfires earmarked for Singapore were diverted to Soviet Russia. 100, 000 troops of the British Empire were captured at Singapore – and they were left to rot and die. About 80, 000 Americans were captured in the Philippines – and they were left rot for years as well (many thousands died).
This was not because American commanders (Navy or Army) were poor in the Pacific (although some of the British ones were poor indeed). It was because the New Dealers in Washington D.C. did not care – all they cared about was their sacred Soviet Union.
Before anyone says that the Soviet Union saved Britain from German invasion think about the following: Thousands of allied sailors died taking supplies to the Soviet Union (not Soviet sailors dying taking supplies to Britain). Whether operation ‘Sea Lion’ (the German invasion of Britain) was practical or not (and the Germans certainly lacked the resources vital to operation ‘Overlord’ the allied invasion of France in 1944), the choice by Hitler to switch German air attacks from British airfields to British cities made operation Sea Lion a dead letter.
This choice was made before the Germany invasion of the Soviet Union. The ‘Battle of Britain’ was won before the invasion of the Soviet Union (not after it).
Of course there would have been no WWII anyway if Hitler and Stalin had not allied in 1939 – but the New Dealers (and their friends in Britain) blanked that out.
I read the book many years ago and quite liked it.
As to the historical suggestions, I cannot speak about Singapore, but I’d love to know by what imaginative means the Phillipines could have been saved and the troops rescued with no naval support (Pearl Harbour remember?) and no air support (those wee monstrosities, the Brewster Buffaloes mostly never got off the ground and the Jap A6M’s outflew anything the US had at the time.
Oh, and don’t forget… a hell of a lot of those lend-lease goods were going to the UK as well as Russia; many of the aircraft sent there were ones little used elsewhere like the Aerocobra.
The thesis simply does not seem to me to hold water.
Yep, Paul, as I wrote earlier, you should stick to economics; this post is a real turkey.
As Dale said, the tragic American loss in the Phillipines was unlikely to have been avoided even without lend-lease. Further, we must remember the words of deGaulle: “Nations don’t have friends, they have interests.” It was in the best interest of both the Americans and thee British to use American wealth coupled with Soviet blood to keep Hitler well engaged on the Eastern Front.
Actually, Mr. Marks has his facts largely straight. Several squadrons of Spitfires were diverted from Singapore to Russia, & FDR did openly favour the USSR over the UK (though not over his own national interests). This can only be attributed to misguided idealism. Molotov, then Foreign Commissar of the USSR, used to say that he added up Nazi & Allied losses in the same column. Stalin took everything he could get from the West, then complained & badgered & bullied because he did not get more. Alliance with the USSR was in the Anglo-American interest. Preventing Stalin’s collapse was in the Anglo-American interest. Diverting supplies from their own fronts to fuel Stalin’s counteroffensives was not. Churchill & FDR discovered this to their infinite cost after Yalta, when Stalin casually broke every commitment he had made — except the commitment to attack Japan, which he fulfilled only after the atomic bombings broke the Japanese power to resist.
The Philippines were certainly lost from the outbreak of war, but the battle at Singapore was very closely fought & the Japanese were within hours of exhausting their ammunition when the garrison surrendered.
However, there is a far larger problem with both Mr. Marks’ argument & the claims made by the film. Simply put, the Pacific theatre was not deprived of men, arms or supplies in any meaningful way after the beginning of 1942. The US had an overall industrial capacity at least 10 times that of Japan (by Japanese estimates, indeed), & in the first two years of the Pacific war committed the bulk of its production to that theatre. Before the war ended, the annual tonnage of new warships allocated to the U.S. Pacific fleet was far in excess of the total tonnage of all the warships Japan had ever possessed! In firepower, air power, & logistics the American forces had a comparably overwhelming advantage, & this was reflected in staggeringly unequal casualty figures on the ground. At Kwajalein, American firepower was such that, said an eyewitness, ‘The entire island looked as if it had been picked up to 20,000 feet and then dropped.’ During the battle of Guadalcanal, U.S. forces built an airbase from scratch in a few days.
These facts simply don’t square with the picture of an army & navy starved of resources for another front. Britain certainly suffered badly by diverting its limited resources to the USSR. But the American economic juggernaut, by the end of the war, accounted for an actual majority of the total war production of all the belligerent powers, Axis & Allied combined. American troops were the best equipped & most lavishly supplied that the world had ever seen.
I remember that it was John Wayne’s son, raised by his mother’s family, that made the remark. It has always embarassed me.
Now I find the the left using the same, as in “Mr. Bush’s war”. History will not be kind to them.
Regards
I think you’re loading too much ideological baggage on a fun, romantic film, esp. on a few lines of dialog.
Overall I see no blame assigned to anyone in the film, even the PH commanders Kimmel & Short — whose incompetence resulted in the Pearl Harbor disaster. (yes, they did have adequate resources, as seen by their state of readiness on 12-31-41).
Some Russian reactions to this post would be interesting! They did most of the fighting and dying to produce the “Allied” victory over Hitler. I doubt they consider us generous to have traded our war goods for their blood.
I have no nostalgia for the blood-soaked USSR, but they more than carried their weight in WWII.
“All they cared about was their sacred Soviet Union”. Huh? Was FDR’s long support of Britain due to his royalist sympathies? You sound like those lefties who claim that American support for right-wing dictatorships against communist insurgencies shows the US’s true sympathies for those dictatorships (funny how they never mention our much larger support for the Soviet Union in WWII).
Imagine the vast increases in Anglo-American losses at D-Day and beyond (if such an operation would even have been possible) had most of the German Army not been pinned down on the Eastern front.
Couldn’t it have been reasonable to think that the best use of some of our limited resources in the second half of 1941 was to shore up a reeling Soviet Army in hopes they could stabilize and bleed the Germans dry while we prepared to fight. Nah! What a ridiculous thought! Never could happen! The only reason for that could be those damn commie lovers…
“The Philippines were certainly lost from the outbreak of war, but the battle at Singapore was very closely fought ”
??
Singapore surrendered on February 15, 1942, Corregidor (the last position in the Philippines, controlling the entrance to Manilla bay) three months later, on May 15.
That really was a pretty dumb post. I assume that Paul Marks has heard of a couple of the minor skirmishes the USSR had with the Nazis that had a minor effect on the outcome of the war, like Stalingrad and Kursk. Now keep in mind that the D-Day invasion was still far from easy for the western allies even after the Red Army had already effectively crushed the Wehrmacht, and keep also in mind that Stalin himself thought it was all over back in 1941 with the Nazis in sight of Moscow, and ask yourself then if any aid given to the USSR at that especially crucial time wasn’t perhaps the wisest investment perhaps ever made (in the history of mankind), especially given that Japan could NEVER conceivably have won in the Pacific.
I think Mr. Marks just misunderstood the line. When people of that day referred to “Mr. Roosevelt’s war” it wasn’t meant as a critique of the conduct of the war, but rather an expression of the notion that Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japanese into attacking the US for his own ends.
I have replied to each person who sent me an e.mail.
If anyone else wishes to discuss this subject simply e.mail me at paulvmarks@hotmail.com.
Of course if anyone thinks that I have not replied to them correctly today (and I was in a rush), I would welcome a further e.mail poiting out my any mistakes I may have made.
That’s an interesting assertion, Carl; can you cite any supporting references?
“That’s an interesting assertion, Carl; can you cite any supporting references?”
Weeell,
The scene in question from “In Harm’s Way” I think is fairly supportive.
John Wayne plays Captain Rockwell Tory (nicknamed “the Rock of Ages” by his junior officers) a career navy officer. He discovers, through a mutual acquaintance, that his son, who he hasn’t seen since divorcing the boy’s mother 15 years earlier, has joined the navy. The ex-wife is described as a Cunliffe (“that’s one of those rich New England names, isn’t it?”–Patricia Neal from the movie) a wealthy Northeastern blueblood family ( the type of people who would have regarded FDR as a traitor to his class). The family wanted John Wayne to resign his commision and take up investment banking, when he refused they split the blanket (“Rockwell,” she told me, “when you are not out ‘boating’ with the navy, you may visit….”—John Wayne from the movie).
When Wayne finds out his son has joined the navy, he goes to see him. The boy (Brandon DeWilde, most famous for “Shane! Shane! Come back Shane!”) is a reserve officer serving in a PT Boat flotilla. The phrase “Mr. Roosevelt’s War” comes during the ‘father meets son’ scene that follows.
Wayne-“PT Boats! How do you like them?”
DeWilde-“I don’t, sir.”
Wayne-“Well, then what did you volunteer for?”
DeWilde-“These boats are part of Admiral Broderick’s command. I was told that after joining his command I could get an appointment to his staff.”
Wayne-“Hell son, you’ve trained in these boats! You’ld be a damn site more valuable in one of….”
DeWilde-“Sir, I majored in journalism at Harvard. As long as I have to do my bit in this trumped up war….”
Wayne-“Did I hear you say “trumped up war”?”
DeWilde-“After all sir, it is Mr. Roosevelt’s War, isn’t it?”
Wayne-“You not only look like a Cunliffe, you talk like one too! As I recall they called the first one “Mr. Wilson’s War”!”
DeWilde-“Are you leaving now, sir?”
Wayne-“Yes, before I throw you to the fish….”
At no point during this scene is there any specific critique of the actual conduct of the war. The phrase “Mr. Roosevelt’s War”, follows hard on the heels of “this trumped up war”. Given the family history established for the boy and the juxtaposition of the two phrases, I think there is only one reasonable interpretation of the line.
PS. I should point out that te dialogue above is quoted from memory. I have a copy of the movie and if I can find it (methinks it is time to reorganize the video cabinet) I will transcribe the scene directly.
1. All too many of our naval officers were totally unprepared for the start of WWII. They suffered most from a lack of combat experience, next, from a complete lack of knowledge of their enemy, his capabilities, strategy and tactics, and finally, from a ridiculously antiquated idea of how to fight their ships and squadrons.
2. As if those problems weren’t critical enough, the ‘peacetime’ Navy had (in those days) a terrible standard for promotion based (for lack of combat experience) on many other factors such as seniority, branch (surface, submarine or aviation), some very subjective fitness reports influenced totally by an officer’s non-combat accomplishments.
There was no way then to accurately predict an officer’s bravery under fire, his aggressiveness in attacking the enemy, nor his ability to prepare his men.
3. Some examples: The vulnerability of the BBs at Pearl Harbor, completely unbuttoned in anticipation of inspection, with no anti-torpedo nets.
Subs and PTs pierside the day after the war started, and most planes on the ground in the Phillipines, all sitting ducks.
Dozens of sub skippers relieved for cause during the war, because the aggressive, bold ones were in the tiny minority of the ones being promoted to command in the pre-war Navy. The steady, cautious behavior that in those days was the way to advance a career was no way to get results in a war at sea.
But perhaps the best examples of the early war incompetence were those cruiser skippers at the first battle off Savo Island at Guadalcanal. The worst defeat we as a seafaring nation have ever suffered at sea. And the worst defeat the Japanese Navy inflicted on an enemy at sea since 1905 at Tsushima.
It didn’t have to be that way.