Bright Stars, Dark Sky

Inch by inch, with the glacierlike superiority of sheer mass, the Jap forced his way south on Bataan Peninsula. Before him the last big core of resistance in Luzon stood like a granite cliff of valor. The edges of the glacier crumbled, but mass enough to move mountains seemed to be behind it.

The sleepless, bitter, astute defense made by American and Philippine soldiers had long since made Douglas MacArthur one of the great captains of U.S. military history. Against his 15-mile front the Jap charged again & again. Even Tokyo admitted that the going was bitter and hard. At the beginning of last week the Japanese paused to catch their breath and mend their supply lines.

Douglas MacArthur had chosen his position well. Only his left flank, on the sea south of the blackened ruins of Olongapo naval station, was exposed. The right lay on Manila Bay, and the guns of Corregidor still kept the bay clear of heavy Jap forces.

The Japanese had a top-flight commander, bulky, 54-year-old General Masaharu Homma, who for 15 months had been training troops in Formosa for this job. He had an estimated 200,000 troops to work with. He did the obvious thing. At many points along the coast he put down landing parties to work their way across the coastal flats into the hills behind the U.S. main line of resistance. But the Jap also swarmed along the cliffs on MacArthur's left flank, with bombs and shells and rifle fire forced the U.S.-Philippine defenders to give ground.

At this juncture MacArthur chose to act on the opposite side of the peninsula. He concentrated his 155-mm. artillery on his mountainous right flank, slaughtering the massed Japs by hundreds, made an oldfashioned, cold-steel bayonet attack which sent the shattered Japs reeling back abandoning much equipment. The pressure on MacArthur's left promptly relaxed. On his 62nd birthday this week Douglas MacArthur was still chipper, still bucking up, his men by visits to his fronts. He said: "The enemy may hold the bottle, but I hold the cork."

Through the days & nights, U.S. losses were high, Douglas MacArthur said. During the week, MacArthur recommended 39-year-old Major Thomas J. H. Trapnell of the cavalry, onetime Army football hero, for the D.S.C. Before the Bataan battle he stood, Horatio-like, at a burning bridge until he was sure it was down. The Philippine Commander also recommended five Regular Army colonels* for promotion to brigadier generals for gallantry in action.

The Navy had its heroes. A swift motor torpedo boat commanded by Lieut. John D. Bulkeley slipped into Subic Bay one night and sank a 5,000-ton Jap ship, got away clean. A week later Bulkeley returned, this time in a torpedo boat commanded by Ensign George Cox, to knock off another 5,000-tonner. Meanwhile more than 200 miles north of Manila a band of Philippine guerrillas burst from the hills and slashed at a Jap airdrome at Tuguegarao on Northern Luzon. They reported (presumably by radio to Corregidor) that they had killed no Japs, routed 300 more.

These deeds and the others unreported, shone like bright stars against the black shadow of ultimate defeat that still hung over MacArthur's gallant army. Had it not been for the debacle at Pearl Harbor he might by now have been relieved. Now it was a last-ditch fight.

*Engineer Hugh J. Casey, Cavalryman Clinton A. Pierce, Infantryman Arnold J. Funk, Coast Artilleryman William F. Marquat, Flyer Harold H. George. For astute staff work Colonel Carl H. Seals was also made a brigadier.

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