ABSTRACT
MacArthur's forces in 1941 were made up of approx imately 19,000 U.S. Army personnel, 12,000 well-trained Philippine Scouts (military professionals), and approxi mately 100,000 soldiers of the Philippine Army, which had been assembled only recently and had not been thoroughly trained. Most of these forces were stationed on the island of Luzon, which was expected to be the Japanese invaders' primary objective. While this assessment was correct, Japan's Imperial General Staff had formulated a much more complex and ambitious plan involving all of Southeast Asia. The Japanese aimed to make surprise attacks on the Philippines and Hawaii, then planned to overrun Guam, Wake Island, British Malaya, Hong Kong, Siam, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and French Indochina. The enormous oil and rubber sources of these areas would then be available to the resourcestarved Japanese empire.
