Operations

The duty officer at U.S. Asiatic Fleet headquarters in Manila first received word of the Pearl Harbor attack at 0230 on 8 December 1941, but a full hour passed before Brig. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, MacArthur's chief of staff, heard the news from commercial broadcasts. He immediately notified MacArthur and all commanders that a state of war now existed with Japan. MacArthur ordered his troops to battle stations.

Despite this warning, when the Japanese pilots of the 11th Air Fleet attacked Clark Field nine hours later, they caught two squadrons of B-17s lined up on the field and a number of American fighters just preparing to take off. The first wave of twenty-seven Japanese twin-engine bombers achieved complete tactical surprise and destroyed most of the American heavy bombers. A second bomber strike followed while Zero fighters strafed the field. Only three P-40s managed to take off. A simultaneous attack on Iba Field in northwest Luzon was also successful: all but two of the 3d Squadron's P-40s were destroyed. The Far East Air Force lost fully half its planes the first day of the war.

The Japanese success in the Philippines hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor has sparked controversy with much finger-pointing that has endured to this day. General Brereton later wrote that he repeatedly sought permission before the attack to launch his B-17s against the Japanese aircraft in Formosa, but General Sutherland denied his requests and also denied him access to MacArthur. MacArthur later insisted that he was unaware of Brereton's request, adding that such a move would have been ill conceived anyway because USAFFE lacked intelligence concerning likely targets. For his part Sutherland claimed that he had ordered Brereton to transfer his bombers away from Clark Field to the relative safety of Mindanao to the south; Brereton countered that he could not have fully complied with the order because of the impending arrival of a new bombardment group from Hawaii. Officers stationed at Clark Field later disagreed about whether their installation had even received warning of the approaching aircraft as the attack was about to start.