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Maj Marty Hogan
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SPC Robert Coventry
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Great Read, their is no dishonor in following orders, the Marines were ordered to surrender. I wonder if Wainwright would have made the same decision if he knew how brutal the Marines were going to be treated as a POW in the hands of the Japanese.
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CWO3 Us Marine
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Not sure Wainwright had many options available to him at the time. From what little I've read the only other option was to fight until all ammo was gone and/or all were KIA. It seems like they were outgunned and out of ammo to the extent that surrender was imminent, and I would imagine Wainwright had little choice in the matter. Both Army and Marines fought hard in the Pacific thereafter, with the aid of Army Air and US Navy. Bottom line was that Pearl Harbor caught us unprepared in terms of the larger global picture. The Japanese were already dug in all over the Pacific prior to the attack. Some theories exist about early warning for the physical attack on Pearl though.
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PO3 Donald Murphy
PO3 Donald Murphy
6 y
The great tragedy is that the Japanese started the war because of lack of resources. So their invasion was on a shoestring. They had little themselves. Had the USA dug its heels in for two weeks, the Japanese themselves would have been out of supplies. True, they would have had naval and air superiority but only until their AVgas and ship fuel ran out. Then they'd have had little choice but to bag ass back to Japan.

Singapore was equally cheesy with the Japanese virtually planning their entire campaign around capturing enemy food, stores, etc.
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