The American Legacy MacArthur had severely criticized at West Point in the 1930s as “faulty”. It was premised on a scenario of Japanese invasion on the Philippines. It called for a strategic retreat to Bataan where they could hold out for a period of six months until the US Pacific Fleet and the Asiatic Fleet were able to organize a counter-offensive, pushing the Japanese forces back all the way to Japan until their defeat. For some unexplained reason, MacArthur activated WPO3, ordering all his forces in Luzon to make a strategic retreat to Bataan and setting up a series of delaying defensive lines to cover the retreat. The hasty activation of WPO3 made the Northern and Southern Luzon Commands abandon many of their tanks and artillery and logistics as they rushed to reach Bataan before it could be encircled by the Japanese force. MacArthur was aware that WPO3 was not viable because all assumptions for the contingency plan did not exist anymore. The US was in no position to mount a full-scale counter-offensive in six months. The US naval fleet and its strategic air bases in Hawaii had been lost. The strategic bombers in Clark Air Base and Iba Air Base had mostly been destroyed. There was now only the Asiatic Fleet that had lost its naval capability when it abandoned the naval base in Cavite on December 9, 1941 and beat a hasty retreat to Australia. There was also a war in Europe, which activated War Plan Rainbow 5 (R-5), that in an event of a simultaneous war in Europe especially if it involved Britain against Germany, the Europe First Policy would be applied. This meant that the US would concentrate on winning the war first in Europe before shifting to the AsiaPacific area. There was also the fact that the South China Sea was now controlled by Japan by air and by sea, cutting off logistics for Bataan and by simply putting a tight cordon, his men would starve to surrender. MacArthur’s defensive lines crumbled one after the other until the 14th Imperial Japanese Army reached the vicinity of Bataan. Homma had his own problems. The Japanese Southern Army Group pulled out Homma’s best and tested unit, the 48th Division, and replaced it with the neophyte 4th Division in January 1942 just when Homma was readying a final push to take Bataan. It was at this juncture that Homma experienced a battle of attrition, exacting a high toll on human lives for both sides. So intense was the fighting that at one point a lull in fighting occurred. At this critical juncture, Homma’s offensive had lost steam, with only three Japanese battalions remaining in battle condition while the rest of his troops were sick or wounded, against the encircled, demoralized USAFFE’s 75,000 troops. 81