Pearl Harbor Defense

Chris Mark wrote:

From: Guy Alcala

I forget how the
takeover went in the case of the Marianas

Invasion, June, 1944. You are probably thinking of Guam.

Yes.

That was ceded to
the US by Spain as part of the Spanish-American War settlement. The Marianas
were sold by Spain to Germany in 1899 (along with the rest of their Micronesian
holdings--the Carolines, etc.) Japan seized them from Germany at the onset of
WWOne in 1914 and was confirmed in her possession by the victors of that war.
The US acquired Micronesia by conquest during WW2 and was confirmed in
possession (as trust territories) by UNO after the war.

Filipinos started to resist our takeover, they were relabeled
"insurgents" or "insurrectionists", and it took us another two years to
defeat
them. Moro uprisings continued to flare up for at least another 10
years

At one point at least a quarter of the entire US Army was engaged in supressing
the Filipino resistance. It was a major war.

I've seen figures of 75,000 U.S. troops in the Philippines at the time, but don't
know how accurate that is.

While
the US attempt at European-style empire was (thankfully) relatively short, we
certainly had one.

After one brief infection, we seem to have developed immunity to the imperial
disease.

Yeah, economic dominance turns out to be cheaper.

We did treat the Filipinos well (unlike the monstrous horrors imposed by the
Belgians on the Congolese in the same time frame), and by the 1920s were not
afraid to arm them and create a Filipino military force. The Filipinos were so
unafraid of their American "masters" that when the troops decided they didn't
like the pay scale the Americans offered, instead of grabbing their weapons,
revolting and starting a war, they went on strike.

Not that this was going to happen givenwhat japan was doing, and I have no idea
what the exact legal situation was then as the Philippines were called a
commonwealth, but I do wonder what the U.S. would have done if, in the mid-30s,
President Quezon had said to General MacArthur

"Douglas, It's been swell having you here, but we don't consider having bases owned
and operated by a foreign military on our soil consistent with our national
sovereignty. So we'll have to ask that you leave, although we'll be happy to have
you come and visit from time to time."

Guy