The secret war plan to defeat Nazi Germany: Rainbow 5.
the Joint Army-Navy Board met in November 1941, the global war it bad foreseen was about to erupt. The board’s War Plan Rainbow-5 assumed that the Philippines were indefensible. But, just as Rainbow-5 did not anticipate Pearl Harbor itself, the board could not foretell the reactions of an unpredictable, intractable subordinate, General Douglas MacArthur.

Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Rainbow-5 laid down a strategy for U. S. entry into World War II with which it is hard to quarrel. Nevertheless, the plan itself, the written instrument as distinct from the ideas it contained, was ambiguous in one respect. And, after having been prepared, it was accepted, amended, and finally employed in a manner that was peculiar, to say the least. No explanation for this treatment has yet appeared, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s dislike for putting things in writing has not made it easy to find one. What follows should be understood as only a first approximation of the truth—something better, perhaps, than no ex­planation at all.

In early 1941, the Axis nations controlled most of Western Europe and posed a serious threat to the United States. Japan was engaged only in China but had unmistakable designs on the Philippines and the French, Dutch, and British possessions in Southeast Asia. America was providing the resisting nations

Listening to their chairman, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold R. Stark, are board members, left to right, Major Generals H. H. Arnold and W. Bryden, Army Chief of Staff General G. C. Marshall, and Rear Admirals R. E. Ingersoll, J. H. Towers, and R. K. Turner.

with increasing material support, but should it be­come directly involved, the strain upon its capacities would become severe. Existing U. S. military forces were still too small to take offensive action across either ocean. Rainbow-5, prepared at this time, as­sumed war with all the Axis powers and provided that America, in concert with its allies, would ini­tially take a defensive posture in the Pacific while building strength for offensive operations first in Europe, the key area. When that theater was won, all strength would be directed toward the defeat of Japan.

An unstated corollary was the initial loss of the Philippines. This was in the manner of earlier plans for war with Japan alone, for they had also reflected that expectation. As in the earlier plans, it was as­sumed that Japan would initiate hostilities, blockade the Philippine Islands, and land troops. The U. S. Asiatic Fleet was to support the defense “so long as that defense continues,” but its lack of the strength needed to make such a task meaningful was not indicated. The Pacific Fleet would commence a step-by-step campaign westward from Hawaii, cap­turing positions among the Japanese-held islands athwart the route. The Philippine garrison, concen­trated on Luzon, would defend only that island. Enemy landings would be resisted, but the defenders would fall back under pressure to a final line across the Bataan peninsula. Here, presumably, they would hold until relief came. The earlier plans anticipated that this relief would follow a decisive naval battle at the conclusion of the Pacific Fleet’s campaign. They left unstated, however, the expectation that a minimum of two years would elapse before such a climax could be reached, while the garrison was not equipped to survive for more than six months.
In Rainbow-5, the expected loss of the Philippines, though still not acknowledged, was more apparent. Certain theaters were listed for immediate reinforce­ment after the war commenced—but not the Philippines. The Pacific Fleet’s westward advance was to commence, but when and how it would reach the Philippines was not indicated, and its stated purpose was not to relieve the garrison but to draw enemy strength from the Malay barrier. This was a line curving from Burma through the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and eastward to Australia. Since the Philippines were well within the area which the war plan conceded to the enemy, their early loss was clearly expected.

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