Brereton had not yet fully carried out MacArthur’s earlier orders to move all thirty-five of the B-17s to Mindanao. More than half remained at Clark in range of the Japanese bombers on Formosa. In this peril lay opportunity. If the B-17s took off at daylight, they could strike the Japanese on Formosa. If the B-17s tarried on the ground, however, the opposite might happen: a repeat of Pearl Harbor, where the Japanese had found hundreds of American planes parked in perfect rows as if arranged to facilitate their destruction.
