MacArthur had already tried. In a message to the troops on Bataan two days earlier, he had doubled down on what he had told their general officers during his visit. “Help is on the way from the United States, thousands of troops and hundreds of planes are being dispatched. The exact time of arrival of reinforcements is unknown as they will have to fight their way through Japanese attempts against them. It is imperative that our troops hold until these reinforcements arrive,” he wrote. “If we fight we will win; if we retreat we will be destroyed.”
