this sense, the moment that MacArthur climbed back aboard the Bataan, his personal B-17, it encapsulated a new, climactic phase of the Pacific War, one that had been building for much of 1944, an entirely American-dominated war raging far beyond the South Pacific, focusing now on the imminent destruction of Japan itself, albeit through operations in the Philippines and other archipelagos located within close proximity to the home islands.1
