Southeast Asia is the main producing area of ​​natural rubber.

The significance of natural rubber to modern industry does not need to be emphasized. All the rubber needed by Japanese industry depends on imports.

The natural rubber production in the Malay Peninsula is actually higher than that in the Philippines.

With the Japanese army in the Malay Peninsula completely defeated, the significance of the Philippines became even more important.

After several months of crazy supplies by the Japanese army, the total strength of the Japanese army in the Philippines is now about 500,000, most of which are army soldiers, including part of the elite Kwantung Army that has just arrived.

In order to attack the Philippines, the Allied forces also mobilized. Angel prepared 7 Marine Divisions, 9 Marine Brigades, plus 25 East India Divisions, and 6 Australian Divisions, with a total strength of more than 800,000. Even MacArthur provided

2 divisions.

It should be noted that the two divisions of the United States are not colonial servant armies, but army divisions composed purely of Americans. The establishment of these two divisions is relatively small, with each division having only about 15,000 people.

This is already rare.

After the end of World War I, the United States underwent major disarmament. By the time World War II broke out, the U.S. Army was reduced to only 130,000 people. Even counting all the miscellaneous people, the regular army only had three divisions, all of which were understaffed. In addition, there were

Six nominal army divisions, these six divisions are not even as large as the Marine Corps Brigade in Southern Africa.

At this time, the U.S. Army still used old-fashioned rifles supported by Britain and France during World War I. The U.S. media at the time described the U.S. soldiers as follows: panting and grinning, wearing ill-fitting military uniforms, carrying weapons crookedly.

Armed with an outdated rifle, he walked endlessly across the vast and boundless land.

How miserable the U.S. Army was at this time. The rifles and anti-tank guns used for training were even made of wood. The simulated artillery shells were fired with your mouth. There were less than 300 tanks in the entire army. Among all countries in the ranking of strength, the U.S. Army

Its strength ranking is 19th, even worse than Portugal.

After the Pearl Harbor incident broke out, the United States began general mobilization, and the first batch of soldiers recruited was 900,000.

There are no soldiers alone, and the U.S. Army seriously lacks experienced officers, so it can only select outstanding officers from among the soldiers.

But the soldiers have just been recruited. They haven't figured out how to fight or command yet.

At this point, MacArthur still insisted on letting the US troops land in the Philippines with the first batch of troops.
Chapter completed!