The American forces sent to defend the beaches in the Philippines during World War II were ill-equipped to face the veteran Japanese landing forces. With a limited amount of troops and supplies, they were left to be under siege by the Japanese, which ultimately forced them to continually retreat to keep from being surrounded and destroyed.
Despite early knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Air Command in the Philippines faced inertia in their military beliefs which hindered their response to the bombing of Clark Field by Japanese forces. The rigidity of peacetime maneuvers and war games did not prepare them for the unpredictability of real war.
The Battle of Saipan posed a new challenge for the Americans and Australians, as they were faced with the issue of dealing with Japanese civilians who were indoctrinated by the propaganda and believed that the Allied forces were going to rape and murder them. The presence of fanatical civilians added a different sort of problem for the Allies as they had to come up with a solution for the civilians caught in the crossfire.
A discussion about the improvisational tactics of enemy forces during war and how it can be surprising to those who are not used to it.
The Guadalcanal and New Guinea Campaigns were intense, with soldiers dealing with horrors that were unfamiliar to them. These theaters of war saw a back and forth battle between the Japanese and the Allies, with the latter eventually denying the Japanese their objectives.