Posted on 01/26/2023 9:56:03 AM PST by Ozguy1945
He had enough warning to avoid the disaster at Clark Field but did nothing. There were times that Roosevelt and Admiral Leahy wanted to recall MacArthur but decided not to. Only General in the war who had his wife with him. Roosevelt decided he needed her and let her stay.
LeMay was a 1st Lieutenant when the War broke out and was a Major General at the end of it.
Caught pants-down in the Philippines, inexcusably, just after Pearl Harbor was attacked. Which he knew. And which was a far greater catastrophe.
I am not an expert, or historian, but I consider General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower to be one of the most outstanding generals of WWII. There is much to be said of his Presidency, as well.
I’ll go even further and declare Ike as the Greatest American of the 20th Century.
Excellent book! Beautiful prose! Very balanced account.
Regards,
Every General had a role to play. For the most part, they played them well. Patton was a good tank general. Ike was a logistician and strategist. Mac was Mac.
Personally I think that MacArthur was an arrogant horse’s ass.
> I read and account of the Battle for Manila by Max Hastings I think. One of the most brutal books on W.W. II I ever read <
Some historians rank the top three combat-devastated cities of WW II as Berlin, Warsaw, and Manila. The destruction of first two were unavoidable, I guess. But the destruction of Manila did not have to be.
It was MacArthur‘s ego that allowed it to happen.
In summer of 1944 there was a War Strategy meeting in Hawaii with Roosevelt, Nimitz, Leahy and MacArthur. MacArthur was late to the meeting and improperly dressed. Admiral Leahy, who was is Superior Officer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Roosevelts Military Adviser, unbraided MacArthur for being late and out of uniform. And to add insult to injury referred to him by his first name, Douglas, everyone else other than Roosevelt, called him General and he insisted upon that, even his wife called him the General. He got MacArthur’s attention real quick and Mac started making excuses and Leahy was not having it.
Patton was one of Roosevelt’s favorite General’s.
The only commander in the Pacific who was not fooled and totally prepared for the Japanese was the Commander in Chief of the Asiatic Fleet, Admiral Thomas Hart, he lost none of his fleet and engaged the enemy with hardly any losses at all.
Eisenhower was not a strategist or logistics person. Eisenhower never commanded anything is his life. He was a a staff officer. Before the war broke out he was asking Patton for a job under him and Patton was a General by that time and Ike was still a Colonel.
> Personally I think that MacArthur was an arrogant horse’s ass. <
And now it’s time for a little quiz.
Q. Name the only American to hold the rank of field marshal.
A. Douglas MacArthur, who was a field marshal in the Philippine Army.
MacArthur added a row of gold leaf above his hat’s visor to signify this exalted rank. Some might say that was a bit arrogant.
Not a strategist or logistics guy.
The Normandy invasion would love to have a word with you.
Gen Marshall had the ability to identify the right people for the right jobs. If you want to know who really “won the war” it was George Marshall.
Dug Out Doug was a Primadonna
All the GIs(including my dad) called him Dug Out Doug.
My Dad was there that day.
Third day of the invasion of Luzon.
Just to the left of this picture there was a quay. Where all of the ships docked up to unload. MacArthur thought it would be more impressive IF he and the rest of them waded ashore. Then he said “I have returned”.
When my father came ashore earlier in the day they had to walk on the bodies of the dead Australian and US Marines that covered the beachhead.
“Opus?”
Not my opus, for sure! ;-)
“No strategy; just blunder in and fight until exhausted?”
That is exactly what he did when he haughtily and arrogantly ventured into North Korea and got his butt kicked.
Your Opus? ROFL
“As for the supposed “insubordination”, that’s garbage.”
That is known fact, not garbage. He got fired for insubordination by then-president Truman.
The Normandy Invasion was planned by Field Marshall Montgomery not Eisenhower, a lot of the preliminary work was done by Admiral Dickie Mountbatten and his staff. Look it up.
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