General Douglas MacArthur's 145th birthday - Lest We Forget

https://youtu.be/DbG_8ldaTSY?si=0U5IL_X4VBr2IXtf ^ | 26th January 2025 | Ozguy1945

[Ozguy1945]

My father served under Douglas MacArthur in Morotai Indonesia 1945.

I refuse to call remembering this vanity.

MacArthur was born at Little Rock on the 26th January 1880.

[rexthecat]

I’m not so sure that his escape from the Philippines on a PT boat was worthy of a Medal of Honor.

[FrankRizzo890]

My wife is from Leyte, and we’ve been to the place (a park-like thing now), where he supposedly returned. Leyte has all sorts of little monuments to battles fought there. Things like “Hill 42. A battle for control of hill 42 was fought on the days of (start) to (end) (year) which ended when all the japs were killed, and subsequently the Americans took control of the hill”.

My wife’s grandfather fought with the guerillas against the Japanese occupation. (And ended up getting hired by the GIs as a cook! They even took him back to Guam to cook for them after the war ended.)

Lastly, having been in the jungle there, I can’t imagine being a foreigner and trying to fight in there. There’s just TOO many places for someone to hide. Made me feel for our boys in Vietnam.

[Captain Peter Blood]

His Mother never planned for him to be born in Arkansas, she wanted to have him born in Virginia. MacArthur never claimed Arkansas for any reason and claimed Virginia as his native state his whole life. He and his Mother were so close that when he went to West Point, she rented a place there for the entire 4 years he was there.

William Manchester’s book “American Caesar” was probably the best book I read on him.

[buwaya]

Our whole family served under MacArthur, 1941-45.

USArmy(r), USNR, Phil Army, Phil Guerillas.
2 dead, 2 wounded.

[buwaya]

One argument for the medal is as a collective recognition of the sacrifices of his command, USAFFE.

[Captain Peter Blood]

Well there was a lot to that story, he was ordered to do so by FDR. I am not even sure MacArthur wanted the MOH under those circumstances. It was all part of the War effort at the time. Even General Jimmy Doolittle did not want the MOH he got the raid on Tokyo but was ordered to take it by General Marshall and General Arnold as a morale booster for the country. Doolittle deserved his MOH, even though he didn’t even have to go on the mission and Hap Arnold did not want him to go as he needed him in D.C..

[A strike]

ummmm, NO.

That’s not how the Medal of Honor works

[Jonty30]

That is one of the qualifications to receive the medal of honour.

[buwaya]

It’s been conceded that the award to MacArthur was not done according to statute, but for what we can say was raison d’etat.

[Robert357]

My late father was in two amphibious landings on Japanese held islands in the Philippines. Dad had absolutely nothing good to say about MacArthur. His famous photo opportunity of him wading ashore in the Philippines was so staged that days ahead of time the whole area was sprayed with DDT to cut down on mosquitoes so he wouldn't get bitten. At the end of the war, my dad returned with serious malaria.

[fso301]

I’m not so sure that his escape from the Philippines on a PT boat was worthy of a Medal of Honor.

He was ORDERED to leave. A DIRECT ORDER.

That his prior actions were MOH worthy is one reason he wasn't left on the island.

[A strike]

in other words bullSchiiff of course

[rxh4n1]

My father was in the Battle of Manila. Later, they transferred him to MacArthur’s headquarters as a clerk typist. He saw MacArthur every morning, said he was a pompous ass. I remember when he got together with other PTO vets, sometimes they would get in a gripe session against Dugout Doug,

[alexander_busek]

William Manchester’s book “American Caesar” was probably the best book I read on him.

An excellent read! Manchester's prose is a delight!

Mother gifted it to me on my 15th birthday (Father had already long since gifted me his autobiography, which is a slog.)

Every FReeper with an interest in geopolitics and WWII should read it!

Regards,

[alexander_busek]

My late father was in two amphibious landings on Japanese held islands in the Philippines. Dad had absolutely nothing good to say about MacArthur. His famous photo opportunity of him wading ashore in the Philippines was so staged that days ahead of time the whole area was sprayed with DDT to cut down on mosquitoes so he wouldn't get bitten. At the end of the war, my dad returned with serious malaria.

MacArthur was a man of contradictions and paradoxes. (Read Manchester's "American Caesar" for a highly readable account of this walking enigma.)

Your sainted father had a right to feel the way he did. I will not argue against his standpoint.

But in my opinion, MacArthur was one of WWII's greatest generals.

Regards,

[linMcHlp]

bttt

[nathanbedford]

To describe MacArthur as a "pompous ass" is to miss the point. He might have been pompous, even vainglorious, but he was hardly an ass. His achievements were monumental:

A series of silver stars in World War I, (he believed he deserved a medal of honor there); Commandant West Point; coach of US Olympic team; Chief of Staff of the Army; Supreme Commander Southwest Pacific, March by island hopping to the Philippines, virtual dictator of Japan and author of its Constitution, planner of the successful Inchon landing in Korea.

His career literally extended from the arrow (when he marched as a child with his father in Indian territory) to the atomic bomb as it was deployed against Japan. He fought grimy personal combats in the Philippines as a newly minted Lieutenant against Muslim terrorists. He served with the most distinction of the young officers in Mexico at the time of Pershing's Punitive Expedition - Reminiscent of the exploits of Robert E Lee and the Mexican war.

But the point about MacArthur is not that he was vainglorious or at best conceded beyond belief and prone to conspiracy almost to the point of paranoia, many powerful men fit that description. His intellect was so far above average that he had little time for fools. His high opinion of himself led him to open dispute with Roosevelt over funding for the Army long before he was exiled to the Philippines. It is not surprising that he was met with a mixture of fear and and envy. And it is not surprising that his reaction verged on paranoia.

The leftist press wants us to believe that Roosevelt should have fired him long before Harry Truman got around to the job. Actually, the important thing to think about when placing MacArthur in history is the left's visceral reaction to MacArthur, akin to the left's visceral hatred of Trump, that distorts every modern biography of the man.

Long before the left felt the need demonize MacArthur to protect Harry Truman from a massive negative public reaction to his firing of Arthur, the left had learned to demonize MacArthur for his role in dispersing the bonus Army camp in Washington DC at the onset of the Great Depression.

MacArthur saw the Bonus Army as a mob riddled and dominated by communists and thus worthy only of summary action to protect the rule of law. The left saw the strutting MacArthur as a fascist, their typical reaction to those who fight communism. Saul Alinsky came later but his tactics preexisted Alinsky, demonize those whose policy affronts the left.

Vainglorious to the very end, MacArthur's actual performance as governor of Japan nevertheless was a historic model of enlightened stewardship leading to a remarkably successful reconstruction of a utterly devastated country and to the creation of a modern, democratic, world power. Modern Japan is a tribute to MacArthur's enlightened administration.

Physically courageous to a reckless extent, (the calumny "Dugout Doug" good not be credited), MacArthur was equally a man of surpassing intellect and inner directed (some would describe it as egotistical) to a remarkable degree. Described as an American Caesar, he was indeed larger than life and like his father, worthy of the Medal of Honor.

[SERE_DOC]

Nor his action along with Eisenhower during the rout of the "Bonus Army" in DC in 1932.

Glossing over dispicable events is crappy.

[trebb]

If we hadn’t reined him in, we might be living in a safer world today....