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Sadly for you Inchon did not fail and MacArthur is credited with one of the most brillant and daring military moves in modern history. Plus as you recall US Forces had their backs up against the sea. They were "trading space for time" and time was running out. You would have preferred another Dunkirk? Because with a lesser commander Dunkirk is what you would have gotten.

Nimitz had the same advantages if not more so and lost far more troops then MacArthur fighting the Japanese. I really hate revisionist history and revisionist historians. When MacArthur arrived in Australia he shocked the entire military establishment saying that the defense of Australia would be fought in New Guinea not Australia. No one, I repeat no one, thought that was possible but that is exactly what MacArthur did. Guess that was another reckless lucky move. By passing heavy enemy strong holds and leaving them in your rear (concidered reckless) was also unheard of at the time, but it worked and saved US lives. I suggest you read some real history and not the revisionist crap put out by Truman apologists and Marxists.

Plus as you recall US Forces had their backs up against the sea. They were "trading space for time" and time was running out. You would have preferred another Dunkirk? Because with a lesser commander Dunkirk is what you would have gotten.

By the time of the Inchon landings the UN had about 140,000 men in the Pusan perimeter while the Norks had a total of 70,000 "besieging" them, if I remember the numbers correctly. The UN forces, by September, were also far better armed and supplied than the Norks, who were at the wrong end of a very long supply line with totally inadequate transport.

Look, you obviously have a better opinion of MacArthur than I do, as a general and as a human being. He had moments of brilliance, though possibly partially due to luck, such as Inchon. He also had disastrous moments of over-confidence where he got his butt whipped by inferior forces due to under-estimating the enemy.

First one: With the US fleet unable to challenge the Japanese fleet, the Philippines were going to fall. But MacArthur's handling of the defense was atrocious.

Second one: Drastically overextending his forces in North Korea and allowing them to be ambushed by the Chicoms.

I'm not sure why bypassing strong points was considered so reckless, when those strongpoints were all on islands. What are the Japs going to do? Make faces at the Americans as they steam by? Once the US controlled the seas, it was all over for the Japs in the strongpoints, just as it was all over for the Philippines and the Americans in the strongpoint of Bataan when the opposite condition prevailed at the start of the war.

There are also serious doubts about MacArthur's ethics, IMO, given his acceptance of half a million dollars ($7.5M today) from the government of the Philippines and his well-known insistence on being given personal credit for everything that happened in his area of command.

Here’s a blog with a discussion of MacArthur’s claim to the title of great general that I pretty much aqree with.

http://rethinkinghistory.blogspot.com/2010/11/rating-general-douglas-macarthur.html

Quite possibly MacArthur would have been a great person to put in charge of Iraq after the war, but he would have been a terrible choice to lead the invasion.