The FReeper Foxhole Profiles General Jonathan Wainwright - Apr 19th, 2004

www.cs.amedd.army.mil ^

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
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FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

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General Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV
(1883 - 1953)

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Jonathan Wainwright was born the son of a cavalry officer and a descendant in a line of distinguished U. S. Naval officers on August 23, 1883 at Fort Walla Walla, Washington Territory.

His father, Robert, commanded a squadron in the Battle of Santiago during the Spanish American War and died in 1901 while serving in the suppression of the Philippine Insurrection. A year later, Wainwright was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Wainwright received his commission in 1906 and began his career with the 1st Cavalry Regiment in Texas. The 1st was sent to the Philippines in 1908 as part of an expedition sent to quell the Moro uprising on the island of Jolo. Wainwright participated in the St.Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives towards the end of World War I. Following the Armistice, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff with the Army of Occupation in Koblenz, Germany and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his work in that capacity. The years between the wars were spent in postgraduate studies and training commands.



He graduated from the Mounted Service School, Fort Riley, Kansas, 1916. Promoted to Captain, and in 1917 was on staff of the first officers training camp at Plattsburg, New York. In February 1918 he was ordered to France. In June he became Assistant Chief-of-Staff of the 82nd Infantry Division, with which he took part in Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives. Promoted to temporary Lieutenant Colonel in October he was assigned to occupation duty in Germany with the 3rd Army until 1920, in which year, having reverted to Captain, he was promoted to Major.

After a year as an instructor at the renamed Cavalry School at Fort Riley, he was attached to the General Staff during 1921-23 and assigned to the 3rd Cavalry, Fort Myer, Virginia, 1923-25. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1929 and graduated from the Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1931, and the Army War College in 1934. He was promoted to Colonel in 1935, and commanded the 3rd Cavalry until 1938, when he was advanced to Brigadier General in command of the 1st Cavalry Brigade at Fort Clark, Texas. In September 1940, he was promoted to temporary Major General and returned to the Philippines to take command of the Philippine Division. that began in late December 1941.



Wainwright had little inkling of what future held. The war in Europe was already raging and he feared "that something might break over here and there he would be stuck in the Philippines missing everything." He was commanding American and Filipino troops in northern Luzon when the Japanese attacked on December 8, 1941. Wainwright commanded from the front and his skillful series of holding actions helped to make the American stand on Bataan possible. On February 7, 1942 General MacArthur decorated him with the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism.


Surrender on Bataan

General Douglas MacArthur the overall commander of forces in the Philippines was ordered to leave for Australia on March 11, 1942. Wainwright succeeded him as commander of all American and Filipino forces on Bataan and was promoted to lieutenant general. As the senior field commander of US and Filipino forces, he had tactical responsibility for resisting the Japanese invasion. Pushed back from beachheads in Lingayen Gulf, his Philippine forces withdrew onto the Bataan Peninsula, where they occupied well prepared defensive positions and commanded the entrance to Manila Bay. In throwing back a major Japanese assault in January, the defenders earned name of "battling bastards of Bataan." When MacArthur was ordered off Bataan in March 1942, Wainwright, promoted to temporary Lieutenant General, succeeded to command of US Army Forces in the Far East, a command immediately afterward reassigned US Forces in the Philippines. The Japanese attacks resumed in earnest in April.



The Japanese high command issued an ultimatum on March 22nd urging the defenders of Bataan to surrender in the name of humanity. Continuous air bombardment was followed by two human wave assaults which were repulsed but the defenders were running low on supplies and morale.

Bataan fell on April 9, 1942. President Roosevelt authorized Wainwright to continue the fight or make terms as he saw fit. Wainwright chose to continue the battle from Corregidor despite the urgings of some that he leave. "I have been one of the battling bastards of Bataan and I’ll play the same role on the rock as long as it is humanly possible. I have been with my men from the start, and if captured I will share their lot. We have been through so much together that my conscience would not let me leave before the final curtain."


General Wainwright at Celilo
November 15, 1945

Wainwright and 11,000 survivors held on in the tunnels beneath the rock for another month deprived of food, sleep or hope of relief. On May 5th Wainwright wrote MacArthur, "As I write this we are being subjected to terrific air and artillery bombardment and it is unreasonable to expect that we can hold out for long. We have done our best, both here and on Bataan, and although we are beaten we are still unashamed." The Japanese began landing on the island that night and at noon the next day Wainwright called for terms. General Homma insisted that Wainwright surrender all remaining American and Filipino forces or risk the annihilation of his troops on Corregidor. At noon on May 6, 1942, General Wainwright surrendered to Japanese General Homma. A historian of the Civil War, Wainwright later said of that moment, "Suddenly, I knew how Lee felt after Appomattox.



General Wainwright spent the next three years in Japanese prison camps in the Philippines, China and Formosa (Taiwan). The man who was known to his friends as Skinny was found alive in a Japanese prison camp in Manchuria. He emerged from captivity little more than a skeleton. General Wainwright liberation allowed him to travel and attend the Japanese surrender ceremonies aboard USS Missouri (left) in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, after which he returned to the Philippines to receive the surrender of the local Japanese commander. After a short stop at Fort Shafter in Hawaii to receive his fourth star from General Robert C. Richardson Jr., he then flew home to the United States, where he received a hero's welcome and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.



General Wainwright commander the Fourth U.S. Army at Fort Sam Houston from January 1946 until his retirement from the Army in August 1947. The general passed away in San Antonio, Texas on September 3 1953 and is buried at Arlington Nation Cemetary.

[PhilDragoo]

I see some people just can't honor Southern heroes and let them come home in peace on the CSS HUNLEY thread.

Point me in the direction and I will be happy to get people banned or deleted.

I recall a National Geographic archeological thread way last week but I have no URLs now.

Find, fix, finish. The way I feel, don't start with me.

[Valin]

My dad did the same thing. Him, two of my uncles, the county sheriff and a guy with an airplane.

[Valin]

I recall a National Geographic archeological thread way last week but I have no URLs now.

Well It just so happens that I am a close personal friend of the poster.

Hunley Findings Put Faces on Civil War Submarine Crew
National Geographic Society 4/11/04 Willie Drye
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1116000/posts

[PhilDragoo]

He was the son of Robert Powell Page Wainwright, a career Cavalry officer who died in service in the Philippines. He is buried next to his father in Section 1 of Arlington National Cemetery. He is one of only a few people in history whose funeral was held in lower level of the Memorial Amphitheater. Others were Sir Moses Ezekiel, creator of Confederate Memorial, March 30, 1921; Colonel Charles Young, an early black graduate of West Point, June 1, 1923; Ignace Jan Paderewski, exiled President of Poland, July 5, 1941; General of the Armies John J. Pershing, July 19, 1948; Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal, May 25, 1949; and General Henry "Hap" Arnold, January 18, 1950.

High resolution

Wainwright with his wife, Adele, on returning to the U.S. to a hero's welcome after being rescued from a Japanese P.O.W. camp.

"Can you hear me now?"

As for Lt. General Masaharu Homma, the Japanese commander responsible for the Bataan Death March: He was executed outside Manila by a US Army firing squad on 3 April 1946.

PT-41 is an early Elco 77 foot PT Boat. This particular boat was commanded by Lt. John Bulkeley, and was made famous in the book and movie, "They Were Expendable". Bulkeley's squadron of six boats (RON 3) saw action from the beginning of WW2 in the Philippines, until being "expended" in action just a few months later in April 1942... but not before scoring numerous victories, including the delivery of General MacArthur from Manila, out from under the noses of the Japanese invaders.

Navy Names Ship in Honor of WWII Hero; Wolfowitz Keynote Speaker
By Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service

NEW YORK, N.Y., Dec. 10, 2001 -- They called him the "Sea Wolf" for his daring World War II exploits in Europe and the Pacific. He's a Navy legend and the recipient of the Medal of Honor, Navy Cross and several other medals for heroism.

The Navy and the nation immortalized his name on Dec. 8 with the commissioning of the USS Bulkeley, the newest Arleigh Burke- class guided missile destroyer. The ship is named in honor of Vice Adm. John Duncan Bulkeley who died in April 1996 at age 84. He served on active duty for more than 55 years.

Keynote speaker Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, New York City officials considered canceling the commissioning ceremony out of concern for the protection of the ship, her crew and the audience.

"But it's easy to imagine what John Bulkeley would have said about that...," Wolfowitz said. "Pass up a chance to see a ship of the United States Navy come to life in defiance of those who want to take life and freedom away? Move this ceremony? 'Not on your life!' he would surely say.

"There is no more fitting place to commission this ship, here within the shadow of Lady Liberty and within walking distance of 'Ground Zero,'" he said. "In doing so, we can help to honor the tough old 'Sea Wolf,' who repeatedly showed throughout his career that he was not afraid to stand up to anyone who threatened our freedom."

In citing some of Bulkeley's wartime exploits, Wolfowitz said in the first weeks of World War II, with most of the Pacific fleet wiped out and nothing but bad news coming from the Pacific, then Lt. Bulkeley and his men changed all that when they sank a Japanese cruiser.

"And they kept up the fight," the deputy secretary said. "With little to no spare parts, ammunition or food, their motor torpedo boats repeatedly and unhesitatingly attacked Japanese ships in the Philippines. (They sustained) their operations for four months and seven days with almost no support except their own ingenuity and daring."

With Corregidor Island under siege in Manila Bay and Japanese forces closing in, Bulkeley's PT boat spirited Gen. Douglas MacArthur, his family and the president of the Philippines through 600 miles of seas infested with enemy warships, Wolfowitz noted.

"By MacArthur's own reckoning, they snatched him, the commander of the U.S. Forces, 'out of the jaws of death,'" he said. "That heroic action in the Pacific earned the young sailor the Medal of Honor, the admiration of our nation, and a ticker tape parade here in his hometown, right down Broadway. A crowd of more than a million people turned out to honor Lieutenant Bulkeley and his crew."

Bulkeley continued his exploits as commander of the destroyer USS Endicott in the European theater. "A month after D-Day, with only one of Endicott's guns working, he attacked two German corvettes at point-blank range and sank them both," Wolfowitz told the huge audience. "Afterwards he said, 'as long as we had even one gun left, I was going to attack. That's what's expected of a United States Navy officer and warship.'"

Then in 1963, Bulkeley took that same toughness to Cuba, where he faced off with Fidel Castro while commanding Guantanamo Naval Base. "He cut the water line that Castro had turned off, and vowed that we would never again depend on Cuba as a water source," Wolfowitz said. "To this day, we don't."

Not only was Bulkeley a combat hero, he was a hero for sailors and Marines. In one example, he insisted that emergency escape breathing devices be installed on every ship in the fleet.

"He lived to see the difference it made when the frigate USS Stark came under Iraqi missile attack in the Persian Gulf in 1987," the secretary said. "Thirty-seven sailors perished in that tragedy, but many more would have died from the smoke and flames were it not for the breathing devices that John Bulkeley had put on board.

"There is no doubt that this man helped save countless lives -- it is a legacy that extends to the sailors and Marines who will man the USS Bulkeley today," Wolfowitz noted.

Wolfowitz pointed out that the USS Bulkeley's commander, Cmdr. Carlos Del Toro left communist Cuba as a child, came to this country, attended the Naval Academy, and rose through the ranks to take command of the Navy's newest destroyer.

"That story is in itself a testament to the promise of our nation and to Carlos Del Toro's own tough, fighting spirit," Wolfowitz said.

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani traced the city's maritime tradition from the American Revolution to the present day. He said the Navy's first steamship was built there in 1814. The Monitor, which arguably became the most famous Union Navy ship of the Civil War, was built in Brooklyn in 1862. During World War II, Staten Island was home to a major destroyer shipyard. The Brooklyn Navy Yard produced many battleships, aircraft carriers and cruisers, he said.

"Many of the great ships of the 20th century made their maiden voyage through the waters of New York Harbor," Giuliani said.

"Today, one of the great ships of the 21st century will begin that same voyage. When the USS Bulkeley sets sail down the Hudson River, passing the Statue of Liberty, before the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, she will be sailing through one of our nation's most historic waters. Like each of the Navy ships that sailed before her, she sails to protect our way of life, and our foundation of liberty and justice," the mayor said.

Commissioner for Terrorist Extinction Giuliani announces USS Bulkeley has officially reintroduced the ballistic land attack missile (BLAM) program.

The city formerly known as Fallujah has been renamed "Wainwright Memorial Parking Lot".

Commissioner Giuliani added, "To those who wish us ill, be they in Teheran, Damascus, Beirut, or Gaza, our message is clear:

Don't make me come down there.

[PhilDragoo]

Thank you. I brought the tastelessness of 20 to the attention of the moderator and asked him to remove it.

Last night in Albuquerque an apartment resident emerged to tell a man he wasn't going to be parking in his spot anymore.

The resident shot the parker in the head, dead.

Some people just never learn.

[Valin]

I brought the tastelessness of 20 to the attention of the moderator and asked him to remove it.

Whatever it was it's gone now.


The resident shot the parker in the head, dead.

Harsh!

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks you Phil, especially for the information on the Bulkeley and it's namesake.

The city formerly known as Fallujah has been renamed "Wainwright Memorial Parking Lot".

If only wishing could make it so. :-)

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Humal. It's a pleasure doing the Foxhole becasue I've always been interested in our Military and the History of America. As for publishing, I'm afraid that all of the work is other peoples. I just add the pictures and post them here.

[SAMWolf]

Point me in the direction and I will be happy to get people banned or deleted.

They're entitled to their opinions, even if they're wrong, mis-informed or just being jerks about it. Our Southern contingent corrected them or told them off depending on how jerky they were.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Valin.

[snippy_about_it]

Sam, you're so humble.

I just add the pictures and post them here.

We do hunt the stuff down, review it, add more than one account together or edit long versions and then find appropriate pictures.

True, the history is already written and considering this is all volunteer work we wouldn't have time to write it ourselves. But it is work, work we love, I just don't want you making it seem like it's so easy. I know just how much work it takes to bring readable versions of our history to FR.

[SAMWolf]

Evening Phil Dragoo.

"They Were Expendable" was an excellent book.

Thanks for the background on Vice Adm. John Duncan Bulkeley. I wonder if Bulkeley had let his PT baot get cut in half by a Japanese destroyer if he could have run for President. ;-)

The city formerly known as Fallujah has been renamed "Wainwright Memorial Parking Lot".

I like that idea but now that there's an "agreement" everything will be fine. Yeah, Right.

[SAMWolf]

The resident shot the parker in the head, dead.

Sounds like what happens when someone takes the spot you cleared of snow in Chicago.

[SAMWolf]

[snippy_about_it]

...depending on how jerky they were.

Most appeared to be uneducated on the history. I really wish folks weren't so rude. I will say this, our southern contingent Foxhole folks are always kind.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[Tax-chick]

The city formerly known as Fallujah has been renamed "Wainwright Memorial Parking Lot".

You should get a prize for that one!

[colorado tanker]

Thanks for the post about Bulkeley. He was quite an officer and quite a man.

They Were Expendable is one of my favorite movies. The credits list the service affiliation of the cast and crew. Most of the senior folks were Naval Reserve. You'd never see something like that in Hollywood today!

The most dramatic scene for me is when the Admiral does Brickley (Bulkeley) the honor of leveling with him that there will be no rescue and it was the job of the professionals, in a baseball metaphor, "to lay down that sacrifice." The sacrifice of the troops in the Philippines gave us badly needed time to build up Australia as a base and build the defenses on the Hawaii/Australia lifeline.

[colorado tanker]

The North/South wars on FR just make me shake my head. There seem to be a handful of topics where people just lose all perspective.

My roots are most definitely Union, but I honor the courage, sacrifice and skill that my Southern brethren fought with. We are one nation today and both the Union and Confederate exploits are part of our history and military tradition.

Most of the nonsense seems to be coming from the liberal persuasion (what's new?) who seem to be on some kind of jihad to stamp out any kind of honors or remembrance of the Confederate soldiers and sailors.

[KC Burke]

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