When fleeing the Phillipines, MacArthur loaded his personal furniture on military transports and left behind Army nurses, who were later captured by the Japanese.
This story is from one of our neighbors when I was a child in the 1950s. He was a former Army officer who survived those terrible years during WWII in the Phillipines. Everytime he mentioned MacArthur’s name, he would spit afterwards.
There were originally four PT boats designated to evacuate MacArthur and his staff. Each of the 21 passengers was permitted 35 pounds of personal luggage. MacArthur took nothing. One, possibly two mattresses were taken aboard PT 41 for use by MacArthur's wife, son and nurse during the 35 hour ~550 mile trip across rough seas to Mindanao. To make the journey, each boat was provisioned with an additional 1,000 gallons of gasoline. There was no room or capacity aboard the PT boats for furniture.
and left behind Army nurses, who were later captured by the Japanese.
The nurses were almost all evacuated. I believe a small number did not evacuate but that was because they refused to. One of the two PBY's containing a group of nurses being evacuated from Bataan/Corregidor struck an obstacle on a southern Philippine island and sank. I do not know what became of the people aboard that PBY. My assumption has long been that the men did the chivalrous thing and moved all the nurses onto the one flyable PBY which continued on to Australia.
This story is from one of our neighbors when I was a child in the 1950s. He was a former Army officer who survived those terrible years during WWII in the Phillipines. Everytime he mentioned MacArthur’s name, he would spit afterwards.
Like so many others, your neighbor was sadly misinformed.