Posted on 01/30/2014 7:09:06 PM PST by NKP_Vet
Douglas MacArthur was born JANUARY 26, 1880.
He commanded in France during World War I.
He was superintendent of West Point, 1919-20.
At age 30, he became the youngest Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.
A four-star general, he retired in 1939, but returned in 1941 to defend the Philippines.
When Japan invaded, President Roosevelt ordered him to Australia, but not before he promised "I shall return."
(Excerpt) Read more at archive.constantcontact.com ...
"History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline.
There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster."
Gen. Mac ping
William J. Federer is hilarious.
An accountant turned television historian. Very funny that anyone but religious kooks would take him seriously.
/My father met MacArthur as a teenaged Marine in Korea. Said he was the biggest As!hole he ever met.
//As a professional historian, I consider him a fairly good general who surrounded himself with an excellent staff.
What does the The Nation have to do with Douglas McArthur?
Liberals hated him.
He became Chief of Staff in 1930 at age 50. Dealing with the severe budget cuts the Army faced during the Depression was intensely painful for him.
If you've read some of the anti-MacArthur posts around here, you'd understand what I meant.
He got caught flat footed at least 3 times. He should have been sacked after the first fiasco. He got a lot of good soldiers killed through his incompetence.
During their visit, he found out that Lindbergh could increase the range of P38 fighters by 700 miles by properly adjusting the engine controls.
MacArthur had him go around to the Army units and teach the pilots how to do it.
That is what started the Island hopping strategy where they didn't need to capture every inland for air strips.
It also made it possible to have enough range to shoot down Yamamoto.
Bill Federer’s article is all well and good but historians seem to forget that Admiral Husband Kimmel & Major General Walter Short got canned for Washington’s failure to warn them about the code breaks of the planned Japanese attack on Pearl; yet MacArthur was lauded for his “I shall return” after he was grossly derelict for letting his Air Force get caught flat footed on the ground by the Japanese attack on Luzon. The Japanese Army swiftly overrun Luzon despite being outnumbered 3:2 by force under MacArthur. Add that to his savage attack on the “Bonus Army” and his insistence to Nuke North Korea and it comes out as grossly incompetent. Best thing Harry Truman did was to fire this egotistical, overbearing arse. American Caesar? What a joke!
His Inchon landing was a brilliant maneuver. Everyone told him it would not work but not only worked, it worked perfectly.
MacArthur believed the Japanese would attack the Phillipines by air and land. He set up a series of scout positions to spot incoming aircraft. Since the system was brand new they were getting a lot of false reports.
MacArthur thinking the Japanese would attack on the day they did, sent all their aircraft into the air so they would not be sitting ducks on the ground. They began to get low on fuel so they checked to make sure no reports of Japanese planes had come in. It turned out they had gotten one report of a sighting. They held the planes in the air waiting for confirmation. The planes had to land and since there had been no other reports they brought them down for refueling.
As luck would have it, the Japanese attacked just as they were landing. the Americans could not have been more unlucky. McArthur basically did all he could have been expected to do.
For tomorrow.
You spelling in the title is incorrect ( MacArthur not McArthur) and the above fact from your source (http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs155/1108762609255/archive/1116360892946.html) is flat wrong for if it where true, Doug (Born 1880) would have been Chief of Staff in 1910 only seven years after he left West Point in the Class of 1903.
The truth is he became Chief of Staff in 1930 at age 50.
It’s probably a mere typo, wrote 30 instead of 50. Given the usual age of top generals I’d say 50 probably did make him the youngest Army COS.
MacArthur would have made a hell of a better president than Eisenhower,who was basically remembered for having heartattacks and letting the Russians overtake us in ICBMs.
He also held the Five Star rank.
• George C. Marshall (16 Dec 1944)
• Douglas MacArthur (18 Dec 1944)
• Dwight D. Eisenhower (20 Dec 1944)
• Henry H. Arnold (21 Dec 1944)
• Omar Bradley (20 Sep 1950)
Fleet Admirals (5 star)
• William D. Leahy (15 Dec 1944)
• Ernest J. King (17 Dec 1944)
• Chester W. Nimitz (19 Dec 1944)
• William F. Halsey, Jr. (11 Dec 1945)
I agree 1000%. I really wish MacArthur would have run in either ‘52 or even ‘48.
Compared to most other 20th Century Presidents, Ike looks pretty good (post-Coolidge he’s easily 2nd after Reagan), but that’s saying VERY little. The guy was a moderate and not cut out for political leadership. The party did badly under him, he won reelection in 1956 with no net coattails and the 1958 midterm was an epic disaster.
He was a truly an astounding man, despite his human faults.
“My father met MacArthur as a teenaged Marine in Korea. Said he was the biggest As!hole he ever met.”
Asked with the deepest possible respect for your father, is it unusual that a teenaged fire-eater thinks a 70-year-old authority figure is an asshole?
You like so many have gained your understanding of MacArthur from the Left plus perhaps a bit of piling on by Navy people. He was not caught flat footed on Dec 8, 1941, the fickle finger of fate struck and the Gods of war just happened to be on the Japanese side at that time.
Add that to his savage attack on the “Bonus Army”
There was no savage attack and the genuine veterans had already gone home. What he removed from D.C. were the Occupy types of that era who came spoiling for a fight. You should go back and read primary sources of the incident, not what the Left later says happened.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.