MacArthur, General Douglas

MacArthur, General Douglas (1880–1964),US Army officer who was one of the most controversial—and the longest serving (1918–51)—generals in the US Army.

The son of an army officer, whose family was both distinguished and aristocratic, MacArthur entered the US Military Academy, West Point, in 1899. He graduated with the highest marks ever received there and by the end of the First World War was a highly decorated brig-general who had proposed the formation of, and then led, the famous Rainbow Division. His rise continued to be meteoric and by 1930 he was army chief of staff with the temporary rank of general. In 1935 he went to the Philippines, where he had earlier served two tours, to become its military adviser, taking with him a young Major Eisenhower whom he considered the best staff officer in the US Army.

In 1936 President Quezon made MacArthur a field marshal in the Philippine Army and he retired from the US Army the following year. However, in July 1941 Roosevelt recalled him to active duty as commander of US forces in the Far East with the rank of lt-general. MacArthur's failure to bomb Formosa—where the Japanese had air bases from which they could, and did, attack the Philippines—immediately after Japan raided Pearl Harbor has never been satisfactorily explained. Nor have the reasons why, ten hours after the raid, Japanese bombers found US aircraft still on the ground when they raided Clark Field and another important US air base in the Philippines.

MacArthur's defence of the Philippines, when the Japanese invaded on 22 December 1941, was also badly flawed and though his withdrawal into the Bataan peninsula was well executed, his logistics let him down as insufficient supplies had been stockpiled there. In March 1942, on the president's orders, he made a perilous escape by sea to Australia and on arrival made his famous remark about the Philippines: ‘I shall return’. The Office of War Information liked the phrase but requested it be changed to ‘We shall return.’ MacArthur refused.

In April 1942, from his HQ in Brisbane, Australia, appalled by the paucity of his forces, he assumed command of what was known as the South-West Pacific Area which included Australia, New Guinea, and the Netherlands East Indies (except Sumatra). Initially, most of his ground troops were Australians whose fighting abilities he doubted. He doubted, too, the ability of his Land Forces commander, Blamey, while the Australians regarded McArthur as ignorant of jungle warfare and the problems of New Guinea's rugged terrain (see also Australia, 3). By mid- 1943 he had sufficient Americans to create Alamo Force which prevented Blamey commanding US personnel and sidelined Australian troops from the principal campaigns that preceded the recapture of the Philippines.

One of MacArthur's claims to fame in the Pacific war was the technique known as ‘leap-frogging’ or ‘island-hopping’ whereby strong centres of Japanese resistance were bypassed in favour of capturing weaker ones which cost less lives. In fact he was converted late to the idea and wanted to take Rabaul long after the US Joint Chiefs of Staff had decided to bypass it—though after the war he claimed it had been his idea. However, once ULTRA intelligence enabled him to know the strength of Japanese garrisons he did use the technique most effectively. In his presence, his forces landed on the Admiralty Islands in February 1944, and then, during the New Guinea campaign, he bypassed Hansa Bay and Wewak and landed further up the coast at Hollandia in April 1944. But though leap-frogging in his later campaigns saved lives his New Guinea campaign caused fearsome casualties. One Allied serviceman in 11 died during it compared to one in 37 on Guadalcanal; and the capture of Sanananda (see Gona), which he described, with typical hyperbole, as ‘mopping up’, took three weeks and many casualties.

MacArthur, who disliked Roosevelt and the liberalism he represented, abhorred the policy that Germany had to be defeated before Japan (see Rainbow Plans and ARCADIA) and he remained seriously at odds with the Joint Chiefs of Staff over Pacific strategy. He probably got his way to liberate the Philippines, instead of bypassing them as the navy desired, because it suited Roosevelt politically not to oppose his plans. MacArthur, a right-wing Republican with presidential ambitions, was an idol of the American public, and Roosevelt, in election year, found it expedient to show public support for him. Whatever the reasons, MacArthur fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines when his forces landed on Leyte in October 1944 (see also Leyte Gulf battle) and on Luzon the following January. Later he sent forces to capture the central and southern Philippines without instructions from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and despite the fact that these islands had no strategic value.

MacArthur had received his fifth star in December 1944, and in April 1945 he took command of all US Army forces in the Pacific. He was designated ground commander for the invasion of Japan and after the Japanese surrender was appointed Supreme Commander, Allied Powers (SCAP). In this post he administered Japan with a surprisingly liberal and democratic hand. In 1950 he was appointed C-in-C of the United Nations forces in the Korean war, but he quarrelled with President Truman and in April 1951 was relieved of all his commands.

MacArthur's personality was complex, chameleon-like, magnetic, and contradictory. He had an insatiable appetite for publicity, his actions and motives were often suspect, and his communiqués became notorious for their boasts and their distortion of the facts. But though he was vain, egotistical, and flamboyant, he was also, to those who knew him well, charming, gracious, and cultured. His real genius as a commander lay in his ability to plan and lead with imagination and boldness. But this genius was flawed by his almost paranoid reaction to criticism, by his flagrant disregard of, and contempt for, many of those in authority above him, and by his gathering officers around him more renowned for their slavish fidelity than their intelligence. As the US army chief of staff, General Marshall, once remarked to him: ‘You don't have a staff, General. You have a court.’

Bibliography

Larrabee, E. , Commander in Chief: Franklin D. Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and their War (New York, 1987).
Long, G. , MacArthur as Military Commander (London, 1969).
Manchester, W. , American Caesar (Boston, 1979).