We went with the Virginia Historical Society to the Douglas MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk. It's a very friendly and interesting place. If you are ever in the area it would be worth your time to drop by.

I asked the director to recommend a biography. He and a couple of other staff members close by suggested American Caesar by William Manchester. He and his entire family are fascinating. I downloaded the book to a Kindle and am about halfway through it; it's very readable.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jim Shugart,

Manchester is a great author.

Been there. Well worth the visit.

Picked up a copy of his autobiography from the gift shop. If you haven't read it, you won't know he won the war in the Pacific all by himself. The Navy, Marines and Army were just a sideshow.

And a lot of Americans died with his insistence upon landing on every god-forsaken island rather than 'hopping' more often and letting the over-extended Japs die on the vine.

Still, he was a great man - and came into his own, in my opinion, after WWII. Politics be damned.

I read the book.

Interesting chapter(s) on the mishandling/meddling of the Korean war by MacArthur, Washington, South Korea President Syngman Rhee and Chiang Kai-Shek.

Manchester was a very fine historian and a good writer. I wish he had finished his Churchill biography. "American Caesar" is good.

The book is interesting and covers his childhood on up.
One thing I found interesting was that his father served in some of the indian conflicts out west so he experienced the spear & arrow and basic firearms era.
Later as a General, he dealt with the early era of nuclear weapons. Quite a contrast.
He was a complex character but his handling of post war Japan and the disarmament and rebuilding was one of his finer moments. My father, who served in the Pacific in the war, credited his approach of island hopping with saving his life.

quote:

Originally posted by Jager:
Been there. Well worth the visit.

Picked up a copy of his autobiography from the gift shop. If you haven't read it, you won't know he won the war in the Pacific all by himself. The Navy, Marines and Army were just a sideshow.

And a lot of Americans died with his insistence upon landing on every god-forsaken island rather than 'hopping' more often and letting the over-extended Japs die on the vine.

Still, he was a great man - and came into his own, in my opinion, after WWII. Politics be damned.

I think you're mistaking him for the Marines approach.
He was the one that wanted to leave the unsupported Japanese garrisons on unimportant islands alone to starve. The Philippines was one exception because it was so personal to him due to his and his fathers connection (and massive ego) to the place.

Always thought it to be ironic that his memorial was in a Navy town..

quote:

Originally posted by CQB60:
Always thought it to be ironic that his memorial was in a Navy town..

South Koreans loved him. There were two statues of MacArthur when I was there (1959). One overlooking the Inchon harbor (signal hill). Other in downtown Seoul.

quote:

Originally posted by CQB60:
Always thought it to be ironic that his memorial was in a Navy town..

Here's the museum's explanation as to why Norfolk was selected. The memorial is located in the old Norfolk City Hall, a very beautiful building. It was built about 1850.

He had a terrible ego. And in the Phillipines, at Corregidor, he left his men without food and supplies. There was a soccer stadium full of food, and it was abandoned.

When he governed Japan, he let some terrible, terrible Japanese commanders skate. One of them supervised fantastically brutal medical experiments on the Chinese. When captured and sentenced to death, the commander feigned a stroke. Of course, he miraculously recovered, and by that time MacArthur dramatically reduced his punishment. This Jap general was a famous physician after the war. Lots of GI's hate MacArthur, and for good reason.

The more I know about him the more I dislike him.

I wonder how many Americans died just to boost his ego.

And his troops didn't really adore him, either (and they have more a right to judge him than I do). They called him "Dugout Doug."


There was even a song.

A song, sung to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," turned up at Bataan:

 

Dugout Doug MacArthur lies ashaking on the Rock

Safe from all the bombers and from any sudden shock

Dugout Doug is eating of the best food on Bataan

And his troops go starving on.

Dugout Doug's not timid, he's just cautious, not afraid

He's protecting carefully the stars that Franklin made

Four-star generals are rare as good food on Bataan

And his troops go starving on.

Dugout Doug is ready in his Kris Craft for the flee

Over bounding billows and the wildly raging sea

For the Japs are pounding on the gates of Old Bataan

And his troops go starving on...

He certainly had his faults as I'm discovering by reading his biography (highly recommended), but he was a completely fearless man and a brilliant general. He was the most decorated American soldier of WWI.

That's a great book and I would love to visit the memorial.

I still contend that his 'Duty, Honor, Country' speech was one of the great rhetorical feats of the 20th century. Pure luck that a cadet recorded the event and saved the tape. He was 82 years old, in failing health and delivered the speech without a single note upon being awarded the Sylvanus Thayer award at West Point. One of the best speeches given, in my opinion.



Text of speech:
http://www.americanrhetoric.co...thurthayeraward.html

This single paragraph (remember he was addressing West Point cadets) really stands out:

quote:

Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.

The ending of the speech still gives me goose bumps, especially the older I get. He died within 2 years of giving this speech.

quote:

The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished, tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.

But in the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point.

Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.

Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps, and The Corps, and The Corps.

I bid you farewell.

McArthur received a lot of medals over the course of his career. However in WWI, if you consider the most decorated based on the highest number of prestigious U.S. medals awarded, he is not near the top.

You need to distinguish between "MOST decorated" and "MOST HIGHLY decorated." Most decorated included a lot of “political” and “I was there” medals.

The top two most highly decorated men in WW I were considered to be:

"1. Sgt. Maj. Daniel J. Daly: Sgt. Maj. Daniel J. Daly was called the "fightenest Marine I ever knew" by the famed Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler. In perhaps his most famous action, he encouraged the Marine advance at Belleau Wood in 1918 by turning to his men and yelling, "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"

Daly was recommended for the Medal of Honor for his actions at Belleau Wood, but received the Distinguished Service Cross. He also received two Medals of Honor, a Navy Cross, and a Silver Star in addition to a number of foreign awards for other battles during his career.

2. Col. Edward V. Rickenbacker: During his military service, he received the Medal of Honor and the French Croix de Guerre for single-handedly engaging a flight of seven German planes and downing two. He also received seven Distinguished Service Crosses."

By comparison, McArthur received two Distinguished Service Crosses and seven Silver Star Citations and a wound citation. Because of his political connections, I wonder how many of these he would received if he was a cab driver in New York?

.

He was not fearless. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he froze and hid in his headquarters in the Philippines for 14 hours. He did not give any orders, such as disperse planes sitting in airfields. Sure enough, after 6 hours or so Jap bombers flew over an obliterated a large quantity of B-17s that were parked on the tarmac.

Here is more on the pardons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..._Japanese_war_crimes

The American cover-up of Japanese war crimes occurred after the end of World War II, when the occupying US government granted political immunity to military personnel who had engaged in human experimentation and other crimes against humanity, predominantly in mainland China.[1][2] The pardon of Japanese war criminals, among whom were Unit 731's commanding officers General Shiro Ishii and General Masaji Kitano, was overseen by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in September 1945. While a series of war tribunals and trials was organized, many of the high-ranking officials and doctors who devised and respectively performed the experiments were pardoned and never brought to justice. As many as 12,000 people, most of them Chinese, died in Unit 731 alone and many more died in other facilities, such as Unit 100 and in field experiments throughout Manchuria.[3][4]
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One of the things the Japs would do is catch Chinese who were walking on the street, and tie them to a cross outside in the winter. When their arms were frozen solid, the Japs would break the arms off with a piece of wood, then bring the prisoner inside. The Japs would record how long it too the person to die of gangrene, in the sake of medical science.

Most likely these were psychopaths masquerading as doctors and military personnel.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
He was not fearless. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he froze and hid in his headquarters in the Philippines for 14 hours. He did not give any orders, such as disperse planes sitting in airfields. Sure enough, after 6 hours or so Jap bombers flew over an obliterated a large quantity of B-17s that were parked on the tarmac.

Here is more on the pardons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..._Japanese_war_crimes

The American cover-up of Japanese war crimes occurred after the end of World War II....

I have a copy of "The Rape of Nanking, The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII", autographed by the author, Iris Chang, who later committed suicide, unable to deal with the horrors of the crimes committed there.

Seems MacArthur lived somewhat of a double life, very much "duty-honor-country" in the public eye, but quite the opposite in his personal life. He had a full time mistress, bought and paid for, during much of his career. He demanded absolute obedience from his subordinates but refused such to his superiors (He was fired by Truman for direct insubordination). Eisenhower had quite a low regard for MacArthur.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
Eisenhower had quite a low regard for MacArthur.

He's not the only one. Patton is my favorite, by far.

That "Duty, Honor, Country" speech was excellent.

However, I still don't have any respect for MacArthur. He was an egotistical douchebag. The only way he got away with it so long (before Truman fired him for insubordination) was that he had a HUGE popular following in the US media and public.

He was also responsible for president Johnson getting his 'Silver Star.' Johnson flew on a single bombing mission in the Pacific (he was a member of congress, but somehow got himself an appointment as a Lt Col in the Army and headed to the Pacific). The plane he was on suffered engine trouble, and returned to base before even getting close to the target. His citation for the award mentioned some crap about 'braving enemy fire to attack a significant enemy target' yada yada yada. Of course, nobody else on the plane (in which he was just a passenger) got ANY awards for the aborted mission (nor should they have).

MacA approved the award. I think this was done so MacA could have a congressman in his pocket. Having been given a 'Medal of Honor,' MacA knew the value of decorations. Johnson used this medal as leverage to move his political career forward (it seems john kerry followed Johnson's example in Vietnam).


I was just talking to a brother-in-law today about how the Army and Navy screwed General Short and Admiral Kimmel (the two commanders at Pearl Harbor) as scapegoats, when MacA was caught with his pants down and had practically his ENTIRE air force in the Philippines destroyed on the ground the day AFTER Pearl Harbor. This was dereliction of duty, but of course, MacA could do no wrong, so he never suffered any negative consequences for his incompetence.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
Eisenhower had quite a low regard for MacArthur.

Eisenhower and McArthur were about as unlike as two men could be.