Just in case anyone thinks I think Mac was a great commander, I don’t.
Anyone who knows the details of how he lost the Philippines knows what a loser he was.
He did well later, and seemed to do a lot better because of his great PR officers who knew how to meet his self-centred publicity demands, but when the chips were down in the Philippines when he had the chance and the duty to take steps which might, but probably would not have, altered the course of the war he was, frankly, no good.
I have to agree.
His flight from Corregidor and Bataan islands where he left its troops in march 1942 was a real cowardice. Later on politicals motives it was called like Roosevelt ordered him to leave the troops. After his “rmagic saving” the US troops was forced to capitulate in doth Islands.
The battle of Bataan where 150 000 US/Phillipinian troops losed the 75 000 Japanes army was the resault of MacArthur “command”. The worst i think was the Battle for Corregidor where 12 000 US troops beeing in castle capitulated befor 2 000 japane garnison with some tanks.
Anothe “achivement” of MacArthur was in Korea where this madman asked the permission to use A-bomb agains nother koreans.
His personal ambitions and later the criticism of the U.S. Government became the reason for its ignominious resignation.
Cheers.
In fairness to Mac, he resisted the orders to leave but eventually took the view that it was his duty to obey. He might have resisted harder if he didn’t have the opportunity to save his wife and the son upon whom he doted.
Mac’s worst failing during the Philippines campaign were failing to exercise command in the crucial early hours, and in particular failing to give the pre-determined orders to Gen Brereton to launch bomber raids on Formosa despite Brereton repeatedly seeking those orders. The end result was that on his own initiative Brereton ordered his planes into the air to avoid them being destroyed on the ground, but unfortunately the Japanese attacked while the bulk of his force was refuelling and destroyed half of his bomber force in the first strike. Given that these new planes had been sent to the Philippines to bolster its defences after the high command altered its original view that the Philippines wouldn’t be defended beyond their original resources, this was a double loss. Mac duly rewarded Brereton by sacking him once they got to Australia, probably because he didn’t want him around to remind people of Mac’s gross failings.
An equally bad failing was the inexplicable positioning of about half his force’s food supply in the path of the Japanese advance. The Japanese captured it and had extra food, while the defenders in Bataan and Corregidor were starving, which badly hampered their ability to fight and ensured the collapse of the defence earlier than it would otherwise have occurred.
An interesting sideline is that one of the reasons Tojo ordered Gen Homma to defeat the Fil / American forces rather than leave them bottled up and starving was because some American broadcasters and journalists were gloating publicly about the defence. Tojo couldn’t abide the loss of face implicit in their gloating.
Another interesting sideline is that the Bataan death march was in many respects due to Japanese underestimates of the number of defenders and bad planning and administration by the Japanese rather than an overall policy of brutality, although that little creep Colonel Tsuji certainly did his best to implement a brutal policy and with a fair amount of success. http://www.philippine-scouts.org/Articles/TheCausesoftheBataanDeathMarchRevisited.doc
In fairness to Mac, he resisted the orders to leave but eventually took the view that it was his duty to obey. He might have resisted further if he didn’t have the opportunity to save his wife and the son upon whom he doted.
Mac’s worst failing during the Philippines campaign were failing to exercise command in the crucial early hours, and in particular failing to give the pre-determined orders to Gen Brereton to launch bomber raids on Formosa despite Brereton repeatedly seeking those orders. The end result was that on his own initiative Brereton ordered his planes into the air to avoid them being destroyed on the ground, but unfortunately the Japanese attacked while the bulk of his force was refuelling and destroyed half of his bomber force in the first strike. Given that these new planes had been sent to the Philippines to bolster its defences after the high command altered its original view that the Philippines wouldn’t be defended beyond their original resources, this was a double loss. Mac duly rewarded Brereton by sacking him once they got to Australia, probably because he didn’t want him around to remind people of Mac’s gross failings.
An equally bad failing was the inexplicable positioning of about half his force’s food supply in the path of the Japanese advance. The Japanese captured it and had extra food, while the defenders in Bataan and Corregidor were starving, which badly hampered their ability to fight and ensured the collapse of the defence earlier than it would otherwise have occurred.
An interesting sideline is that one of the reasons Tojo ordered Gen Homma to defeat the Fil / American forces rather than leave them bottled up and starving was because some American broadcasters and journalists were gloating publicly about the defence. Tojo couldn’t abide the loss of face implicit in their gloating.
Another interesting sideline is that the Bataan death march was in many respects due to Japanese underestimates of the number of defenders and bad planning and administration by the Japanese rather than an overall policy of brutality, although that little creep Colonel Tsuji certainly did his best to implement a brutal policy and with a fair amount of success. http://www.philippine-scouts.org/Articles/TheCausesoftheBataanDeathMarchRevisited.doc
You are incorrect. Japanese Marines did make landings on Wake Island, and they were savaged by the US Marine garrison. The first wave of Japanese Naval Infantry was almost completely wiped out. In fact, they raised the battle ensigns which confused the US commander (who had his communications cut) into thinking the Japanese were far more successful. He only realized most of the Japanese marines that raised the flags were dead after he decided to surrender.
Correct. But I believe MacArthur also failed to launch his fighters in the early, crucial hours after Pearl Harbor.
McArthur should have been sacked for letting the Japanese destroy U.S. Airpower at Clark Field! He had a full 24 hrs notice after the attack on Pearl Harbor, yet he did not remove the planes to a safe airfield.
Not to mention Korea.
If you re-read my post I think you’ll find I’m correct. I was referring to the first attempted Japanese landing on 11 December 1941 which was repulsed by US land based guns damaging and driving off the invasion fleet before they landed. It was the only time that any Allied force managed that feat in WWII.
That is exactly the period I was talking about. MacArthur didn’t get a second chance to lose half his air force (which at the time was the largest outside the continental USA) because he lost it on the first day of the war by going off the air.
Fighters weren’t the issue. A substantial force of B-17’s had been stationed there for the principal purpose of responding immediately if Japan went to war against America. Formosa was the intended target and bombers should have been launched within a few hours of Pearl Harbor.
If Mac had been allowed to fight Korea the way he wanted, he might have won. He was opposed to the notion of a limited war, and was proved right in Korea and Vietnam. His view was that if you fight, you fight all-out to win. The politicians lost Korea, not Mac, just as they lost Vietnam. Admittedly there were wider international political considerations in each case, which only demonstrates the futility of “limited” wars, and which Mac ignored. Mac pushed his luck politically in Korea, but I think he was right so far as not fighting limited wars goes.
Well, that seems to have exploded a few myths. Aching to see what you all will do to Patton and Montgomery. 
Monty’s safe. He could be a petty little prick, like most famous generals, but he did his job well.
Patton is pretty safe too. He was a fighting general, and did his job well. The popular mind remembers him for that stupid slapping incident rather than the serious work he did in WWII, and more of which he would have done if not forced to be the commander of a diversionary army early in the advance from Normandy.
The differences between those two successful generals and Mac are that Mac had a spectacular failure in the Philippines which, courtesy of his carefully controlled censorship and personal publicity machine, was magically wiped from the popular mind and replaced by the “I shall return” rubbish. It never seems to enter the popular mind to ask why, if he was so bloody good, he didn’t win while he was there the first time, having had years in command of the Philippines forces to prepare for the Japanese threat that planners had anticipated since the early twenties and having the best bomber force outside the US which was lost due to his early inaction and incompetence. That early inaction might well have been due to divided loyalties to his obligations as a US commander and his desires as a recent former Philippines supreme commander with strong links to the Philippines to refrain from action which might have dragged the Philippines unnecessarily into the war. Or maybe he was just in a blue funk, this being the first time he had had to deal with anything remotely on this scale.
During the SWPA Mac was, unlike his crucial early Philippines time, a very comptent commander. Contrary to the “Dugout Doug” slur he did not lack personal courage. To the consternation of his subordinates, he exposed himself unnecessarily to fire at various times in the SWPA campaign in the best traditions of leadership under fire. He probably genuinely cared for his men and did his best to make sure they were properly supplied. He also expected the best of his men, and would not accept less than consistently good performance from them or their commanders (none of which commanders ever got remotely near his lousy early performance in the Philippines).
I’m not sure that he was the brilliant general many admirers claim. He wasn’t the only one bypassing Japanese garrisons on the way to Japan. It’s also questionable whether the SWPA campaign was critical to the defeat of Japan, and whether the forces employed in it might have been better used in support of the central Pacific thrust.
Mac was also a petty, vindictive, self-seeking, self-aggrandising, power-seeking, publicity-seeking, relentlessly self-promoting and arrogant bastard who could always be relied upon to sacrifice someone else if he looked like being in trouble, while at the same time being loyal to those loyal to him. In other words, he was just a normal politician who, like many very senior commanders, just happened to be in uniform.
Anyone wanting a comprehensive and reasonably balanced (although not completely balanced) account of Mac should read William Manchester’s “American Caesar”. Manchester served as a US Marine in the Pacific and recounted his and his comrades’ experiences in “Goodbye Darkness”.
Does it mean if Washington let him to use nucler wearpon against N.Korea in 1951 he could won the Korean war?
For me this madman could easy began the Third world war couse his own ambitions. Considering the limited war IMO it was forces mean not to let the new world war.
I think nuking North Korea, and China, and the USSR in 1951 would have gone a long way to ensuring a US - sorry, UNO 
- win in Korea.
More seriously, Mac went, or was prepared to go, too far. From a political viewpoint. From a military viewpoint, where his task was to win a war, it made sense to take the same step that had won the war against Japan just six years earlier.
I was just making the point that I think he was right that limited wars are a stupid idea, as Korea, Vietnam, and most recently the 2006 Israeli incursion into Lebanon demonstrate. All they do is antagonise one side without defeating it and, usually, make them more determined to keep fighting without doing anything to defeat them so they can’t fight any more.
Nobody would think it made sense for the Allies to agree that they would fight Japan in WWII but not go past, say, a line from Luzon in the Philippines to Iwo Jima to Atta Island in the Aleutians and, worse, announce it to the world at large and to the enemy in particular. It’s a self-evidently stupid way to try to win a war, and it would never have brought Japan to surrender. Nonetheless, a lot of politicians since WWII seem to think that it makes perfect sense to get into a war and then draw a line beyond which their troops can’t go to get the enemy where he lives, to avoid drawing the enemy’s friends into the conflict. If they’re not prepared to fight a full war with the enemy and, if necessary, his friends, they shouldn’t start it in the first place. All wars are a waste of life and everything else, but limited wars are an even bigger waste as they never finally resolve the conflict.
Just to explode the myths about who exploded the myth about Japanese invincibility, here is a summary of the three events that are contenders.
11 December 1941. Wake Island. US Marine shore gunners drive back a Japanese invasion force before it can land. Landing abandoned. This was the only time this ever happened in the war with Japan. Wake was invaded later in December so it was only a temporary victory, like Australians at Gemas in Malaya in early 1942 and various other actions that won an important action in a longer battle or campaign but ultimately didn’t change the result.
20 August 1942, Tenaru River, Guadalcanal. US Marines killed all of the 1,000 Japanese landing force (actually, only 999, because the Japanese C.O., Colonel Ichiki, committed seppuku while kneeling with the remaining twenty or so Japanese in the final moments). This was the first defeat of a Japanese landing force. It did not, however, decide the Guadalcanal campaign which went on until early 1943 as the Japanese landed further and larger forces.
6 September 1942, Milne Bay, Papua. About 600 Japanese survivors of a landing force of about 2,000 were evacuated by the IJN. The rest were killed by the Australian force which defeated the landing force in battles following the landing nearly a fortnight earlier This was the first time a Japanese landing force had been defeated and forced to withdraw. It was the first time the Japanese had been prevented from achieving their objective, being control of Milne Bay.
Inchon was mac’s greatest gamble, and it paid off. But the last thing we needed at that time was a full scale war with China and Russia. He messed up here in Korea by sending everyone up to the Yalu, while ignoring intelligence reports about many Chinese troops. The only thing that saved the day was the Marines and their fighting withdrawal to Hunghnam. The Marine General went slow, made sure he had airfields up the MSR. The Army really screwed up here. It was Mac and General Almond I believe. It was almost time for Mac to go.
Just to redress the balance a little. The Royal Marine Commandos made a huge contribution as the rear-guard.
[b]This is starting to become more and more about the Korean war. Might have to split this one to Korean War section. MacArthur and the Korean war.
Try to stick to what he did during WW2.
Thanks!
[/b]
One of the most revealing events about Mac was when he sent Gen Robert Eichelberger to Buna in Papua in late 1942 to fix up the shambles with the ill-trained, under-supplied and poorly led US National Guard 32nd Division which had pretty much given up fighting. Mac told him, in effect, to win or die there but that, what the publicity-obsessed and publicity-controlling Mac thought was an incentive, if he won he would release Eichelberger’s name to the press. See Eichelberger’s book “Our Jungle Road to Tokyo”.
Also
The War in the Pacific, 1941-1945
There is considerable analysis of mistakes made, the lessons to be learnt, the importance of good leadership and the crucial part Eichelberger played in these campaigns, often leading troops in the front line himself. Nowhere was this more in evidence than during the Buna campaign. General MacArthur, with his own position in some doubt, badly needed a land victory against the Japanese. He sent Eichelberger to take over command at Buna with the following instructions:"I want you to go to Buna and capture it. If you do not do so I don’t want you to come out alive and (pointing at Byers, Lt. General Eichelberger’s Chief of Staff) that applies to your Chief of Staff also. Do you understand Bob ! "
MacArthur continued:
"Time is of the essence ! I want you to relieve Harding, Bob. Send him back to America. If you don’t do it, I will. Relieve every regimental and battalion commander. Put corporals in command if necessary. Get somebody who will fight. When do you want to start, Bob ! "
Eichelberger replied that he would leave after breakfast next morning.
Buna was the first victorious operation by American Army ground forces against the Japanese. When it came to writing his detailed report, immediately after Buna, Eichelberger told the Buna Task Force Liaison Officer at General MacArthur’s headquarters:
“Write the damn thing so that whoever fights in the jungle in the future will learn from our mistakes and our successes.”
The liaison officer, R M White, recalls:
“The 32nd Division had been inspected by I Corps and rated not ready for combat. MacArthur’s only other division, the 42nd, was also inspected and rated less ready than the 32nd. General MacArthur had been told that he might be relieved if he faltered in his return north. Yet, he was convinced the Buna operation was necessary so he ordered it. The 32nd Division had been shipped out from the states before being reorganized as were other guard divisions back in the states. It was not properly equipped. The officers and men had no idea - I repeat, no idea - of what the jungle was like and the professional skill of the enemy - basically Japanese Marines with an outstanding combat record going back to Malaya…When Eichelberger took over, whole units were already reduced to fractions of their TO strength… The shortage of officers was most severe…We were losing when Eichelberger took over. He led our forces to victory. Perhaps it is not a well-known victory because our casualties, including a part of the sick, totalled 10,960 compared with a counted enemy dead of about 2,600. Yet, it was a historic victory.”
http://www.ampltd.co.uk/collections_az/JapanAm-1-1/description.aspx
Apart from trying to impress Washington, what really pissed Mac off about Buna was that he had disparaged Australian troops in their performance on Kokoda and elsewhere, extolling the supremacy of American troops, in dealings with the Australian commander, and Mac’s land commander, Gen Thomas Blamey. The first time American troops, being the 32nd Div, under Mac’s command came into contact with the Japanese they largely failed. Worse, they were fighting in the Buna - Gona - Sanananda Japanese beachhead which the Australians had reached by repelling Gen Horii’s force over Kokoda and reducing and eventually defeating them at Gona and Sanananda by themselves, while the US Army fell apart at Buna until Eichelberger arrived and performed the prodigious feat of turning the remnants of the 32nd Div into a better fighting force than the original full Division had been.
I should have added
Victory on Guadalcanal brought important strategic gains to the Americans and their Pacific allies but at high cost. Combined with the American-Australian victory at Buna on New Guinea, success in the Solomons turned back the Japanese drive toward Australia and staked out a strong base from which to continue attacks against Japanese forces, especially those at Rabaul, the enemy’s main base in the South Pacific. Most important for future operations in the Pacific, the Americans had stopped reacting to Japanese thrusts and taken the initiative themselves. These gains cost the Americans 1,592 killed in action and 4,183 wounded, with thousands more disabled for varying periods by disease. Entering the campaign after the amphibious phase, the two Army divisions lost 550 killed and 1,289 wounded. For the Japanese, losses were even more traumatic: 14,800 killed in battle, another 9,000 dead from disease, and about 1,000 taken prisoner. On Guadalcanal General Hyakutake’s troops gave American fighting men a chilling introduction to the character of the Japanese soldier: willing to fight to the death rather than surrender. Both navies lost twenty-four ships during the campaign but with a smaller industrial base to replace them, Japanese losses were more significant. Even more costly to Japan was the loss of over six hundred aircraft and pilots.
http://www.army.mil/cmh/brochures/72-8/72-8.htm
Leaving aside the quoted American centred focus on Buna in Papua (not New Guinea, fer chrissake!)which happened to be where the Americans fought while the American army historians conveniently ignore Gona about ten miles away where the Australians fought and defeated the Japanese earlier than at Buna, as they had on Kokoda and at Milne Bay (injured national pride correction ends here ), the fact is that Guadalcanal was the first major and sustained campaign on land, sea and air against the Japanese. It was the first complete defeat of the Japanese on a defined piece of land, being the Guadalcanal island, which was the object of a campaign rather than a landing as part of a campaign. The Australians, and Americans, fought in Papua New Guinea (They’re two separate territories - three if you want to include Dutch New Guinea) from mid-1942 until the end of the war without expelling or defeating the Japanese as the American Marines and Army did at Guadalcanal.
There is no comparison between any of the earlier events and Guadalcanal. It was the first campaign defeat of the Japanese. And a fine run thing it was, too.