MacArthur's contribution to Pearl Harbor

World War II American Military
#21

Mate, Oz blokes shag sheilas without expecting anything in exchange, and we don’t limit ourselves to London. :wink: :smiley:

That abomination, with ‘shrimp’ substituted for ‘prawn’ for the US marketing tourist ads best forgotten, was bullshit. I have been to and hosted countless barbeques. Nobody in their right mind barbeques prawns, with the occasional exception of a swag of them on a skewer, because they’re not worth the effort compared with the following.

Boil a heap of raw prawns and eat them when they’ve cooled, with the choices of, starting with the best and ending with the worst, but there is no accounting for tastes: 1. As is, with beer. 2. Seafood cocktail sauce, with beer 3. Vietnamese / Thai dipping sauce, with beer 4. Bread and butter, with beer 5. Any or all of the foregoing, with beer.

As for deveining them, I can’t be bothered. I’ve eaten enough prawn shit to determine whether or not it affects the taste or my health, and the answer is that it doesn’t. But it saves a lot of time by not deveining them, so I get a lot more prawns into me compared with the delicate no-shit eaters if we’re attacking a communal pile.

Prawns are in marked contrast to oysters, which taste differently but are equally good: 1. As is, with beer 2. With lemon juice / Worcestershire sauce / tomato sauce combinations, with beer 3. Kilpatrick, with beer.

#22

This raises an interesting issue.

Hawaii was a straightforward US command for the army and navy with the usual lines of command responsibility back to the US.

The Philippines were a bastardised mix of MacArthur in his various incarnations at various times as head of the Philippine forces and US forces, with split lines of responsibility to the Philippines government and the US military command.

The Philippines structure allowed MacArthur degrees of flexibility and freedom from direction from standard US lines of command which wasn’t the case in Hawaii, which he exercised to impress his own stamp on the forces under him.

So the Philippines disaster was much more his own achievement than Pearl Harbor could ever be attributed to any individual US commander there.

Yet he emerged as a hero after fleeing the failure he wrought in the full knowledge that the Philippines was almost certain to be attacked when Japan went to war, while the poor bastards who had the misfortune to be in command at Pearl which nobody thought was likely to be attacked ended up with their careers in tatters.

#23

And just for the sake of an antidote to MacArthur as the self-promoting blowhard, here is the exact opposite: http://www.danielsww2.com/JimmyStewart.html

#24

@ Rising Sun* – I’ll drop the issue of whether Aussies, Irish, and British all speak the same language, guessing either my point was made (or not). And I’ll thank you for sharing the prawn recipe – though in my case, it’s wasted. I’ve an allergy to shellfish. It’s the thought that counts? :wink:

#25

It is a little known “fact” that MacArthur had terrible eyesight and could not distinguish between his reflection the mirror and God.

There were/are many Americans who worship(ped) this man, but they were/are wrong then and are wrong now if they continue to do so. MacArthur, incidentally, single handedly prevented his abandoned successor in the Philippines, General Wainwright, from receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor. Thank God Truman fired him and that MacArthur finally “faded away”.

#26

:mrgreen: