Douglas McArthur - "I shall return"

In the months following Pearl Harbor, America’s top military and naval leaders discussed priorities. It was clear that Adolf Hitler (Number l) had to be defeated first. Japan would have its turn, but what should be done about the Pacific in the meantime? Which islands had to be held, and which could be sacrificed? Two of the main areas of concern were Australia and the Philippines. Ernest J.King (Number 20) told President Roosevelt (Number 2) that the key base should be Australia. Eisenhower (Number 7), who had only recently served in the Philippines, told Marshall (Number 5) the same thing. The Philippine garrison was to hold out as long as possible, but it could not be reinforced. Without such help, it would fall.

This was a bitter pill for Douglas MacArthur, the head of U.S. forces in the Far East. Headquartered in Manila, he had hoped that the Philippines could, with adequate supplies, be defended and held. MacArthur was ordered to leave the Philippines for Australia, where he would take command. Upon leaving the Philippines, he promised, “I shall return.” It would take him two and a half years to get back.

During that interval, MacArthur would never give up his fight to keep a focus on the war in the Pacific. He was especially determined to make good on his pledge. From escaped prisoners of war he heard of the infamous Bataan Death March, when thousands of American and Filipino prisoners had been shot and bayoneted by Japanese troops. He also heard of horrendous conditions in the Japanese prison camps. These reports infuriated him and strengthened his resolve to return. It was not rhetoric, but a matter of honor. 

Born to Serve His Country

Douglas MacArthur was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1880. The son of General Arthur MacArthur, a decorated hero of the Civil War, Douglas attended West Point. He graduated at the top of his class in 1903. MacArthur was promoted rapidly, serving in the Philippines and Japan and as an aide to President Theodore Roosevelt. Before the United States entered World War I, he was on the general staff. In 1917, Colonel MacArthur served with the 42nd “Rainbow” Division, where he became chief of staff. As a brigadier general, he commanded his own battalion and was decorated many times for heroism in battle. By war’s end, he was a major general. He became Superintendent of West Point and held other posts before his appointment to U.S. Army Chief of Staff in 1930, when the Great Depression was beginning.

In the summer of 1932, MacArthur was at the head of hundreds of infantry and cavalrymen ordered to disperse the “Bonus Army.” The Bonus Army was a group of unemployed veterans of World War I who had come to Washington with their families to petition Congress for early payment of a promised bonus. Though the bonus was to be paid 10 years hence, they needed the money now. Some veterans squatted in unoccupied government buildings; others built shacks in Anacostia, in the southeast section of the District of Columbia. President Hoover ordered that the occupied government buildings be cleared. There is still debate on whether MacArthur went beyond his orders by tearing down and setting fire to the shacks in Anacostia, but the Bonus Army was dispersed.

A Pledge to Return

In 1935, MacArthur became High Commissioner of the Philippines. He also took on the post of military adviser to the Philippine government. In mid-1941, as tensions rose between the United States and Japan, the Philippine and American armies were combined into one, with MacArthur as its head.

Hours after Pearl Harbor was attacked, MacArthur’s air force was virtually destroyed on the ground by the Japanese. With most of the American Pacific fleet crippled and its planes decimated, the Philippines were vulnerable to a Japanese invasion. It came in a matter of days. Within weeks, Manila would fall to the enemy. The situation was hopeless.MacArthur was ordered to leave the islands for Australia to take command in the Southwest Pacific. It was on his arrival there in March 1942 that he pledged to return to the Philippines.

Some strategists were ready to concede part of northern Australia to the Japanese. MacArthur insisted on taking the offensive and achieved important victories on the island of New Guinea. MacArthur demonstrated what he could accomplish with the little he had. He knew that as long as he could achieve victories, he could keep alive the hope of liberating the Philippines.

At one point in the war, serious consideration was given to bypassing the Philip-pines and invading Formosa (Taiwan) instead. MacArthur lobbied Roosevelt as force-fully as he could for reconquest of the Philippines, and he won. In October 1944, Americans went ashore on the island of Leyte. In a matter of months, most of the Philippine islands were set free.

The End of a War and the Beginning of the Nuclear Age

As the European war began winding down, more attention was focused on the Pacific. Supported by a naval fleet now in fighting form, the Allied forces and the Marines hopped from one island to the next, closing in on Japan.

The battle to take Okinawa was costly and bloody. It lasted from the beginning of April to the end of June 1945. More than 48,000 Americans were killed or wounded. The battle set the stage for the invasion of Japan. Then, on August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Two days later, Nagasaki became the second Japanese city to succumb to an atomic bomb. The war was over. On September 2, 1945, on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri, Japanese officials signed the final surrender. Although the United States had originally called for “unconditional surrender,” there was one important exception: Hirohito (Number 49) would remain as emperor, but subject to the orders of the Supreme Commander, MacArthur.

The five-star general would democratize Japan, bring the vote to its women, restore its industry, and lead it back to the community of nations.

But atrocities committed by Japanese forces in the Philippines would neither be for-given nor forgotten. Masaharu Homma (Number 45) would be tried for the Bataan Death March and Tomoyuki Yamashita (Number 58) for massacres during the American retaking of the Philippines. Both would be executed. In addition, not a single Japanese soldier would survive from the Japanese 16th Division, which had conducted the Death March.

The Question of Korea 

The end of World War II saw many changes on the world map. Korea, which had been occupied by the Japanese for many years, was separated at the 38th parallel into a Communist North Korea and a democratic South Korea. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations raised an international force to stop the aggression. MacArthur was put in command of the operation. His brilliant performance, marked by the Inchon landings, stopped the North Korean forces. When the Chinese Communists entered the war in support of North Korea, MacArthur called for an expansion of the war to meet the new military situation.

In public statements and private letters made public, MacArthur took issue with the policies of President Truman (Number 14), his commander in chief. MacArthur was fired. It set off a political firestorm in the United States, and congressional hearings were held. MacArthur contended that the United Nations should deprive Red China of its “privileged sanctuary” and that “there is no substitute for victory.” But Marshall would argue that a war on the Chinese mainland would be “the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place and against the wrong enemy.” A truce between the two Koreas would result.MacArthur retired, wrote his memoirs, and became a corporate executive. He died in 1964.