Douglas
MacArthur, the son of the high-ranking military figure, Arthur MacArthur,
was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on 26th January, 1880. Although
previously a poor scholar, in 1903 MacArthur graduated first in his
93-man class, at West Point Military Academy.
Commissioned in the Corps of the Engineers, MacArthur was sent by
the United States Army to the Philippines
and by 1904 had been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. Later
that year he joined his father who was serving in Far East before
becoming aide-de-camp to President Theodore
Roosevelt in 1906.
MacArthur
was assigned to general staff duty with the War Department and was
an official observer with the Vera Cruz Expedition. On the advice
of General Leonard Wood, MacArthur was promoted
to major.
In
the First World War MacArthur commanded the
42nd Division on the Western Front and
was decorated 13 times and cited seven additional times for bravery.
Promoted the the rank of brigadier in August, 1918, three months later
he became the youngest divisional commander in France.
After the war MacArthur returned to the United States
where he became brigadier general and the youngest ever superintendent
of West Point in its 117 year history.
Over the next three years he doubled its size and modernized the curriculum.
In
1922 MacArthur was sent to the Philippines
where he commanded the newly established Military District of Manila.
At the age of forty-three MacArthur became the army's youngest general
and in 1928 was appointed president of the American Olympic Committee.
MacArthur
was appointed chief of staff of the US Army
in 1930. Once again he was the youngest man to hold the office and
over the next few years attempted to modernize America's army of 135,000
men. MacArthur developed right-wing political views and at one meeting
argued that: "Pacifism and its bedfellow, Communism, are all
about us. Day by day this cancer eats deeper into the body politic."
In
June 1932, MacArthur, controversially used tanks, four troops of cavalry
with drawn sabers, and infantry with fixed bayonets, on the Bonus
Army in Washington. He justified his attack on former members
of the United States Army by claiming that
the country was on the verge of a communist revolution. Dwight
D. Eisenhower and George Patton also
took part in this operation.
The
radical journalist, Drew Pearson, was
highly critical of MacArthur's actions. MacArthur's ex-wife, Louise
Cromwell, provided Pearson with confidential information about her
former husband. This included the story that MacArthur's promotion
to major general had come through the political intervention of her
father, Edward T. Stotesbury. After publishing the story Pearson found
himself being sued by MacArthur for $1,750,000.
Pearson
looked to be in trouble when Louise Cromwell refused to testify in
court. After receiving a tip-off from one of his contacts, Pearson
met MacArthur's young mistress who had been dispatched back to the
Philippines. She handed over a collection of his love letters. Pearson
then used these letters to persuade MacArthur to withdraw his libel
action.
In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt
sent MacArthur to organize the defence of the Philippines.
He retired from the army in 1937 but stayed on the island where he
became the country's military adviser.
When
negotiations with the Japanese government broke down in June 1941,
Roosevelt recalled MacArthur to active duty as a major general and
was granted $10 million to mobilize the Philippine Army. It was also
decided to send MacArthur 100 B-17 Flying Fortress
to help defend the Philippines.
Most
of MacArthur's troops were deployed to protect the two main islands
of Luzon and Mindanao and by October 1941, MacArthur informed General
George Marshall that
he now had 135,000 troops, 227 assorted fighters, bombers and reconnaissance
aircraft and this provided a "tremendously strong offensive and
defensive force" and claimed that the Philippines was now the
"key or base point of the US defence line."
The
Japanese Air Force attacked the
US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on the
7th December 1941. The following day they carried out air strikes
on the Philippines and destroyed half of MacArthur's air force. MacArthur
was much criticized for this as he had been told to move his airforce
after the raid on Hawaii the previous day.
The Japanese
Army also invaded the Philippines and they soon held the three
air bases in northern Luzon. On 22nd December the 14th Army landed
at Lingayen Gulf and quickly gained control of Manila from the inexperienced
Filipino troops. Although only 57,000 Japanese soldiers were landed
on Luzon it had little difficulty capturing the island.
General
Douglas MacArthur
now ordered a general retreat to the Bataan peninsula. A series of
Japanese assaults forced the US defensive lines back and on 22nd February,
1942, MacArthur was ordered to leave Bataan and go to Australia.
General Jonathan Wainright remained
behind with 11,000 soldiers and managed to hold out until the beginning
of May.
The
American forces were re-organized and MacArthur was appointed Supreme
Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area and Admiral Chester
Nimitz became Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Fleet. Along
with Admiral Ernest King Commander-in-Chief
of the US Navy, Macarthur and Nimitz, decided that their first objective
should be to establish and protect a line of communications across
the South Pacific to Australia. This resulted in the battles of Coral
Sea and Midway, where the Japanese
Navy lost all four of her carriers.
In the
summer of 1942 fighting in the Pacific was concentrated around Rabaul,
the key Japanese military and air base in the Soloman
Islands. On 7th August there was an Allied landings at Guadalcanal.
Over the next eight months there were ten major land battles and seven
major naval engagements in this area.
MacArthur
now developed what became known as his island hopping tactics. This
strategy involved amphibious landings
on vulnerable islands, therefore bypassing Japanese troop concentrations
on fortified islands. This had the advantage of avoiding frontal assaults
and thus reducing the number of American casualties.
By the
spring of 1944, 100,000 Japanese soldiers were cut off at Rabaul and
the Japanese 18th Army were surrounded in New
Guinea. In September US troops took Morotai and all of New Guinea
was now in Allied hands.
It was
not until 1944 that MacArthur was given permission to begin the campaign
to recapture the Philippines. The first objective was the capture
of Leyte, an island situated between Luzon
and Mindanao. After a two day naval bombardment General Walter
Krueger and the 6th Army landed on 22nd October, 1944.
This was
followed by Leyte Gulf, the largest naval
engagement in history. It was a decisive victory for the Allies with
the Japanese Navy lost four carriers,
three battleships and ten cruisers. It was now clear that the US
Navy now had control of the Pacific and that further Allied landings
in the region were likely to be successful.
After bitter
fighting the US forces captured the important port of Ormoc on 10th
December. By the time Leyte was secured the US
Army had lost 3,500 men. It is estimated that over 55,000
Japanese soldiers were killed during the campaign.
On 9th
January 1945 Allied troops landed on Luzon, the largest of the islands
in the Philippines. The Japanese Army,
under General Tomoyuki Yamashita, fought
a vigorous rearguard action but within a month MacArthur
and his troops had crossed the Central Plain and were approaching
Manila. Yamashita and his main army now withdrew to the mountains
but left enough troops in Manila to make the capture of the city as
difficult as possible. An estimated 16,000 Japanese soldiers were
killed before it was taken on 4th March 1945.
General
Robert Eichelberger and the US 8th
Army landed on Mindanao on 10th March and began advancing through
the southern Philippines. This included the capture of Panay, Cebu,
Negros and Bohol.
MacArthur's
last amphibious operation was at Okinawa.
Lying just 563km (350 miles) from the Japanese mainland, it offered
excellent harbour, airfield and troop-staging facilities. It was a
perfect base from which to launch a major assault on Japan, consequently
it was well-defended, with 120,000 troops under General Mitsuru
Ushijima. The Japanese also committed some 10,000 aircraft to
defending the island.
After a
four day bombardment the 1,300 ship invasion forced moved into position
off the west coast of Okinawa
on 1st April
1945. The landing force, under the leadership of Lieutenant-General
Simon Buckner, initially totalled 155,000.
However, by the time the battle finished, more than 300,000 soldiers
were involved in the fighting. This made it comparable to the Normandy
landing in mainland Europe in June, 1944.
On the
first day 60,000 troops were put ashore against little opposition
at Haguushi. The following day two airfields were captured by the
Americans. However when the soldiers reached Shuri they came under
heavy fire and suffered heavy casualties.
Reinforced
by the 3rd Amphibious Corps and the 6th Marine Division the Americans
were able to repel a ferocious counter-attack by General Mitsuru
Ushijima on 4th May. At sea off Okinawa
a 700 plane
kamikaze raid
on 6th April sunk and damaged 13 US destroyers. The giant battleship,
Yamato, lacking sufficient fuel
for a return journey, was also sent out on a suicide mission and was
sunk on 7th May.
On 11th
May, Lieutenant-General Simon Buckner,
ordered another offensive on the Shuri defences, and the Japanese
were finally forced to withdraw. Buckner was killed on 18th June and
three days later his replacement, General Roy
Geiger, announced that the island had finally been taken. When
it was clear that he had been defeated, Mitsuru
Ushijima committed ritual suicide (hari-kiri).
The capture
of Okinawa cost
the Americans 49,000 in casualties of whom 12,520 died. More than
110,000 Japanese were killed on the island. While the island was being
prepared for the invasion of Japan, a B-29 Superfortress
bomber dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima
on 6th August 1945. Japan did not surrender immediately and a second
bomb was dropped on Nagasaki
three days later. On 10th August the Japanese surrendered and the
Second World War was over.
MacArthur
was named Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and he received
the formal surrender and President Harry S.
Truman appointed him as head of the Allied occupation of Japan.
He was given responsibility of organizing the war crimes tribunal
in Japan and was criticized for his treatment
of Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was executed
23rd February, 1946. However he was praised for successfully encouraging
the creation of democratic institutions, religious freedom, civil
liberties, land reform, emancipation of women and the formation of
trade unions.
On the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950,
MacArthur was appointed commander of the United
Nations forces. The surprise character of the attack enabled the
North Koreans to occupy all the South, except for the area around
the port of Pusan. On 15th September, 1950, MacArthur landed American
and South Korean marines at Inchon, 200 miles behind the North Korean
lines. The following day he launched a counterattack on the North
Koreans. When they retreated, MacArthur's forces carried the war northwards,
reaching the Yalu River, the frontier between Korea and China on 24th
October, 1950.
Harry S. Truman and Dean
Acheson, the Secretary of State, told MacArthur to limit the war
to Korea. MacArthur disagreed, favoring an attack on Chinese forces.
Unwilling to accept the views of Truman and Acheson, MacArthur began
to make inflammatory statements indicating his disagreements with
the United States government.
MacArthur gained support from right-wing members of the Senate such
as Joe McCarthy who led the attack on
Truman's administration: "With half a million Communists in Korea
killing American men, Acheson says, 'Now let's be calm, let's do nothing'.
It is like advising a man whose family is being killed not to take
hasty action for fear he might alienate the affection of the murders."
In April 1951, Harry S. Truman removed
MacArthur from his command of the United Nations
forces in Korea. McCarthy now called for
Truman to be impeached and suggested that the president was drunk
when he made the decision to fire MacArthur: "Truman is surrounded
by the Jessups, the Achesons, the old Hiss crowd. Most of the tragic
things are done at 1.30 and 2 o'clock in the morning when they've
had time to get the President cheerful."
On his arrival back in the United States MacArthur
led a campaign against Harry S. Truman
and his Democratic Party administration.
Soon after Dwight Eisenhower was elected
president in 1952 he consulted with MacArthur about the Korean
War. MacArthur's advice was the "atomic bombing of enemy
military concentrations and installations in North Korea" and
an attack on China. He rejected the advice and MacArthur played no
role in Eisenhower's new Republican
administration.
After leaving the United States Army, MacArthur
accepted a job as chairman of the board of the Remington Rand Corporation.
Douglas MacArthur died in the Water Reed Hospital, Washington,
on 5th April, 1964.
(1)
General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
made several references to Douglas
MacArthur in his diary during the
Second World War.
29th January, 1942: MacArthur has started a Hood of communications
that seem to indicate a refusal on his part to look facts in the face,
an old trait of his. He has talked about big naval concentrations;
he has forwarded (probably inspired) letter from Mr. Quezon; statements
(Quisling) from Aguinaldo; he complains about lack of unity of command,
about lack of information. He's jittery!
3rd February,
1942: Looks like MacArthur is losing his nerve. I'm hoping that his
yelps are just his way of spurring us on, but he is always an uncertain
factor. The Dutch want planes; the Australians want planes; ABDA has
to have planes; China must get them; the British need them in Near
East. What a mess!
8th February,
1942: Another long message on "strategy" to MacArthur. He
sent in one extolling the virtues of the flank offensive. Wonder what
he thinks we've been studying for all these years. His lecture would
have been good for plebes. Today another long wail from Quezon. I'll
have to wait though, because it is badly garbled. I think he wants
to give up.
23rd February,
1942: Message to MacArthur was approved by president and dispatched.
I'm dubious about the thing. I cannot help believing that we are disturbed
by editorials and reacting to "public opinion" rather than
to military logic. Watson is certain we must get MacArthur out, as
being worth "five army corps. " He is doing a good job where
he is, but I'm doubtful that he'd do so well in more complicated situations.
Bataan is made to order for him. It's in the public eye; it has made
him a public hero; it has all the essentials of drama; and he is the
acknowledged king on the spot. If brought out, public opinion will
force him into a position where his love of the limelight may ruin
him.
19th March,
1942: MacArthur is out of Philippine Islands. Now supreme commander
of "Southwest Pacific Area." The newspapers acclaim the
move - the public has built itself a hero out of its own imagination.
I hope he can do the miracles expected and predicted; we could use
a few now. Strange that no one sees the dangers. Some apply to MacArthur,
who could be ruined by it. But this I minimize; I know him too well.
The other danger is that we will move too heavily in the Southwest.
Urging us in that direction now will be: Australians, New Zealanders,
our public (wanting support for the hero), and MacArthur. If we tie
up our shipping for the SW Pacific, we'll lose this war.
(2)
General George Marshall to General
Douglas MacArthur after the Teheran Conference
in November 1943.
Admiral King claimed the Pacific as the rightful domain of the Navy;
he seemed to regard the operations there as almost his own private
war; he apparently felt that the only way to remove the blot on the
Navy disaster at Pearl Harbor was to have the Navy command a great
victory over Japan; he was adamant in his refusal to allow any major
fleet to be under other command than that of naval officers although
maintaining that naval officers were competent to command ground or
air forces; he resented the prominent part I had in the Pacific War;
he was vehement in his personal criticism of me and encouraged
Navy propaganda to that end; he had the complete support of the Secretary
of the Navy, Knox, the support in general principle of President Roosevelt
and his Chief of Staff, Admiral Leahy, and in many cases of General
Arnold, the head of the Air Force.
(3)
In his autobiography, Reminiscences, Douglas MacArthur describes
a meeting he had with President Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
I once again pointed outlaw necessary for the winning of the war was
the recapture of Luzon, and how simple it would be, once Manila Bay
and the northern part of Luzon were back in our hands, to deny Japan
the oil, rubber, and rice she was presently draining out of the conquered
areas along the shores of the South China Sea and farther south. The
President interrupted: "But Douglas, to take Luzon would demand
heavier losses than we can stand." "Mr. President,"
I replied, "my losses would not be heavy, anymore than they have
been in the past. The days of the frontal attack should be over. Modern
infantry weapons are too deadly, and frontal assault is only for mediocre
commanders. Good commanders do not turn in heavy losses."
I
sketched my own over-all plan for future operations in the South-west
Pacific. Once I held the Philippines, I would begin the reconquest
of the Dutch East Indies, using the Australian First Army for the
ground operations. Operating from the Philippines, I could sweep down
on these Japanese-held islands from the rear.
I
spoke of my esteem for Admiral King and his wise estimate of the importance
of the Pacific as a major element in the global picture, however I
might disagree with some of his strategic concepts.
Admiral
Leahy seemed to support what I said, and the President accepted my
recommendations and approved the Philippine plan.
(4)
General Douglas MacArthur wrote about the invasion
of the Philippines
in December 1941 in his autobiography, Reminiscences (1964).
At 3.40
on Sunday morning, December 8, 1941, Manila time, a long-distance
telephone call from Washington told me of the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, but no details were given. It was our strongest military position
in the Pacific. Its garrison was a mighty one, with America's best
aircraft on strongly defended fields, adequate warning systems, anti-aircraft
batteries, backed up by our Pacific Fleet. My first impression was
that the Japanese might well have suffered a serious setback.
We had
only one radar station operative and had to rely for air warning largely
on eye and ear. At 9:30 a.m. our reconnaissance planes reported a
force of enemy bombers over Lingayen Gulf heading toward Manila. Major
General Lewis H. Brereton, who had complete tactical control of the
Far East Air Force, immediately ordered pursuit planes up to intercept
them. But the enemy bombers veered off without contact.
When this
report reached me, I was still under the impression that the Japanese
had suffered a setback at Pearl Harbor, and their failure to close
in on me supported that belief. I therefore contemplated an air reconnaissance
to the north, using bombers with fighter protection, to ascertain
a true estimate of the situation and to exploit any possible weaknesses
that might develop on the enemy's front. But subsequent events quickly
and decisively changed my mind. I learned, to my astonishment, that
the Japanese had succeeded in their Hawaiian attack, and at 11:45
a report came in of an over- powering enemy formation closing in on
Clark Field. Our fighters went up to meet them, but our bombers were
slow in taking off and our losses were heavy. Our force was simply
too small to smash the odds against them.
(5)
William Leahy, I Was There (1950)
MacArthur was convinced that an occupation of the Philippines was
essential before any major attack in force should be made on Japanese-held
territory north of Luzon. The retaking of the Philippines seemed to
be a matter of great interest to him. He said that he had sufficient
ground and air forces for the operation and that his only additional
needs were landing-craft and naval support.
Nimitz
developed the Navy's plan of by-passing the Philippines and attacking
Formosa. He did not see that Luzon, including Manila Bay, had advantages
that were not possessed by other areas in the Philippines that could
be taken for a base at less cost in lives and material. As the discussions
progressed, however, the Navy Commander in the Pacific admitted that
developments might indicate a necessity for occupation of the Manila
area. Nimitz said that he had sufficient forces to carry out either
operation. It was highly pleasing and unusual to find two commanders
who were not demanding reinforcements.
Roosevelt
was at his best as he tactfully steered the discussion from one point
to another and narrowed down the area of disagreement between MacArthur
and Nimitz. The discussion remained on a friendly basis the entire
time, and in the end only a relatively minor difference remained -
that of an operation to retake the Philippine capital, Manila. This
was solved later, when the idea of beginning our Philippine invasion
at Leyte was suggested, studied and adopted.
(6)
The Manchester Guardian (21st
October, 1944)
General MacArthur's invasion forces have established three firm beachheads
on the east coast of the island of Leyte, in the Central Philippines,
and last night were reported to be pushing inland against stiffening
Japanese resistance. According to a broadcast from the Leyte area,
picked up in San Francisco. Tacloban airfield, on the north-eastern
tip of Leyte Island, has been captured.
Earlier
President Roosevelt announced in Washington that the operations are
going according to plan, with extremely light losses.
The Japanese
were taken by surprise because, as General MacArthur explained in
his announcement of the landing, they were expecting attacks on the
large island of Mindanao, south of Leyte. "The strategic results
of the capturing of the Philippines will be decisive." MacArthur
said. " To the south 500,000 men will be cut off without hope
of support and the culmination will be their destruction at the leisure
of the Allies."
Thus General
MacArthur has fulfilled the promise to return that the made two and
a half years ago when his forces left the Philippines. An American
broadcaster said that the Commander-in-Chief waded ashore with one
of the landing parties and quoted him as saying, "I will stay
for the duration now."
The President
of the Philippine Commonwealth, Sergio Osmena, with members of his
Cabinet, went with the American forces and already has established
the seat of government on Philippine soil.
(7)
In his memoirs General Douglas MacArthur wrote
about his first meeting with Emperor Hirohito
after the end of the Second World War.
Shortly
after my arrival in Tokyo, I was urged by members of my staff to summon
the Emperor to my headquarters as a show of power. I brushed the suggestions
aside. "To do so," I explained, "would be to outrage
the feelings of the Japanese people and make a martyr of the Emperor
in their eyes.
No, I shall
wait and in time the Emperor will voluntarily come to see me. In this
case, the patience of the East rather than the haste of the West will
best serve our purpose."
The Emperor
did indeed shortly request an interview. In cutaway, striped trousers,
and top hat, riding in his Daimler with the imperial grand chamberlain
facing him on the jump seat, Hirohito arrived at the embassy. I had,
from the start of the occupation, directed that there should be no
derogation in his treatment. Every honor due a sovereign was to be
his. I met him cordially, and recalled that I had at one time been
received by his father at the close of the Russo-Japanese War. He
was nervous and the stress of the past months showed plainly. I dismissed
everyone but his own interpreter, and we sat down before an open fire
at one end of the long reception hall.
I offered
him an American cigarette, which he took with thanks. I noticed how
his hands shook as I lighted it for him. I tried to make it as easy
for him as I could, but I knew how deep and dreadful must be his agony
of humiliation. I had an uneasy feeling he might plead his own cause
against indictment as a war criminal. There had been considerable
outcry from some of the Allies, notably the Russians and the British,
to include him in this category. Indeed, the initial list of those
proposed by them was headed by the Emperor's name. Realizing the tragic
consequences that would follow such an unjust action, I had stoutly
resisted such efforts. When Washington seemed to be veering toward
the British point of view, I had advised that I would need at least
one million reinforcements should such action be taken. I believed
that if the Emperor were indicted, and perhaps hanged, as a war criminal,
military government would have to be instituted throughout all Japan,
and guerrilla warfare would probably break out. The Emperor's name
had then been stricken from the list. But of all this he knew nothing.
But my
fears were groundless. What he said was this: "I come to you,
General MacArthur, to offer myself to the judgment of the powers you
represent as the one to bear sole responsibility for every political
and military decision made and action taken by my people in the conduct
of war." A tremendous impression swept me. This courageous assumption
of a responsibility implicit with death, a responsibility clearly
belied by facts of which I was fully aware, moved me to the very marrow
of my bones. He was an - Emperor by inherent birth, but in that instant
I knew I faced the First Gentleman of Japan in his own right.
(8)
List of reforms that General Douglas MacArthur
submitted to Emperor Hirohito
and his Japanese government in October 1945.
1. The
emancipation of the women of Japan through their enfranchisement -
that, being members of the body politic, they may bring to Japan a
new concept of government directly subservient to the well-being of
the home.
2. The
encouragement of the unionization of labor-that it may have an influential
voice in safeguarding the working man from exploitation and abuse,
and raising his living standard to a higher level.
3. The
institution of such measures as may be necessary to correct the evils
which exist in the child labor practices.
4. The
opening of the schools to more liberal education-that the people may
shape their future progress from factual knowledge and benefit from
an understanding of a system under which government becomes the servant
rather than the master of the people.
5. The
abolition of systems which through secret inquisition and abuse have
held the people in constant fear-substituting therefor a system of
justice designed to afford the people protection against despotic,
arbitrary and unjust methods. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech,
freedom of religion must be maintained. Regimentation of the masses
under the guise or claim of efficiency, under whatever name of government
it may be made, must cease.
6. The
democratization of Japanese economic institutions to the end that
monopolistic industrial controls be revised through the development
of methods which tend to insure a wide distribution of income and
ownership of the means of production and trade.
7. In the
immediate administrative field take vigorous and prompt action by
the government with reference to housing, feeding and clothing the
population in order to prevent pestilence, disease, starvation or
other major social catastrophe. The coming winter will be critical
and the only way to meet its difficulties is by
the full employment in useful work of everyone.
(9)
General Douglas MacArthur wrote a report for
Harry S. Truman where he advocated that
Tomoyuki
Yamashita should be tried as a war criminal
(March, 1946).
It is
not easy for me to pass penal judgment upon a defeated adversary in
a major military campaign. I have reviewed the proceedings in vain
search for some mitigating circumstances on his behalf. I can find
none. Rarely has so cruel and wanton a record been spread to public
gaze. Revolting as this may be in itself, it pales before the sinister
and far reaching implication thereby attached to the profession of
arms. The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection
of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his
being.
When he
violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult but
threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions
of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest
of human traits-sacrifice. This officer, of proven field merit, entrusted
with high command involving authority adequate to responsibility,
has failed this irrevocable standard; has failed his duty to his troops,
to his country, to his enemy, to mankind; has failed utterly his soldier
faith. The transgressions resulting therefrom as revealed by the trial
are a blot upon the military profession, a stain upon civilization
and constitute a memory of shame and dishonor that can never be forgotten.
Peculiarly callous and purposeless was the sack of the ancient city
of Manila, with its Christian population and its countless historic
shrines and monuments of culture and civilization, which with campaign
conditions reversed had previously been spared.
It is appropriate
here to recall that the accused was fully forewarned as to the personal
consequences of such atrocities. On October 24-four days following
the landing of our forces on Leyte - it was publicly proclaimed that
I would "hold the Japanese Military authorities in the Philippines
immediately liable for any harm which may result from failure to accord
prisoners of war, civilian internees or civilian non combatants the
proper treatment and the protection to which they of right are entitled."
(10)
Douglas MacArthur wrote about the arrival of General Matthew
Ridgway in his autobiography, Reminiscences (1964)
On December 23rd, General Walker was killed in a freak jeep accident.
It was a great personal loss to me. It had been "Johnny"
Walker who had held the line, with courage and brilliant generalship,
at the very bottom of Korea, until we could save him by slicing behind
the enemy's lines at Inchon. It had been Walker who, even in the darkest
hours, had always radiated cheerful confidence and rugged determination.
It was
a difficult time to change field commanders, but I acquired one of
the best in General Matthew Ridgway. An experienced leader with aggressive
and fighting qualities, he took command of the Eighth Army at its
position near the 38th parallel. After inspecting his new command,
he felt he could repulse any enemy attempt to dislodge it. On New
Year's Day, however, the Reds launched a general offensive in tremendous
force, making penetrations of up to 12 miles. It forced the Eighth
Army into further withdrawal. By January 4th, the enemy had recaptured
Seoul, and by January 7th, the Eighth Army had retired to new positions
roughly 70 miles south of the 38th parallel.
(11)
John Hightower, Associated Press (26th March, 1951)
The dispute
that rages between General Douglas MacArthur and the Truman administration
over how to win the Korean war has reached fever heat again. The administration
may shortly ask the general to clear with broad foreign policy issues.
This may
or may not prove acceptable to MacArthur, but State Department officials
as well as some others with great influence at the White House privately
say something must be done to prevent a repetition of last week's
exchange of shocks and harsh words between Tokyo and Washington.
President
Truman circulated last December a firm, government-wide directive
declaring that any statement on foreign
policy by any official or employee of the government in a speech,
article or other public utterance, should be cleared with
the State Department. Informants said today that order was called
to MacArthur's attention at that time.
Friday
night, Washington time, MacArthur left Tokyo for the Thirty-eighth
Parallel area of Korea to order United Nations forces to cross into
North Korea as tactical requirements made necessary. Before leaving
Tokyo he issued a statement to the press.
In this
statement he made a bid for peace talks with his opposite number on
the Communist side, said the Chinese Reds were licked and incapable
of waging modem war and warned that if the United Nations launched
attacks on Chinese bases and coastal area the Red nation would probably
suffer military collapse.
This statement,
a check showed, caught the State Department completely unawares. It
apparently also caught President Truman without advance notice. After
several hours of parleying, including a talk between Secretary of
State Acheson
and Mr. Truman, a rather meaningless statement was issued, designed
to say on Saturday that Washington had nothing to do with what MacArthur
had declared Friday night.
The statements
said MacArthur had authority to conduct military operations but that
political issues which "he has stated are beyond his responsibilities
are being dealt with in the U.N. and by the governments having troops
in Korea."
The key
MacArthur clause which set off the alarm here was that the United
Nations could probably succeed in forcing a
military collapse of Red China by a limited coastal attack and base-bombing
war. A Tokyo dispatch yesterday suggested MacArthur probably was trying
to divert the Chinese Reds' attention from Korea to the danger of
a coastal attack.
Whatever
his objective, any statement he makes - even mingled in with "ifs"
- about extending the war in the Far East always sends huge shudders
among the Canadian, French, British and other friendly governments.
When the Europeans come in to the State Department wanting to know
"what does MacArthur propose to do," Acheson and his aides
get upset about the problems of holding together the political side
of the coalition of which MacArthur is military commander.
(12)
In an article in Newsday on 28th July, 1993, Murray Kempton
suggests that General Matthew Ridgway
helped to control the actions of Douglas MacArthur in Korea.
In his
autobiography, Ridgway recalls a 1950 meeting where the Joint Chiefs
of Staff wondered what they could do to restrain General Douglas MacArthur
from his head-over-heels plunge toward the Chinese border and disaster
in Korea. The chiefs could already look at the map and recognize that
MacArthur had arrayed his troops as for a parade, divided their columns
and left between them the mountain where enemies could assemble in
peace and await the securest chance for war. The chiefs had passed
the hours helplessly struggling between their awe of a commander who
had been riding with the Cavalry when they were in rompers and their
awareness of his terminal folly.
Ridgway
was then only deputy Chief of Staff and forbidden to speak up in the
company of his superiors. Crisis compelled him to break the laws of
silence at last. "We owe it to ourselves," he said, to call
MacArthur to halt; and it must be done now because even tomorrow could
be too late. The chiefs sustained the shock of this breach of Old
Army custom and continued to sit inert until what they knew might
happen did and all too soon.
After the
meeting, Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg congratulated him
for his courage. His answer was not thanks for the compliment but
renewed urgings that MacArthur be curbed. "Oh, what's the use,"
Vandenberg replied. "He won't listen." And, thereafter of
course, it would be for Ridgway to restore the ruin of the Korean
campaign.
(13)
Jack
Anderson, Confessions of a Muckraker
(1979)
From the time MacArthur
first came into prominence as the youngest American general of World
War I, and then the youngest commandant of West Point, and then the
youngest Army Chief of Staff, he displayed certain peculiarities that
tended to raise the hair on the back of Drew Pearson''s neck: an unfailing
theatricality; a tendency to portray his life as a series of triumphal
processions; and a rhetoric with a martial ring that, for instance,
identified pacificism with Communism. Here was a hero in unheroic
times, unhappily hemmed in by the humdrum of peace and the flummery
of civilian politics, a general looking for a star of destiny; worse,
a general who had the Roman profile, the messianic urge, the oratorical
artillery, the mastery of imagery, the brains and the guile to create
a great deal of mischief should a fortuitous conjunction of events
arise.
If Drew had one emotional
spring that ran deeper than his fear of military men of destiny, it
was his sympathy for the downtrodden and the derelict. He never forgave
Chief of Staff MacArthur for the gung-ho manner in which he had carried
out President Hoover's order to break up the ramshackle Washington
encampment of down-and-out veterans who were demonstrating for a speed-up
of their promised World War I bonuses. To the end of MacArthur's life,
Pearson would periodically lampoon him for changing into his dress
uniform and personally leading the assault on the tattered vets, and
for prancing about before the news cameras like Napoleon on the field
of Austerlitz, and for his overblown post-mortems on the great victory.
But for his action, MacArthur had proclaimed, "I believe the
institutions of our government would have been severely threatened...
I have entered villages in wartime which have been in the grip of
the enemy for three
years and I know what their gratitude means. But never have I seen,
even in those days, such expressions of gratitude as from the crowds
today."
Drew periodically pricked MacArthur with ridicule in the years that
followed, much of it told to Drew by MacArthur's ex-wife, Louise
Cromwell, the most offensive item alleging that MacArthur's promo-
tion to major general had come through the political intervention
of
her father, Edward T. Stotesbury, a J. P. Morgan partner. In 1934
the
tormented MacArthur descended from Olympus and entered the pit
with the muckrakers, slapping Pearson and Robert S. Alien with a
$1,750,000 libel suit. MacArthur contended that the column had por-
trayed him as, among other caricatures, "dictatorial, insubordinate,
arbitrary, harsh, disloyal, mutinous and disrespectful of his superiors";
in later years Drew would point to this complaint as a classic demon-
stration of his prescience, but at the time he was hard pressed to
prove
his case. Had the litigation been successful, or even partially successful,
it would have wiped out the two partners, financially and professionally.
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