General Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur, like many career officers, was born into a military family. His father, Arthur, had served in the American Civil War. Commissioned as a first lieutenant in the 24th Wisconsin Volunteers at the age of 16, Arthur received the Medal of Honor winner at the Battle of Missionary Ridge when he retrieved their regiment's flag after the standard bearer had been killed. As you can imagine, the young Douglas, born in 1880, saw his dad as the quintessential American soldier and a man to be emulated.

After the war and following a brief interlude as a civilian, Arthur returned as an army officer in the American West. Then when the Philippine insurrection broke out in 1899, Arthur, now a colonel, was promoted to brigadier general and later Military Governor of the Philippines. However he had some rather prescient disagreements with the civilian governor, William Howard Taft, who, of course, later became president and then Supreme Court justice, the last job he enjoyed much more than the former. Irritated at the military interference in civilian matters, William complained to Washington, and Arthur was reassigned to duty in the continental US. He always blamed Taft - and other civilian bureaucrats for the fact he - although the highest ranking soldier in the army - was never appointed to the Army Chief of Staffs. Young Douglas could not have failed to be influenced by his father's difficulties.

It was inevitable that Douglas would follow his father into the military, and it's not surprising that he graduated first in his class at West Point in 1903. His rise in the military showed that his ability was noted early by his superiors, and by 1914 Douglas, then a thirty four year old captain, was assigned to the US Army headquarters at Veracruz, Mexico which Woodrow Wilson had ordered occupied for various reasons, one of which was to protect American mining and business interests in the country. This was the time when the Mexican Revolution was in full swing and two years later Pancho Villa would invade American soil, kill ten civilians, and lose over a hundred of his own troops. Douglas saw action against Pancho's soldados and was recommended but did not receive, the Medal of Honor. It seems that despite the undoubted bravery in action, his operations had been a bit out of the ordinary, and the Chiefs of Staff didn't want to encourage too irregular proceedings. But Douglas was promoted to major a year later, and when the War to End All Wars broke out, to colonel. After being personally involved in combat (he was no a chairborne commander), he was made brigadier general in 1918 and after the war appointed commandant of West Point. Not bad for an officer who had four years earlier only been a captain.

The relationship Douglas had with his men was somewhat remote, but all in all, the men respected and even admired him. Bill Mauldin, the World War II cartoonist, said he thought MacArthur might be best compared to George Washington. The general liked living well, and as his family was well to do, he saw no reason to just live on his military pay. But he can't really be called a "soldier's" general, although in later years, Douglas's somewhat informal - even rumpled - uniform and the large trademark corn cob pipe gave him a folksy look which nevertheless did not belie his authority. He also was the first general to make shades almost de rigeur for American field commanders.

Douglas was not a man who believed that soldiers - or at least officers - were simply robots who had no opinions except that of their superiors. When Billy Mitchell was court martialed for making public criticism of decisions of his superiors, Douglas supported Billy. He said that being in the military did not remove a soldier's rights as citizens. However, the military courts had long held that public criticism of superiors was conduct, and in fact, was conduct prejudicial to good order. Officially the court decision against Mitchell was unanimous although Douglas, who actually served on the board, said he had voted to acquit.

By the time the Imperial Japanese Air Force attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Douglas, who had retired from active duty in 1937, had been recalled to be Far Eastern Commander of US Forces in the Philippines. Then the next day as the Japanese closed in on the combined American/Philippine forces on Luzon, they found the Americans were as unprepared at Clark Field as they had been at Hawaii. Most of the American planes were destroyed on the ground. Unlike the majority of the American troops, Douglas was able to get away, making his famous vow, "I shall return." However, Douglas's subordinate, General Jonathan Wainwright had no option of returning and had to surrender the Americans. Fortunately, after the war and when he was freed from the Japanese prison camp, Jonathan was not only exonerated but received the Medal of Honor, an award Douglas originally opposed. Ironically (perhaps), Douglas himself received the Medal of Honor for the defense of the Philippines although he personally had not been involved in any actual fighting, and in the mind of some of his fellow top brass, Douglas's "defense" had been completely inept and actually merited a court-martial.

But as Commander of the American Forces in the Far East, Douglas was in charge of defeating Japan. He did this by the strategy of "island-hopping". That is, take strategically located islands and leave others for later. Ultimately, this strategy proved successful and contributed at least to some degree to the fact that there were some Japanese soldiers that remained hidden on the islands for decades. But the horrific casualties of the Pacific war caused Douglas concern that an invasion of Japan might produce 1,000,000 casualties ("casualties", we must point out, are dead, wounded, and captured, not just those killed). But six days after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, the Japanese announced they accepted unconditional surrender on the condition - which they called an "understanding" - that the Emperor would remain in power.

Well, we all know that eventually Douglas did return and became the Supreme Commander of Occupied Japan. When he arrived in Tokyo, he was criticized because he did not immediately summon Hirohito to his headquarters, and he was also criticized because he did not go to the Imperial palace to pay his "respects" to the Emperor. Douglas, though, believed the best thing was simply to wait until the Emperor asked to visit. Hirohito did indeed call on Douglas and they met privately with only the interpreter present, although we also read that Douglas's wife and son briefly peeped around the corner.

The occupation of Japan went amazingly smoothly. After one American squadron landed to take control of one of the mainland airfields, the Japanese general was impressed by the efficiency and friendliness of the American troops. As he watched the Americans unload their planes, one sergeant set down some crates and asked, "General, how about some beer?" The general got some for him right away.

Douglas remained in the East and was commander of American forces when the Korean War broke out. Then, following his father's footsteps, he expressed disagreement with the civilian bureaucrats. The problem here is one of those civilian bureaucrats was his own commander in chief and President of the United States, Harry Truman. Harry, believing Douglas was undermining the ceasefire negotiations and the constitutional position of the president as commander-in-chief, relieved Douglas of command, an act that was not popular.

Douglas returned home to ticker tape parades and a speech to congress where he proclaimed "Old soldiers never die. They just fade away." This became one of Douglas's most memorable quotations - almost as much as his "I shall return". Like many memorable quotations, it was shown not to be true on April 5, 1964.

But perhaps Douglas's greatest legacy - or at least most far reaching - was to formulate strict guidelines for reporters covering the military under his command. As a man who understood the importance of public relations, he complained when papers printed stories that did not show him in a favorable light. Such control of information, although typical today, wasn't always the case. In the Vietnam War, there was virtually unrestricted reporting, possibly because the early days of the conflict involved only American "advisors" and the fact that it grew to a full scale war with over 100 American deaths a week before anyone realized what was happening. Certainly in our more recent - quote - "wars" - unquote - dissemination of information has once more returned to tightly monitored official releases.

Of course in World War II, as John Steinbeck pointed out, the American press had been largely self-censoring. The stories appearing in the papers and magazines showed all Americans soldiers were brave, and all Americans always obeyed the Geneva convention. So in general there was no need to put any formal restrictions on the correspondents assigned to military headquarters. There is one anecdote that in 1944, Dwight Eisenhower, then General of the Army in Europe, mentioned to the reporters that the invasion of Normandy would be in early June. The reporters asked wasn't it premature to tell them this? Wouldn't it be disastrous if the news got out?

"Yes," Ike supposedly replied. "But I'm not going to censor you fellows. I'm just going to rely on your own sense of duty and patriotism."

"Boy," one of the reporters muttered. "What a dirty trick!"

References

American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, William Manchester, Little, Brown, and Company, 1978. Probably the definitive biography of Douglas MacArthur. The book is good and points out the general's good points (and he had many) and weaknesses (which he also had). All in all, we should remember what John Kennedy was supposed to have said about another effective, but at least later, controversial general, Curtis Lemay. "If you have to go, you want Lemay to fly the lead bomber. But you never want Lemay deciding if you have to go or not."

The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936 - 1945, John Toland, Random House, 1970. A monumental work by the author of Dillinger Days, and later the first major biography of Adolph Hitler.

The Fall of Japan, William Craig The Dial Press, 1967. One of the first (and the best) comprehensive histories of the last days of the war. This book was one of the first to report that American prisoners of war had been killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and also that some survived), a revelation that is "rediscovered" every decade or so.

"No Bad Stories: The American Media-Military Relationship", Naval War College Review, Winter 2002, Vol. LV, No. 1

The American Experience: MacArthur, PBS, 1999

Once There Was a War, John Steinbeck, Bantam Books, 1960. Press dispatches by the author of The Grapes of Wrath. There was some censorship and that some stories were not to be taken too seriously was evident by the story, "A Story of an Elf". Here John wrote that as he and his fellow correspondents were living at the home of a diplomat (who didn't realize that when he invited one correspondent to billet he was inviting about twenty friends), one night an elf appeared who would grant them wishes. When one wished for a cold bottle of beer, it magically appeared. One of the more skeptical reporters then asked, "Yes, but is it cold, a second correspondent grabbed the bottle and said, "Colder than a [two words deleted by censor]".

Shake Well Before Using, Bennett Cerf, Simon and Schuster, 1948. Memory serves this is the source of the story about Ike and the reporters. But a frantic search has not produced the Official CooperToons Copy of this collection of typical Cerfian anecdotes, which Bennett himself would caution at being accepted at face value.