OPINION:
MACARTHUR AT WAR: WORLD WAR II IN THE PACIFIC
By Walter R. Borneman
Little, Brown, $30, 608 pages
Asked in March 1945 to name the greatest U.S. Army general of the war, 45 percent of the respondents named Douglas MacArthur — far surpassing Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. The reason, one commentator opined, was because “MacArthur provided his countrymen with a badly needed idol at a time when the military altar was almost bare of icons.”
True, to a point. But as noted historian Walter Borneman documents in a work that is an irresistible read, along with his charisma, MacArthur was “also manipulative, deceitful and as egocentric as any military leader in American history,” on a par with “the three Georges” — Patton, McClellan and Custer.
Chiefly because he stage-managed his own public persona to an extent beyond any other general, the public never saw “the man behind the curtain.” Had they done so, Mr. Borneman suggests, sentiment well might have shifted to Gen. George C. Marshall, who endured much from-a-distance abuse but was man enough to “deftly manage MacArthur’s fiery comet and unselfishly used its brilliance to accomplish the objectives of a global war.”
MacArthur’s war began on a disastrous note. After serving as Army chief of staff, he went to the Philippines in 1935 with a mandate to build a “first-rate army.” When war threatened in Asia in 1941, he was put in command of U.S. troops in the Philippines as well.
Immediately after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, MacArthur’s air chief, Gen. Lewis Brereton, tried to warn MacArthur to order dispersal of B-17 bombers and fighter planes parked in neat rows on an airfield. Incredibly, MacArthur’s chief of staff said the general “was in conference and could not be disturbed.” After “several hours of apparent stupor” by MacArthur, Japanese bombers reduced his air wing to piles of burning rubble.
The Philippine army that MacArthur had been hired to train, along with a small contingent of American soldiers, could not cope with Japanese invaders — “a rather dismal performance.” MacArthur sat out the battle of Bataan in a remote bunker, earning from his troops the derisive term “Dugout Doug,” then fled to safety in Australia after his “army” was captured.
But first, MacArthur settled accounts with the Philippines. His contract called for $33,000 annually, in salary and expenses, plus a “bonus” of 46 percent of the Philippine defense budget for a decade. President Manuel Quezon sent $500,000 ($7,270,000 in 2016 dollars) to MacArthur’s account at the Chase National Bank. Favored aides received “settlements” ranging from $20,00 to $50,000.
The bulk of Mr. Bornemann’s book deals with MacArthur’s conflicts — often petty — with Washington and the Pacific Navy commander, Adm. Chester Nimitz. The “Germany first” policy decreed by President Roosevelt infuriated MacArthur, who demanded more resources and control over Navy aircraft carriers.
A patient Gen. George C. Marshall, the military chief of staff, placated MacArthur as best he could, chiefly because his forces were the only Americans actually fighting the enemy. In the interest of public moral, he also awarded MacArthur the Medal of Honor after his flight to Australia.
By Mr. Bornemann’s convincing account, much of the credit for American success in the Pacific can be attributed to Navy and air firepower, which cleared the way for an island-by-island advance. Such attacks proved vital to Army and Marine amphibious landings.
MacArthur’s obsession was to fulfill his promise to “return to the Philippines,” a notable morale-booster for persons who had fallen under Japanese control, but also a publicity ploy. Would bypassing those islands hasten the advance toward Japan? In the end, MacArthur’s approach prevailed.
One handicap MacArthur suffered was the questionable acumen of his intelligence chief, Gen. Charles Willougby, whose estimates of enemy strength frequently were awry. MacArthur asserted that there had been “only two outstanding intelligence officers in all of military history, and mine is not one of them.” Nonetheless, he retained Willoughby through the Korean War, and intelligence blunder upon blunder.
One field that MacArthur mastered was publicity. His was the only name mentioned in press accounts (which went through his censors). When the photograph of a junior commander appeared in Life magazine, MacArthur pointedly told the man that he had authority to bust him down to colonel and send him home. Even Eisenhower was moved to observe that MacArthur was “the only commander I recall who used the heading bearing his own name for official messages and communiques.”
As Mr. Bornemann concludes, “there was never much middle ground” concerning MacArthur. The “wildest superlatives” at both ends of the spectrum was false. A necessary read for anyone who attempts to understand the man.
• Joseph C. Goulden wrote extensively about MacArthur in his book, “Korea: The Untold Story of the War” (Times Books, 1982).
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