Chapter 12 08. Douglas MacArthur and American Militarism

Duggart Dogg, some soldiers called MacArthur.He was extremely brave and went through life and death countless times, setting an example for the troops.He was actually one of the greatest soldiers, commanding at the front in 3 wars fought during the 1/3 century from 1918 to 1951.He commanded more troops than any other American with few casualties.He was also a widely debated figure in the public.He has always been vain, but there is a sense that he has not achieved as much politically as his military exploits.His performance in the war and becoming the commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces in Japan after the war are recorded in history.

However, MacArthur's performance in his life was so different-"noble and mean, witty and rough, arrogant and timid and cautious... moody... ridiculous... sublime." As Manchester writes, everything that happened can be It came down to his personality: What kind of self-image was MacArthur after?Does he know what he's doing?We can learn about MacArthur in detail from the book "Caesar in America" ​​written by Manchester. Through various details, we can combine the typical expressions of the general's extraordinary personality. The first to influence him was his heroic father. In November 1863, when 18,000 Confederate soldiers stormed Parish Heights in Chanoga City, Tennessee, Captain Arthur MacArthur of the 24th Wisconsin Division was the first to plant the flag on the summit of the high ground.In the next 12 battles, he displayed utter fearlessness. At 19, he became the youngest colonel in the Union Army.After that, however, the army fought only a few battles with the Indians, and military life remained in Washington's military politics. In 1898, Arthur MacArthur was appointed Brigadier General and sent to Manila.He captured Aguinaldo and suppressed the Republican movement in the Philippines. He has created the image of MacArthur-a shrewd professional soldier and imaginative theater commander. Generosity (including to Pitton March and John Pershing) his big talk and eloquence (Arthur MacArthur wrote that "the identity of a nation" can "induce men to the call of their leader"), Intolerant of civil interference, hungry for praise, convinced Washington was biased against him, and fond of censoring journalists' releases.

As his assistant said: "Until he met his son, Arthur MacArthur was the most arrogant man." Because he failed to cooperate sincerely with William Howard Taft, he was transferred in 1901 Returning to China, "he always speaks with no scruples," he criticized the War Department and the White House, and Ju predicted that there would be war with Japan and Germany.Lieutenant General MacArthur was a senior general in the army but was not appointed chief of staff. He resigned from the military at the age of 64 with great pain and disappointment.His son, Douglas, carried on his father's mantle and went further than his father in every respect.

The second person who directly influenced him was his courageous mother.She was a Southern belle from Norfolk who taught little Douglas every night, "You must be as great as your father." (or "Like Robert Lee"). Keep him with long curly hair," wearing girly dresses.But at the West Texas Military Academy, he became a shortstop in baseball and a quarterback in football, and he excelled academically and delivered the valedictorian speech to the graduates of the school.In order to compete for admission to West Point, his mother found a special counselor for him.He scored 99.3 points. During the four years at West Point, his mother lived in the Klenny Hotel in Plainfield, and he visited his mother every day before dinner.

The genes of his parents endowed this young man with outstanding talent and personal charm. He always wanted to charge and fight in the wild western frontier, and his goal in life was to be an army leader.At West Point, like Robert Lee and John Pershing, he was promoted to captain of the First Cadet Corps.The war presented Douglas with a golden opportunity.When he was on the front line for reconnaissance, his exploits were astonishing.In France, MacArthur not only led the troops to jump out of the trenches to attack, but also crawled across the position at night to observe the enemy's situation.The night after the American victory at St. Michel, he and his adjutant sneaked across no man's land into the German lines, observing the enemy from a hidden hill.He believed that a surprise attack on the enemy should be launched, but the command had its own plan and the opportunity was lost.MacArthur was awarded 7 Silver Star Medals in France for his bravery and good fighting skills.

MacArthur's unique attire, which violated the regulations, is very eye-catching-a four-cornered soft hat, a turtleneck sweater, no helmet, no gas mask, a horsewhip in his hand, and no weapon.This trait, along with his prowess at the front, constituted his charisma as a leader.He knew battle planning and writing well, never forgot anything, and in the army he always trained his subordinates to their strengths. The dishonorable behavior—the botched flattering letters to his superiors—revealed another MacArthur.His mother, for example, wrote to General Pershing pleading for his son's promotion to brigadier general: "In view of the great admiration my late husband had for you, I write you this heartfelt letter . . . , he holds Colonel MacArthur in high esteem and knows him very well... I am told that my son is indeed on your list...he will be promoted."

In 1918, MacArthur was promoted to brigadier general.After becoming a major general in 1925, he wanted to be promoted to chief of staff. In 1930, he wrote to Secretary of the Army Patrick J. Hurley that Hurley's report on the Philippines "has the eloquence of a statesman, and your report is a great and An inspiring report. I firmly believe that in the not-too-distant future, America will entrust you with greater undertakings."Hurley certainly agrees with him. In 1932, MacArthur's public image as chief of staff of the Hoover administration was extremely bad.He used tanks, tear gas, and infantry to savagely disperse 25,000 unarmed veterans who, in the name of the "pension march," gathered around the Capitol to demand pensions from the government (about their pathetic and ridiculous experience, see William Manchester's "Glory and Dreams: A History of America, 1932-1972").His assistant, Major Eisenhower, kept admonishing him that this was a purely political event, but MacArthur regarded these hungry retired veterans as enemies.

Manchester also exemplifies MacArthur's disregard for regulations and disobedience to the system, especially his penchant for making political statements.Moreover, he was hostile to the military authorities and his superiors, and at Pershing's headquarters he clashed with colonels such as George Marshall, and Pershing seemed prepared to remove him and send him home.In short, his distinctive soldier personality makes him exist alone in his own world.He is unique, not part of any group.Other influential figures in the world seem to lack self-confidence by comparison.Self-centeredness only accidentally made MacArthur alive, but it eventually made MacArthur ruined like a Greek king by self-importance.The self-centeredness that made him famous in the war, his victories, his heroic rule over Japan also alienated him from the press, from many of his colleagues, and from the American public.

MacArthur attracted some loyal followers.He found his place in military politics, but had a hard time in public debate.When he was president of West Point Military Academy in 1922, he married a wealthy widow named Louise Cromwell Brooks. In fact, Chief of Staff Pershing also fell in love with her.Because of this, MacArthur was exiled by Pershing to the Philippines (where he drew topographic maps of the Bataan Peninsula). In 1929, Louise divorced him.Unlike Douglas, she has a great sense of humor.She later told her neighbors in Georgetown (my mother): "While Doug was pacing upstairs practicing his speech, I was downstairs saying to him, 'When you need applause, give a horse poke,'" Don't be so vulgar,' he said." During the 1948 election, she told reporters: "If he's a dark horse, it's on the last lap."

During Roosevelt's administration, MacArthur seemed to have become a dangerous figure for Hugh Lange.When a retired Pershing called him and asked for another star for George Marshall, he assigned Colonel Marshall to serve as an instructor in the Illinois National Guard.During his four years as chief of staff, MacArthur tried to build a cadre of troops.After that he went to the Philippines to lead the US military mission, and Eisenhower remained his assistant.MacArthur became the first Filipino field marshal after the Philippines became a federation and was removed from the active duty list of the United States Army.His mother was dead, and he had married another Southerner, Joan Faircloth, whose grandfather had been one of the keepers of the parish heights.She fully supported him and bore him a son named Arthur MacArthur IV.

MacArthur's American Caesar Doctrine had two glorious periods: from 1941 to 1945, he commanded the Southwest Pacific Theater; from 1945 to 1951, he served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Japan.In both roles, he controlled the flow of personnel and tried to control news coverage, plan military operations, and make his staff work most efficiently.In short, as a military commander, he ruled everything.As a result, he completely excluded OSS from theater.Moreover, he had such complete control over the Army Intelligence representative at the headquarters that when the representative was called back to Washington for a meeting, he could say nothing. MacArthur's war zone received the least materials, "the war materials received by the Taiping shallow area in the southwest were less than 15% of the entire US military's materials."However, he managed 87 amphibious landings.His casualties totaled 27,684 in two years of fighting in Australia and the Philippines.In comparison, at Anzio, the casualties amounted to 72,306; at Normandy, 28,366. (It's all "he" thinking up on his own, but has seeped into news coverage and the public's mind.) "Using new weapons requires new and imaginative approaches," said MacArthur. Except for the initial battle at Buna, he did not employ the kind of disastrous operations the U.S. Navy conducted at Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Instead, they used "detour tactics" to encircle the enemy under the cover of sea and air forces.Manchester pointed out that it was probably MacArthur's idea to bypass the hundreds of thousands of Japanese in the ravine and high fort at Rabaul.After the battle began, MacArthur led his troops to detour to Hollandia and finally to Leyte Bay.Allenbrook, Liddell Hart, and others believed that MacArthur's military strategy "exceeded Marshall, Eisenhower, and all British and American generals, including Montgomery." MacArthur is much better portrayed in Manchester's book than he is usually portrayed.On the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, his plane was destroyed on the ground, and the Japanese sneak attack baffled him (like Stalin when Hitler launched the attack, obviously).But his evacuation to Bataan was ingeniously arranged, just ignoring the supply of grain plants. In Corregidor, he stood in the yard watching the Japanese bombing, determined to live and die with the soldiers there.Churchill, Roosevelt, and Marshall were persuaded by Australian Prime Minister John Curtin that MacArthur must withdraw to defend Australia (or Curtin would have to withdraw 3 Australian divisions from North Africa and give Egypt to Rommel).It was a bitter defeat for MacArthur to put the troops under Wainwright's command.He said "I'll be back" and named his plane Bataan.Wainwright, already emaciated, stood beside him when he accepted the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. After Japan switched to strategic defense, MacArthur's main competitors were Nimitz and the US Navy.The Navy's successful use of aircraft carriers to attack Japan directly rendered Stilwell's war effort to turn China into a base for bombing Japan meaningless.Moreover, as bombing technology continues to develop, MacArthur is also in danger of becoming a supporting role in the war.It was Marshall who saved it all, a modest and unselfish war planner.MacArthur advocated the capture of Luzon, and Nimitz proposed the capture of Taiwan. This issue was resolved when they met in Honolulu and Roosevelt in July 1944.Manchester agrees with historian Clayton James that President Roosevelt and General MacArthur (whose presidential dreams had been shattered) had made an unspoken deal that MacArthur would tie up Roosevelt's fourth November campaigned and returned to the Philippines in time.In any case, in October, MacArthur returned to the Philippines. MacArthur landed at Atsugi Airport without weapons or defenses, became the commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces in Japan, and began to rule Japan.Atsugi, outside Yokohama, is the training base for members of the Japanese kamikaze commandos.At that time, there were rumors that these crazy diehards were waiting for MacArthur.Churchill called MacArthur's landing at Atsugi the greatest act of "all acts of astonishing bravery in this war".MacArthur found that there were 30,000 heavily armed Japanese soldiers standing on both sides of the city streets he entered.As with all his well-crafted adventures, this one was another successful one.His motivation for doing this is to outperform the US Navy forever.Those admirals are gathering for landing in Yokohama. After occupying Japan, the plan of the MacArthur Supreme Command was guided by the plan drawn up by the State Department's Japanese expert Hugh Barton and others, but MacArthur's self-righteousness made it meaningless.One of the paradoxes we see is that MacArthur, who introduced oligarchy into the unrevolutionary Philippine regime, appeared to be a socially minded liberal.We believe that everything that MacArthur did during his tenure was ordered by others and could not be achieved by personal ability-although like all military operations commanded by MacArthur, at first glance, it seems that he did it alone.This perception is realistic.Indeed, the charm of MacArthur lies in the fact that this arrogant general in the American army, who has no fear of death, has adapted to the Japanese psychology of needing authority in times of crisis. By 1868, Japan had a nearly 700-year-old tradition of rule by shoguns, a tradition that allowed the descendants of military conquerors to rule Japan in the name of the emperor.How MacArthur himself and the role he played fit into Japanese history and culture is a question for further study.Similarly, the plan formulated by the Supreme Command of the Allied Forces, the relationship between MacArthur and his subordinates, how to carry out reforms on the ground and what kind of MacArthur regime to establish under the guidance of American agricultural expert Woolf Lederkinski, these issues also For further study.These issues are varied and deserve more analysis than MacArthur's biography. In September 1950, MacArthur landed in Incheon, encircling and annihilating the North Korean troops that invaded South Korea after June 25.Incheon, the port to Seoul, is a mudflat, and modern ships can only pass through when there is a 32-foot high tide on September 15 or September 27, and the attack time can only be selected at dawn or dusk.Every navy and army general who heard about MacArthur's Incheon landing plan thought it was impossible.He finally argued that if you are so opposed to this landing plan, then the North Koreans would not expect our landing.As a result, the landing was successful, Seoul was recovered, MacArthur was more like a genius than ever before, and the United Nations troops who invaded North Korea were immersed in joy.Crossing the 38th Parallel was not just MacArthur's proposition. Secretary of Defense Marshall gave the green light for this, and the UN General Assembly also passed the case by a vote of 47 to 5. On October 1, President Truman flew to Wake Island to meet with MacArthur. The general was surprised that Marshall and the chiefs of staff were not with him.Truman's trip was politically motivated to gain public support in the congressional elections; secret stenographers recorded the "informal" meeting, which was later used by Truman.Douglas MacArthur and Truman, a former artillery captain, were at odds.After the Chinese intervention, the Korean War was at a stalemate. MacArthur wanted to expand the war and mock those policymakers by making unsanctioned political statements directly to the American people. He even undermined Truman. He worked hard and was finally dismissed on April 10, 1951 for disobedience.The policy of the United States began to shift to whether to continue this local war-whether to regard this stalemate as a victory, so that the expansion of the war and the use of nuclear weapons could be avoided.The natural military talent that MacArthur exemplified became obsolete with the birth of the atomic bomb.Mr. Manchester recounts MacArthur's fascinating story up to his funeral in 1964, with little to say about the significance of his career, nor the motivations for his extreme disobedience. The ban on the use of nuclear weapons has lasted for 40 years, but weapons and militaries are still major investments around the world, and we are clearly in a new era.It is no longer possible for general officers to set an example of personal bravery in the face of enemy firepower, and even encircling the enemy with naval and air power is, as the Vietnam War proved, ineffective (although we cannot help Think about it, maybe MacArthur can use 2000 helicopters to do something).So a reader who admires MacArthur's military prowess and patriotic rhetoric can only assert that we have a difficult problem, that the urge to wage just wars for liberty, and the glory of winning at all costs, no longer seems to be satisfied our needs.But not too long ago, MacArthur made history with these.Shortly after his death, Eisenhower and Kennedy, who disagreed with him, still had the impulse to throw themselves into another local war in Vietnam, and we suffered a greater defeat than MacArthur's romantic self-centeredness suffered in North Korea heavy.Can we put this brilliant military strategist forever behind us? This review is of William Manchester, Caesar in America: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1961 (Boston, Little Brown Press, 1978), published in The New York Review of Books, October 12, 1978, Entitled "Inquiry into Douglas".