On January 26, 1880 Douglas MacArthur was born at the Arsenal Barracks in Little Rock, Arkansas, to Arthur MacArthur, Jr., a U.S. Army captain, and his wife, Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur. A man who would become more closely identified with the United States Army than any soldier before, or since, was literally born into it. MacArthur was a 5-star general in the US Army, and a Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He would be awarded a Medal of Honor like his father before him. MacArthur would serve as Chief of Staff of the US Army, and eventually become one of only five men to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the US Army. He fought in the Mexican Revolution, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. With the possible exception of Winfield Scott, no other career army officer in American history can even come close to matching MacArthurs career. Not if the criteria concerns things such as length of service, number of campaigns, list of accomplishments, positions held, etc. MacArthur is a genuinely larger-than-life figure, who is both revered and reviled. Like his contemporary, General George S. Patton, MacArthur was flamboyant, egotistical, and controversial. But, the similarities end there. Patton was a brilliant and innovative field commander, a man who is generally regarded as perhaps the greatest American combat general of the Second World War. He knew only success and victory. But, MacArthurs war began with a disaster that was hardly less of a blow to American military prospects than the attack on Pearl Harbor that had preceded it by eight hours. In fact, MacArthurs failure to protect the planes of his Far East Air Force from Japanese aerial attack is less forgivable than the failure at Pearl Harbor. The commanders at Pearl didnt know the Japanese were coming, but MacArthur had advance warning. And yet, for reasons that have never been fully explained, he was unable to effectively take command of the situation and prepare for the onslaught. He almost seems to have been paralyzed with fear or indecision, and did nothing while those precious hours ticked away. His aircraft were mostly all destroyed on the ground, and any realistic hope of defending the Philippines was destroyed along with them. The starving garrison of American and Filipino defenders would finally surrender to the Japanese in May of 1942, but MacArthur had been evacuated to Australia two months prior to that. Incredibly, he would later be rewarded the Medal of Honor for his defense of the Philippines. Obviously, there is much more to MacArthurs legacy. Far more than I could ever hope to cover with a Facebook post. But, I will use the captions on the uploaded photos to try and fill in some of the holes...
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 05:58:35 +0000
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