The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur

by Perry, Mark

  Tomoyuki Yamashita was tried for war crimes in Manila in 1945. He was convicted and executed, by hanging, in February 1946.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to express my appreciation to Lara Heimert, my publisher and editor at Basic Books, whose patience and detailed comments on this narrative proved invaluable; to Roger LaBrie, whose edits and suggestions saved me much embarrassment; to James Zobel, the archivist at the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, who provided tireless research guidance; to Gail Ross, my agent, who has stood by my side through a lifetime of writing; and to my wife Nina and my children Cal and Madeleine for their unfailing love and support. I have dedicated this book to General Bruce Palmer Jr., who served his country with honor and distinction and was a good friend to me.

  A Note on Sources

  The Most Dangerous Man in America was written from the firsthand accounts of the historical participants: the diaries, digests, interviews, notes, letters, monographs, memoranda, papers, and reminiscences of Douglas MacArthur, Franklin Roosevelt, George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, Jean MacArthur, Henry Arnold, Ernest King, Chester Nimitz, William Halsey, Jonathan M. Wainwright, Harold Ickes, Henry Stimson, Robert Eichelberger, Walter Krueger, George Kenney, Ennis Whitehead, Richard Sutherland, Richard Marshall, Sidney Huff, John D. Bulkeley, Thomas Blamey, Daniel Barbey, Thomas Kinkaid, Thomas Hart, and Lewis Brereton.

  The MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, contains the correspondence of both MacArthur and his wife, his reminiscences on his service in World War One, an extensive cache of interviews he conducted during his career and after, and, most importantly, thousands of radio cables that MacArthur sent and received during World War Two. The memorial’s archivist, James Zobel, provided valued and patient assistance in the research for this book.

  The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, contains the president’s invaluable correspondence with MacArthur during World War Two. The library also holds notes and papers that provide his views on his relationship with MacArthur, Marshall, Eisenhower, and their subordinates—as well as his most important wartime papers.

  Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall’s papers are collected in The Papers of George Catlett Marshall (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), which includes his wartime memoranda to Franklin Roosevelt and his wartime cable messages to MacArthur. I have also relied on the invaluable postcareer interview of Marshall conducted by his biographer, Forrest Pogue.

  Dwight Eisenhower’s views of MacArthur, including those during his tenure as a staff officer for MacArthur during the Bonus March, during the budget fights when MacArthur was army chief of staff, and then during MacArthur’s prewar tenure in Manila can be found in Eisenhower, The Prewar Diaries and Selected Papers, 1905–1941 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998). Eisenhower’s wartime dispatches to MacArthur are contained in the multivolume The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, The War Years (John Hopkins University Press, 1970).

  The memories and reminiscences of the events of World War Two of each these major participants have been checked against the official accounts of the battles and campaigns as contained in each military service’s official history (these also contain interviews with the major commanders after the fact). Samuel Eliot Morison’s fourteen-volume History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Little, Brown & Company, 1947); the six-volume Army Air Forces in World War II (University of Chicago Press, 1948); and the multivolume U.S. Army in World War II (Center of Military History, 1996). I have relied most particularly on those multiple volumes of the U.S. Army’s official history dealing with MacArthur’s campaigns and his relationship with the army chief of staff and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (all sources from the U.S. Army Center of Military History): The Supreme Command (1954); Strategy and Command: The First Two Years (1962); The Fall of the Philippines (1952); Guadalcanal: The First Offensive (1949); The Approach to the Philippines (1953); Victory in Papua (1955); Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls (1955); Cartwheel and the Reduction of Rabaul (1959); Leyte: The Return to the Philippines (1954); and Triumph in the Philippines (1963).

  Nearly all of MacArthur’s commanders have provided personal reminiscences of him and an account of their service in the Southwest Pacific Area. These are invaluable first-person accounts: Vice Admiral Daniel E. Barbey’s MacArthur’s Amphibious Navy: Seventh Amphibious Force Operations (United States Naval Institute, 1969); Lieutenant General Robert L. Eichelberger’s Our Jungle Road to Tokyo (Viking Press, 1950) and Dear Miss Em, General Eichelberger’s War in the Pacific, 1942–1945, edited by Jay Luvaas (Greenwood Press, 1972); General George Kenney’s George Kenney Reports (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1949); General Walter Krueger’s From Down Under to Nippon (Combat Forces Press, 1953); and General Jonathan Wainwright’s General Wainwright’s Story, with Robert Considine (Doubleday, 1946). Of less value, but of interest, is MacArthur’s own account of his life: Reminiscences (McGraw Hill, 1964). I recommend the often-ignored but valuable two-volume autobiography of Paul P. Rogers, an eyewitness to the MacArthur-Sutherland relationship: MacArthur and Sutherland: The Bitter Years and MacArthur and Sutherland: The Good Years (Praeger, 1990).

  No account of the life and campaigns of Douglas MacArthur can be written without acknowledging the work of the biographers who have contributed to the MacArthur story. The works include D. Clayton James’s two-volume The Years of MacArthur (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970); William Manchester’s American Caesar (Little, Brown and Company, 1978); and Geoffrey Perret’s Old Soldiers Never Die (Random House, 1996).

  A complete list of the literature on the life of Douglas MacArthur and his career during the Great Depression and the Pacific War would run to hundreds of pages. But a select listing of those most valuable biographies and studies that contributed to this narrative must include the following:

  Allen, Thomas B., and Norman Polmar. Codename Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan (Headline, 1995).

  Borneman, Walter R. The Admirals (Little, Brown and Company, 2012).

  Brands, H. W. Traitor to His Class (Doubleday, 2008).

  Buell, Thomas B. Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (Little, Brown and Company, 1980).

  Campbell, James. The Ghost Mountain Boys (Crown, 2007).

  Connaughton, Richard, John Pimlott, and Duncan Anderson. The Battle for Manila (Presidio, 1995).

  ———. MacArthur and Defeat in the Philippines (Overlook Press, 2001).

  Davidson, Peter D. Bulldozing the Way: New Guinea to Japan (privately published, 2009).

  Gamble, Bruce. Fortress Rabaul (Zenith Press, 2010).

  Griffith, Thomas E. Jr. MacArthur’s Airman: General George C. Kenney and the War in the Southwest Pacific (University Press of Kansas, 1998).

  Harries, Meirion, and Susie Harries. Soldiers of the Sun (Random House, 1991).

  Hastings, Max. Retribution (Knopf, 2008).

  Holzimmer, Kevin C. General Walter Krueger (University Press of Kansas, 2007).

  Hoyt, Edwin P. MacArthur’s Navy (Orion Books, 1989).

  Leary, William M., ed. We Shall Return! MacArthur’s Commanders and the Defeat of Japan (University Press of Kentucky, 1988).

  ———. MacArthur and the American Century (University of Nebraska Press, 1995).

  McAulay, Lex. MacArthur’s Eagles: The U.S. Air War over New Guinea 1943–1944 (Naval Institute Press, 2005).

  Norman, Michael, and Elizabeth M. Norman. Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2009).

  Persico, Joseph E. Roosevelt’s Centurions (Random House, 2013).

  Petillo, Carol Morris. Douglas MacArthur: The Philippine Years (Indiana University Press, 1981).

  Potter, E. B. Nimitz (Naval Institute Press, 1976).

  Prados, John. Islands of Destiny (NAL Caliber, 2012).

  Sarantakes, Nicholas Evan. Allies Against the Rising Sun (University Press of Kansas, 2009).

  Schultz, Duane. Her
o of Bataan: The Story of General Jonathan M. Wainwright (St. Martin’s Press, 1981).

  Sloan, Bill. Undefeated: America’s Heroic Fight for Bataan and Corregidor (Simon & Schuster, 2012).

  Smith, George W. MacArthur’s Escape (Zenith Press, 2005).

  Smythe, Donald. Pershing: General of the Armies (Indiana University Press, 1986).

  Taaffe, Stephen R. MacArthur’s Jungle War: The 1944 New Guinea Campaign (University Press of Kansas, 1998).

  ———. Marshall and His Generals (University Press of Kansas, 2011).

  Thomas, Evan. Sea of Thunder (Simon & Schuster, 2006).

  ———. The War Lovers (Little, Brown & Company, 2010).

  Toll, Ian W. Pacific Crucible (Norton, 2012).

  Weintraub, Stanley. Fifteen Stars (Free Press, 2007).

  Young, Kenneth Ray. The General’s General: The Life and Times of Arthur MacArthur (Westview, 1994).

  Index

  Abe, Hiroaki, 224

  Adachi, Hadacho, 266

  Adelaide, 157, 159

  Aguinaldo, Emilio, 42–43

  Aitape, 261

  Akin, Spencer, 168

  Alexander, Milton, 117

  Alice Springs, 155–156

  Allen, Robert, 22, 23–26

  Allen, Terry de la Mesa, 226

  Andrews, Frank, 32, 36

  Aparri, 86–87, 88

  Arawe, 247

  Arcadia Conference, 119

  Army budget. See U.S. army budget

  Army-navy competition, 163–164, 243–246, 248, 276, 354

  Arnold, Henry H. “Hap,” 31, 32, 73, 193, 226, 232, 257, 327

  and commanders, assessment of, 205–208

  and Kenney, George, 191–192

  and Philippines, U.S. airfield attack in, responsibility for, 76, 81, 82

  and promotion to general of the army, 309

  Australia, 89, 90, 100–102, 140, 177–178

  establishment of three combat commands in, 167–168

  and MacArthur as commander and chief, Southwest Pacific area, 140, 143–147

  MacArthur’s evacuation to, 148–153

  MacArthur’s request for reinforcements in, 178–183, 185

  See also Blamey, Thomas; Chifley, Joseph Benedict “Ben”; Thomas; Curtin, John; specific cities, towns, battle sites, battles, etc.

  Australian Imperial Force, 142. See also Blamey, Thomas

  Baker, Newton, 32

  Baliuag, 114–115

  Barbey, Daniel, 233–234, 246, 252, 262, 286, 300, 356

  and Operation Cartwheel, 240, 242

  and Operation Oboe, 340–341

  Baruch, Bernard, 29

  Bataan, 54, 96, 98–99, 105, 118–119, 322

  MacArthur’s escape from, 157

  promise of relief in, 119–121, 123–125, 139–140, 173

  retreat into, 111–118

  surrender of, 169–171

  surrender of, responsibility for, 174–176

  See also Battle of Bataan

  Bataan Death March, 172, 173–174, 176, 207, 256–257

  Battle of Bataan, 119–121, 122–123, 128–131, 133–135, 136, 173. See also Bataan

  Battle of Bloody Ridge, 204

  Battle of Leyte Gulf, 292–294. See also Leyte

  Battle of Luzon, 118. See also Luzon

  Battle of Midway, 187, 189–190

  Battle of the Bismarck Sea, 228–230

  Battle of the Bulge, 330

  Battle of the Coral Sea, 187

  Battle of the Eastern Solomons, 203

  Battle of the Philippine Sea, 266

  Battle of the Pockets, 135, 136, 147–148

  Battle of the Points, 147–148

  Beard, Charles, 12

  Beightler, Robert, 319, 320, 321–322

  Biak, 263–264, 265–266

  Blaik, Earl “Red,” 220

  Blamey, Sir Thomas, 167, 217, 234–235, 279–280, 283, 336–337, 356

  and Leyte, 286

  and New Guinea, 195, 196

  and Operation Cartwheel, 241

  Bong, Richard, 305

  Bonus Army/Bonus March/Anacostia Flats scandal, 3–4, 6, 7, 13, 14, 25, 29, 37, 38, 40, 45, 144, 328, 354

  Borneo, 87, 336–341. See also Operation Oboe

  Bradley, Omar, 144–145, 226, 309, 343

  Bratton, Rufus, 69–71

  Brereton, Lewis, 52, 67, 74, 76, 87–88, 106–107, 356

  and Pearl Harbor attack, 71–74

  and Philippines, U.S. airfield attack in, responsibility for, 81–85

  Brett, George, 100, 155, 166, 167, 191, 195

  Brisbane, 194–195, 211

  Brooke, Alan (1st Viscount Alanbrooke), 185

  Brooks, Louise, 22, 24, 51

  Brougher, William, 176

  Bruce, Andrew, 298

  Buckner, Simon Bolivar, 245

  Bulkeley, John, 126, 148–149, 151–152

  Buna, 196, 208–213, 213–219, 221–222, 224, 225, 226

  Burma, 161

  Byers, Clovis, 218–219

  Byrnes, Joseph, 39, 40

  Callaghan, Daniel, 224

  Calumpit Bridges, 114, 115, 116

  Camero, Archibald, 337

  Canberra, 162

  Cape Gloucester, 246–248

  Carney, Robert, 268

  Carpender, Arthur Shuyler “Chips,” 206, 242, 244–245

  Casablanca conference, 1943, 231–233

  Casey, Hugh, 168, 178, 197–198, 212, 263, 306

  Casey, Pat, 99

  Cavite Navy Yard (Manila), 87–88

  CCC. See Civilian Conservation Corps

  Central Pacific campaign, 243–246, 248, 276

  Chamberlin, Stephen, 168, 231, 261–262, 282

  Chifley, Joseph Benedict “Ben,” 337, 338, 341

  Churchill, Winston, 64, 88, 180, 183, 348

  and anti-British sentiment, 338–339

  and Bataan, promise of relief to MacArthur in, 119–120

  and Casablanca Conference, 1943, 231–233

  and Curtin, John, 140–143, 161–162

  and France, second front in, 184–186

  and MacArthur, 96, 109–110, 143, 145

  and Operation Sledgehammer, 189–191

  and Roosevelt, Franklin, 100, 223

  and two-front war strategy, 179, 182, 183

  and Yalta Conference, 316–318

  Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 7–13

  Clark, Mark, 144–145, 226, 275

  Clark Field attack, 74, 76, 80–85, 91–93, 313–314

  Clarke, Elaine, 283–284, 307

  Colin, P. Kelly, Jr., 87

  Collins, Ross, 4–5, 15, 22, 23, 24, 26, 32, 37

  Conner, Fox, 30, 32, 36, 277

  Cooke, Charles, 231, 251

  Cooper, Isabella Rosario, 22, 23–26, 51

  Corregidor, 54, 105, 131, 135–136, 140, 322

  MacArthur’s escape from, 157, 159–160

  MacArthur’s evacuation from, 140, 143–147, 355

  MacArthur’s evacuation to, 106–109

  Philippine government move to, from Manila, 94–95

  surrender of, 171–172

  surrender of, responsibility for, 174–176

  Craig, Malin, 38, 40, 48–50, 60–61, 134, 220

  Cruzen, R. H., 292–293

  Curtin, John, 149, 159, 179–181, 182, 229, 336–337, 355

  and Churchill, Winston, 140–143, 161–162

  and MacArthur as commander and chief, Southwest Pacific area, 143, 144, 155

  Dalton, James II, 314

  Daniels, Josephus, 4, 5, 26, 38

  Darwin, 156, 166

  Davis, Thomas Jefferson, 47, 48

  Dawes, Charles, 20–21

  Decker, George, 321

  Dern, George, 14–16, 21, 24, 33, 34, 43, 44, 49

  and army air corps, 31–32

  and army budget, 16–17, 36

  Dewey, Thomas, 267, 271–272, 303–304, 305

  Diller, LeGrande “Pick,” 304

  Doe, Jens, 263
>
  Doolittle, Jimmy, 186, 238

  Drum, Hugh, 48, 50

  Early, Jubal, 82

  Early, Steve, 10, 25, 65–66

  Eddleman, Clyde, 312

  Egeberg, Roger, 254–255, 289, 307

  Eichelberger, Robert, 219–221, 234, 252, 267, 314, 323, 331–332, 356–357

  and Biak, 266

  and Buna, 218–219, 221–222, 224, 225

  and Distinguished Service Cross, 227, 228

  and Eisenhower, Dwight, 261

  and Hollandia, 261, 263

  and Japan, invasion of, 343

  and Japan, surrender of, 347–348

  and Krueger, Walter, 237, 297–298, 312

  and Leyte, 299

  and MacArthur, 218–219, 220, 221, 227–228

  and MacArthur’s criticism of colleagues, 324–325

  and nomination for Medal of Honor, 228

  and Operation Oboe, 337–338

  and Operation Victor, 332–333

  and POWs, 347

  and Sanananda, 227

  Eisenhower, Dwight, 29–30, 36, 49, 53, 138, 144–145, 220, 331

  and army budget, 9–10

  and Australia, 89, 90

  and Bataan, promise of relief to MacArthur in, 125

  and Clark, Mark, 226

  and Collins, Ross, 15

  command structure of, 236

  as commander of the invasion of France, 250

  and Cooper, Isabella Rosario, 24

  and Eichelberger, Robert, 261

  and Far East assistance plan, 88–90

  and France, second front in, 184

  and Japan, invasion of, 343

  and MacArthur, 22, 28–29, 47, 48, 50, 62, 63, 64, 101–102, 146, 324–325

  and Marshall, George, 339

  and Patton, George, 228

  and Philippine Army, 54–56, 62, 63

  and Philippines, 59

  and promotion to general of the army, 309

  and Quezón, Manuel, 63, 118

  and Rabaul, 194

  and Roosevelt, Franklin, criticism of, 6

  and Russia, 89