MacArthur's War: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan

by Douglas Niles

He paused in silent reflection, turning his face toward heaven. Then he lowered his eyes to talk to Sutherland again. “This conference will make news because MacArthur is there. Therefore, MacArthur must make news first. I want a car, Sutherland, but not just any car…” The General thought for a minute. “Sutherland, take this down.”

  • THURSDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 1943 •

  ARMY AIR FORCE OFFICERS’ CLUB, HICKAM FIELD, HAWAII, 1412 HOURS

  “A martini drinker, I see, Colonel Beckwith—ah, James, is it? Do you like James or Jim or Jimmy?” Franklin Delano Roosevelt said pleasantly to the commander of Hickam Air Force Base, cheerfully mixing the requested cocktail and proffering it to the colonel without pausing for an answer. “Thanksgiving in Hawaii—what a delightful change from Hyde Park or even Washington.”

  The colonel managed a “Yes, sir, Mr. President. Thank you, sir,” as the President moved on to his next customer.

  FDR was serving as mix master on the patio of the Hickam Officers’ Club awaiting the call to Thanksgiving dinner. The bar had been thoughtfully set up at chest height for the President’s convenience, with all necessary bar supplies in a semicircle before him. The Hawaiian air was sweetened by the scent of yellow and red heliconia, snowy white frangipani, and blue birds-of-paradise.

  The President wore a frangipani lei, as did most of his guests, at least those who were out of uniform. Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King had arrived the day before, flying from Washington. It had been decided it would be impolitic to have him accompany the President. King, immaculate in dress whites, was one of those without a lei, though not without a glass of scotch in his hand. It wasn’t his first. He was leaning over a rather pretty blonde, the wife of a commander. The commander was standing in a small conversational group, but he kept turning around to keep an eye on the situation—though it was hard to imagine what he could say or do about it.

  Of Douglas MacArthur, there was no sign.

  “Frank,” the President called.

  Frank Chadwick, who had stationed himself not far away, was at the President’s side in a moment. “Yes, Mr. President?”

  “Where is Douglas?” FDR said in a low voice.

  “I don’t know, Mr. President. The Bataan has landed, I’m sure of it.” Frank lowered his own voice in turn.

  “It’s been two hours. It doesn’t take a man that long to take a shower and put on a set of clean clothes,” the President said in an annoyed tone. “Find out what Douglas is up to, Frank.”

  “Right away, Mr. President,” Chadwick replied, as FDR turned to the next dignitary awaiting his drink, a wide smile on his face. Chadwick picked up a telephone sitting beside the President and dialed.

  The question of Douglas MacArthur’s whereabouts was settled before Frank Chadwick’s call went through. First came the wailing of police sirens, which grew louder as two MPs on motorcycles drove up to the canopied entrance to the club. Every eye on the patio except for Admiral King—and the blonde’s husband—turned to look at the display.

  Behind the police sirens, the longest car anyone there had ever seen drove up, followed by two more motorcycles. All the sirens stopped simultaneously, and the driver of the car jumped out and hurried around the side to open the door for the General.

  MacArthur stepped out of the car and struck a pose. The newsmen present, rushing like moths to a flame, had grabbed their cameras and headed for the Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Areas. Big blue bulbs flashed, then they were ejected onto the bricked walkway.

  Everyone knew that this dinner with the President was a formal occasion. Every officer wore his finest uniform; civilians were in black tie. Douglas MacArthur, however, wore an old field uniform, pale and soft from frequent washings, and wore no insignia except the pentagon of stars showing his rank. Over it he wore a leather aviator’s jacket, this one too showing the signs of age and hard use. He wore mirrored sunglasses against the glare and carried a corncob pipe in his right hand. MacArthur looked around, saw the people milling on the patio, and strode forward, stepping over a low wall to join the party.

  Now that the car was empty, the four flanking motorcycles omitted their sirens but kept in formation with the car as all drove away. Two other cars, not quite as striking, pulled up behind the MP escort, and the core members of the MacArthur party came out. There was the chief of staff, Sutherland; and over there was Willoughby, intelligence; and Kenney, air force.

  MacArthur shook hands with people as he passed them, first-naming some, clasping others on the shoulder, and responding to various greetings. The President of the United States sat behind his bar, completely ignored as the General made his way through the crowd. He reached the President, stopped, and saluted. “General Douglas MacArthur reporting as ordered, sir!” he said.

  The President, though, had means of his own and was not easily upstaged. “Douglas, Douglas my boy, how good it is to see you again.” He reached up to shake the General’s hand. “Here, hold on a minute. Boys,” he said to the photographers who had followed MacArthur into the reception, “here’s the main act. Ernie, Ernie, over here, Ernie,” he called.

  Admiral King looked up from the blonde with annoyance and sulkily complied. He and MacArthur shook hands, King with visible distaste, but MacArthur looking warm and friendly.

  “Here, on both sides of me. Help me up,” Roosevelt said. The President placed one strong arm on the shoulder of each man and pulled himself up from his chair. “Fire away, boys, fire away.” The three men stood under the onslaught of bulbs flashing, until finally the President waved them off. “It’s going to be dinnertime shortly,” he announced. “We’ll have a little food brought out for you. Enjoy your Thanksgiving. We’ll have a press conference tomorrow, if you don’t mind. Today, I’d just like to be like all Americans and enjoy my turkey.”

  “Ernie King, what a pleasure to see you,” MacArthur said with apparent sincerity.

  King looked at his rival. “MacArthur,” he said with a growl.

  “That’s my boys, always friendly,” the President interjected. “It’s Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we’ll go aboard the Hornet and have a private little chat. For today, though, please oblige your President and get into the spirit of the festivities.”

  “Douglas MacArthur is delighted to honor your wish, Mr. President. In fact, I was already looking forward to a pleasant Thanksgiving dinner. Tomorrow will be soon enough for more casual discussions. As soon as I read the radiogram ordering me to report here for a meeting with ‘Mr. Big,’ I took for granted it was you. I was immediately delighted, even though as you know there is so much more to do in my area.”

  Frank Chadwick looked surprised. There was a young officer accompanying General Kenney, medium height, brown hair, handsome, fit, wearing gold oak leaves. Frank started working his way through the increasingly crowded patio, coming up behind the young officer. “Welcome to the big time, brother-in-law,” he said to Ellis Halverson.

  “Frank—uh, Captain!” Halverson’s surprise was evident. Then he grinned. “Seems the last time I saw you was in a different officers’ club. Do you do anything besides drink?”

  “Listen, you young whippersnapper,” Frank replied, “you have no idea how much hard work it takes to be this dissolute.” Both men laughed

  The initial insults out of the way, Frank and Ellis compared notes. Ellis had gotten home once. Frank, whose White House assignment enabled him to move his wife, Elllis’s big sister, into an Arlington apartment, had been to Baltimore a few times to see her family. No one had any news of Johnny.

  General Sutherland, who had been watching the conversation, came over to Ellis. “Major Halverson, would you introduce me to your navy friend?”

  Ellis looked startled, and then did as he was asked.

  “Chadwick—you look familiar,” Sutherland said.

  “Yes, General. We met before, on General MacArthur’s previous trip to Hawaii. I was the aide to Admiral Nimitz at the time.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Sutherland. His expression,
sour to begin with, became sourer. “And how do you two happen to know each other?”

  “He’s my brother-in-law,” Ellis said.

  Sutherland looked as if he were going to make a reply but walked off instead.

  “What was that about?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t know, Frank,” Ellis replied.

  Two navy officers were holding the shoulders of the commander with the blond wife, talking to him in urgent, low voices. Douglas MacArthur was holding court, sitting on a waist-height brick wall. The President of the United States turned to a photographer standing near him. “Psst!” the President said.

  The photographer came over. FDR pointed across at MacArthur. “Look closely,” he said. “Do you see what I see?”

  The photographer stared intently and then stifled his own laughter. From the angle of the President, it was quite clear that MacArthur’s fly was open. The photographer lifted his camera and began to focus—then MacArthur turned toward Roosevelt with a disdainful look on his face and crossed his legs.

  “There goes your shot at the cover of Life,” FDR said, laughing.

  The reporter’s face had a somewhat disgruntled expression. “I’ve been on the cover of Life already, Mr. President, but it would have been a great shot, even if I could never publish it. This photo is going to turn into a fish story, Mr. President. The one that got away.” He shook his head ruefully.

  MacArthur was ignoring both men ostentatiously. When he stood up, he angled himself away from the photographer’s line of sight and vanished momentarily into the club.

  A Filipino waiter stepped out onto the patio. “Thanksgiving dinner is served,” he announced loudly and then walked backward through the open patio doors. By protocol, the President had to make the first move. He pushed himself firmly back from the bar and rolled his chair out, then led the way into the dining room. The most senior dignitaries went next: admirals and generals with four or more stars. As King and MacArthur started to the door simultaneously, MacArthur stopped and graciously ushered King before him. King looked for a moment as if he wanted to protest, then strode into the room, MacArthur following.

  The seating chart had been carefully prepared, and there was some milling around as each person found his or her name tag. Ellis was with his boss Kenney; Frank was with the local dignitaries: the commanding admirals and generals of the various Oahu facilities as well as several mayors from smaller cities on the island. The mayor of Honolulu and the governor of the territory were both with the President. Frank’s old boss, Admiral Chester Nimitz, was also at the President’s table. Nimitz had arrived late, though not as late as MacArthur, and Frank had not yet had a chance to talk with him personally.

  MacArthur had kept his word to Nimitz, more or less. Nimitz had taken full, public responsibility for the defeat at Midway and asked to be relieved of his role as CINCPAC. The President immediately cabled back that he had the fullest confidence in Admiral Nimitz and consented to an organizational change that seemed to remove Nimitz from power but in reality gave him better control.

  After the destruction of the American fleet in the Battle of the Northern Solomons and the death of Admiral Halsey, Nimitz pushed through a major reorganization of the navy in the Pacific. Recognizing that most of the naval role in the Pacific was now in SWPA, MacArthur’s area, he reconstituted the remaining Pacific navy forces into a single fleet, keeping the Third Fleet name. Now responsible for the navy in both Pacific theaters, Nimitz became Commander in Chief, Third Fleet, a position technically lower than CINCPAC but practically more powerful. Admiral Frank Fletcher was now CINCPAC, a smaller role than it had been but enough to gain Fletcher his fifth star. It was an open secret that Fletcher’s chief of staff, Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, was running the place.

  The new Third Fleet was much larger than the old one. A single task force in the new Third Fleet had four flattops and the full complement of support vessels, from cruisers to destroyers, oilers, cargo ships, and more. A new carrier a month was joining Third Fleet. It was already the most powerful seagoing force in the history of the world, and its expansion and modernization were just getting started.

  After dinner came dancing. Enough WACs and WAVEs had been imported to provide partners for those who were there stag. King renewed his attentions to the blond wife of the commander, who sat at his table looking increasingly furious as his two friends continued to counsel him.

  The commander suddenly stood up, fists balled. His friends clung desperately to his arms. The commander bumped the table, knocking several glasses to the floor and spilling a bottle of wine at the same moment Douglas MacArthur was passing by. The wine sloshed down the General’s pants leg.

  All eyes turned toward the three petrified officers as General MacArthur calmly took a napkin from the table and began to blot his leg.

  “I-I’m so sorry, General,” one of the two companions began to stutter.

  MacArthur put up his hand. “Quite all right,” he said with a benedictory smile. “It’s an old uniform, and worse things have spilled on it.”

  The three men visibly relaxed.

  MacArthur smiled genially and patted the furious commander on the shoulder. “Happy Thanksgiving, son,” he said. Then he walked onto the dance floor, took the hand of the blonde, asked, “May I have this dance?” and swirled her out from King’s grasp.

  The surprised fleet admiral looked at his rival with anger equal to the commander’s, but he controlled it and headed for the bar. MacArthur danced one fox-trot with the wife, bowed, kissed her hand, and shooed her back in the direction of her husband.

  As soon as dinner ended, Frank Chadwick moved to the President’s table because he wanted a chance to talk with Admiral Nimitz, and to be within the President’s earshot in case FDR needed him. He was there when the wine was spilled and watched MacArthur’s actions. FDR leaned forward and said, “A masterful performance, don’t you think? Our Douglas could give Lionel Barrymore a run for the money in Hollywood.”

  Nimitz and Chadwick both laughed.

  • FRIDAY, 26 NOVEMBER 1943 •

  USS HORNET, CRUISING OFF THE COAST OF OAHU,

  HAWAII, 1037 HOURS

  The loud, penetrating hiss of the steam catapult and the roaring engines of the carrier aircraft taking off dominated the ship’s deck, but the admiral’s bridge—high above the carefully choreographed activity on the flight deck—had been designed to make conversation possible. The carrier was churning directly into the wind to launch aircraft, and the resulting cool sea breeze softened the tropical heat. The air was generally sweet, punctuated with the occasional whiff of aviation fuel.

  Roosevelt sat in his wheelchair. Neither MacArthur nor King used the two remaining chairs. There was a low table between the two chairs and the President. On each side of the deck was an easel, and below the easel was a small pile of posters on heavy board. One poster from each service—both of them maps—was displayed on each easel.

  “I’m glad to be warm, you know?” remarked the President of the United States. “I find as I grow older that cold has become more painful.” He looked out into the ocean. “I’m not looking forward to the Washington winter.” Roosevelt shivered slightly. He had on a panama hat for sun protection, and dark glasses to protect his eyes. A light blanket was draped over his lap. He wore a seersucker suit and white shirt for the sessions with photographers, but when he was safely out of sight of land, he had changed his white shirt and bow tie for a Hawaiian shirt featuring purple hibiscus.

  Douglas MacArthur laughed. “I remember Washington winters well. They were high on my list of reasons for returning to the Philippines.” MacArthur still wore his plain working uniform and battered hat. His leather aviator’s jacket was draped over a chair.

  Admiral Ernest J. King, stiffly formal in dress whites, shook his head in mild disdain. “Doesn’t bother me. I like Washington winters. Bracing.”

  “That’s a navy man for you,” said FDR approvingly. “Strong constitution. Knows how
to resist the elements.”

  “Washington winters make me think of my sailors in the North Atlantic,” King explained, wearing a look of offended dignity.

  “As well you should,” commented MacArthur. He was leaning against a bulkhead. He carried his unlit corncob pipe in his right hand and used it as a pointer. “The tropical heat and humidity here remind me of Bataan. My brave men there are never far from my thoughts.”

  King looked from the President to MacArthur and back again. “Can we get down to brass tacks?” he interjected roughly. “Let’s not pretend we’re here to enjoy one another’s company. Now, we’re here to—”

  “Hold on just a moment,” said MacArthur. “If you don’t mind, I’d like another cup of coffee. Either of you want anything?” He raised his hand to summon one of the Filipino waiters looking through the window, in sight but out of earshot. MacArthur asked for coffee in Tagalog, flustering the waiter, who responded in English.

  Within a minute, the waiter emerged with the coffee. MacArthur waited patiently until the waiter was done, then turned to King. “I’m sorry for the interruption. You were saying?”

  “I was saying that we have to put a stop to this war between you and the navy before you do serious damage to the war effort,” King said, staring angrily into MacArthur’s eyes.

  “War? Damage? You must be joking.” MacArthur dismissed King’s statement with an airy wave of his corncob pipe. “That’s exaggerated nonsense, Admiral. Interservice rivalry predates both of us. You know that. There’s no ‘war’ between MacArthur and the United States Navy. The only war is the one we fight together. We’re having a principled disagreement on the best military organizational structure for the Pacific. Why personalize the matter? It’s just business. Believe me, if it is determined the best leader for the Pacific Theater is someone other than MacArthur, I shall gladly accept a lesser role. That would be far better than continuing with this absurd separation of a single theater into two.”