Breakfast in Yokohama

MacArthur arrives in Japan on Aug. 30, 1945.

Kamakura's 50-foot Buddha

On Aug. 30, 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur flew to Okinawa in a C-54, passing over the serene whiteness of Mount Fujiyama, Kamakura’s 50-foot bronze Buddha and a newly surrendered nation.

His officers weren’t entirely sure about that. Roving bands of young diehards wearing white bands around their heads were engaging in violent clashes in the cities down there, and who knew what the humiliated Japanese troops might do? But when the officers started to strap on handguns, MacArthur said no.

“Take them off,” MacArthur said. “If they intend to kill us, sidearms will be useless. And nothing will impress them like a show of absolute fearlessness. If they don’t know they’re licked, this will convince them.”

Landing, they were driven past rubble and ruin on a dusty road lined by 30,000 Japanese infantrymen, their backs turned deferentially and as a security measure. The generals settled in to Yokohama’s New Grand Hotel, where they were served steaks.

“(Gen. Courtney) Whitney thought MacArthur’s might be poisoned and suggested that a Japanese taste it first,” wrote biographer William Manchester. “MacArthur laughed and shook his head: it was good meat and he didn’t want to share it with anyone. The gesture did not pass unnoticed. The hotel staff had anticipated Whitney’s suspicion and expected a tasting of the General’s food. (Hotel owner Yozo) Nomura reappeared at his table to express his gratitude for this demonstration of ‘great trust.’ He and his employees, he said, were ‘honored beyond belief.’

“MacArthur was obviously delighted with this little speech. His officers wondered why. It seemed a very small matter. But the General knew that word of everything he said and did would quickly spread throughout the country. He was determined that the occupation be benign from the outset.

“Moreover, remembering his tour of duty in Germany after the 1918 Armistice, he realized that in a war-torn, defeated country, food would be at a premium. He sensed that the acquisition of these steaks had been no small matter, that all Japan must be hungry, a surmise which was confirmed at breakfast the next morning, after the commander of the 11^th Airborne ruefully reported that his division had searched all night and found exactly one egg for the Supreme Commander’s breakfast.

“MacArthur immediately issued an order at odds with the whole history of conquering armies in Asia. Occupation troops were forbidden to consume local victuals; they would eat only their own rations.

“An hour later, he canceled the martial law and curfew degrees (Gen. Robert) Eichelberger had imposed on the city. The first step in the reformation of Japan, he said, would be an exhibition of generosity and compassion by the occupying power.”

Gen. Douglas MacArthur: An Appetite for Danger

MacArthur wades ashore at Leyte

During World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur regularly exposed himself to sniper fire, machine gun attacks and enemy bombs, scorning bomb shelters and offering a distinctive target.

That calm bravado — no doubt related to his vanity and heightened sense of drama— prompted at least one psychiatrist to render a snap diagnosis of “suicidal.”

At Brunei Bay in the Philippines, MacArthur was leading his nervous officers along a beach road battlefield when they came across the freshly slain bodies of two Japanese soldiers.

“An Army photographer appeared, hoping to take a picture of the General and the bodies,” wrote biographer William Manchester. “MacArthur refused, and the cameraman squared away to snap the two corpses. Just at the bulb flashed, the photographer fell with a sniper’s bullet in his shoulder.

“Sir Leslie Morhead, the corps commander, hurried up and said they had reached the front line. MacArthur protested: ‘But I see some Australian soldiers fully a hundred yards ahead.’ Sir Leslie said: ‘General, that is only a forward patrol, and even now it is under heavy fire. You cannot go beyond this point without extreme hazard. The enemy is right in front of it.’ MacArthur said, ‘Let’s go forward.’ Sir Leslie stepped aside and told one of the American aides, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever heard of a commander-in-chief acting as the point.’

“The General started to pace toward the Japanese, but (Gen. George C.) Kenney decided to intervene. They had found the enemy’s outpost position, he told MacArthur, and ‘if he wanted my vote, it was for allowing the infantry to do the job they came ashore for.’ Besides, he continued, the captain of the Boise had invited them to dinner, and it would be ‘extremely discourteous to keep dinner waiting when, after all, we were just guests.’ Capping his argument, he reminded the General that the cruiser’s skipper had promised them chocolate ice cream that evening.

“’All right, George,’ MacArthur said, smiling and turning back toward the ship. ‘I wouldn’t have you miss that ice cream for anything.’

“His craving for danger was unappeased, however; the next day they landed on the other side of Brunei Bay. Hearing gunfire coming from the direction of a nearby airfield, they ‘headed,’ in Kenney’s words, ‘for more trouble.’

“Reaching the edge of the landing strip, the General said, ‘Let’s go on,’ but then an Australian colonel stepped out of the bush and barred the way, brusquely telling the commander in chief that he and his entourage were an unwelcome distraction.

“Kenney writes: ‘He was not a bit awed at MacArthur’s five stars and, much to my gratification, refused to let us go forward another inch.”

The Sordid Telepathy of Douglas MacArthur

MacArthur with Sutherland in Brisbane during World War II

During the Pacific war, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s chief of staff, Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, had a married mistress. MacArthur, concerned about a scandal in the press, ordered Sutherland to get rid of her.

“MacArthur had told his chief of staff that after Hollandia, the round-heeled Australian captain must return to Brisbane, that under no circumstances could should cross the equator,” wrote biographer William Manchester. Sutherland secretly defied him, building a cottage for the woman on Leyte during MacArthur’s invasion of the Philippines.

MacArthur’s other subordinate officers were nervous about breaking the news to him. Telepathy, or perhaps synchronicity, solved their problem. As the woman became increasingly demanding, Dr. Roger Egeberg decided something should be done.

“The doctor crossed Santo Nino Street from the staff headquarters to the Price house and found MacArthur in a rocking chair on the veranda,” Manchester wrote. “Sitting on another chair, Egeberg tried to think how best to broach the subject. He asked perfunctorily about (MacArthur’s wife) Jean and then sat in silence, trying mental telepathy, concentrating on the cottage dweller’s name. Presently the General turned t him and asked, ‘Doc, whatever happened to that woman?’ The doctor spoke her name aloud. ‘That’s the one.’ Egeberg said, ‘She’s 10 mile down the coast. Larry just talked to her.’ The General’s jaw sagged and then set in a grim line. He said: ‘Get Sutherland!’”

The doctor did as he was told, leaving Sutherland in MacArthur’s company. On the way out, he heard MacArthur shout “You goddamned son of a bitch!” and various other choice phrases.

The woman was packed off to Brisbane, but Sutherland apparently couldn’t resist her charms. He pleased toothache as an excuse for joining her there.

“When he returned, the General’s attitude was frigid,” Manchester wrote. “Never again were they on intimate terms.”

On Stage With FDR and MacArthur

MacArthur, FDR and Admiral Chester Nimitz

Politically in opposing camps, Gen. Douglas MacArthur and President Franklin D. Roosevelt were alike in many ways — including their shared flair for the dramatic.

“Both were intensely patriotic, authentic patricians, and always onstage,” wrote biographer William Manchester in American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964. “Each was dominated by an ambitious mother who lived to great old age, and each cut a dashing figure.

“Roosevelt was subtler and more of a fixer, but the greatest difference was in their political outlooks. FDR was guided by his liberal vision. Despite the whispers of some New Dealers, MacArthur was not a reactionary of the Father Coughlin stripe. As he would demonstrate during his proconsulship in Tokyo, he too cherished liberal goals. But in the 1930s, he was still a Herbert Hoover conservative and good friend of West Pointer Robert Wood, who was now head of Sears, Roebuck and who probably introduced him to James H. Rand of Remington Rand at this time. Like them, MacArthur was appalled by the social programs which Hoover’s successor was passing through Congress.

“He was also baffled by the new president’s finessing skills. Roosevelt could charm anyone, even MacArthur. Once during a White House dinner, the general asked: ‘Why is it, Mr. President, that you frequently inquire my opinion regarding the social reforms under consideration … but pay little attention to my views on the military?’ His host replied: ‘Douglas, I don’t bring these questions up for your advice but for your reactions. To me, you are the symbol of the conscience of the American people.’ This, MacArthur said, ‘took all the wind out of my sales.’ It meant, of course, absolutely nothing.”

MacArthur wouldn’t prove to be as smoothly persuasive with FDR. “The Bureau of the Budget, determined to pull the government out of the red, announced that War Department appropriations for the coming fiscal year would be reduced by $80 million. (Secretary of War George) Dern asked for a conference with FDR and took MacArthur with him. Roosevelt was adamant: funds for the regular army would be cut 51 percent; funds for the reserve and the National Guard would also be reduced. The general, his voice trembling with outrage, said: ‘When we lose the next war, and an American boy with an enemy bayonet through his belly and an enemy foot on his dying throat spits out his last curse, I want the name not to be MacArthur, but Roosevelt.’

“FDR, livid, said, ‘You must not talk that way to the president!’ MacArthur would remember long afterward that he apologized, ‘but I felt my Army career was at an end. I told him he had my resignation as Chief of Staff.’ He turned toward the door, but before he could leave Roosevelt said quietly, ‘Don’t be foolish, Douglas; you and the budget must get together on this.’

“Outside, Dern said jubilantly, ‘You’ve saved the Army.’ The general recalled: ‘But I just vomited on the steps of the White House.’”

FDR wouldn’t be the last president MacArthur crossed, and I don’t mean Harry Truman. I mean his Republican successor, who had worked for MacArthur. MacArthur described Dwight Eisenhower as the “best clerk I ever had,” and Eisenhower, when asked by a woman whether he’d ever met MacArthur, returned the compliment. “Not only have I met him, m’am; I studied dramatics under him for five years in Washington and four years in the Philippines,” Eisenhower replied. Who says Ike wasn’t witty?

They Laughed All the Way to Pearl Harbor

The persistent sneering devil of American racism led to a grave military error in the Pacific.

“(A)s the 1930s drew to a close, most American officers in the Philippines regarded conflict between the United States and Dai Nippon (literally Great Japan, as in Great Britain) as inevitable,” wrote biographer William Manchester in American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964. “But few of them doubted a swift U.S. victory.

Japanese propaganda art from World War II

“Even MacArthur was misled by racial chauvinism; when he saw the skill with which Japanese warplanes were flown in the first days of the war, he concluded that the pilots must be white men.

“The Japanese, Americans agreed, were a comical race. They wrote backward and read backward. They built their houses from the roof down and pulled, instead of pushing, their saws. Their baseball announcers gave the full count as ‘two and three.’ Department-store bargain basements were on the top floor.

“Japanese women gave men gifts on Saint Valentine’s Day. Papers were stapled in the upper right-hand corner. To open their locks, you had to turn the key to the left. If they fell in the mud, they laughed; telling you of grave personal misfortunes, they grinned. Japanese murderers apologized to the victims’ families for messing up the house, and the Japanese host who received you into his home with exquisite courtesy might, upon meeting you in the street, shove you rudely into the gutter.

“They were stocky, bandy-legged and buck-toothed. Their civilians wore rumpled hats, dark alpaca suits and tinted glasses in public. Their soldiers suited up in uniforms resembling badly wrapped brown paper parcels. The notion that they could shoot straight — not to mention lick red-blooded Americans — was regarded in Manila as preposterous.” But, as Manchester observed, “Really it was the Americans who were comic, or, considering what lay ahead, tragicomic.”

How to Succeed in the Pentagon (By Trying Very, Very Hard)

Gen Douglas MacArthur in 1930

When it came to crawling up the butts of superiors who were in a position to do him some good, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was determined to be second to none. MacArthur could have put J. Pierrepont Finch to shame in his shamelessness.

“He had been carefully feeding the hungry ego of the new president’s secretary of war, Patrick J. Hurley,” noted biographer William Manchester. “Seeing his chance when Hurley sent the Senate a routine communication on the Philippines, the General sent him an oleaginous missive:

‘I have just read in the local papers your letter … and I cannot refrain from expressing to you the unbounded admiration it has caused me. It is the most comprehensive and statesmanlike paper that has ever been presented with reference to this complex and perplexing problem. At one stroke, it has clarified issues which have perplexed and embarrassed statesmen for the past 30 years. If nothing else had ever been written on the subject, your treatise would be complete and absolute. It leaves nothing to be said and has brought confidence and hope out of the morass of chaos and confusion which has existed in the minds of millions of people. It is the most statesmanlike utterance that has emanated from the American Government in many decades and renews in the hearts of many of us our confirmed faith in American principles and ideals. You have done a great and courageous piece of work and I am sure that the United States intends even greater things for you in the future. Please accept my heartiest congratulations not only for yourself personally but the great nation to which we both belong.’

“For a while he heard nothing. … But the administration was giving serious thought to a successor for (Army Chief of Staff Charles P.) Summerall, who would retire in the fall of 1930, and MacArthur’s name was being discussed seriously. Hurley had at first balked, arguing that a man who ‘couldn’t hold his woman’ shouldn’t be Chief of Staff. Since then, however, MacArthur’s remarkable letter had impressed the secretary of war with its wisdom and insight.”

MacArthur got the appointment he so keenly wanted — but not, of course, without pretending that he hesitated to take the job. He only finally and reluctantly accepted the post at the urging of his dear mother, or so he said.

Source: William Manchester,  “American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964”

And Death Was Dead Ahead

Douglas MacArthur at a French chateau in 1918

During World War I, Douglas MacArthur, then a brigadier general, was provided plenty of chances to test his courage.

“The 42^nd had been trying, with little success, to advance northward from the Ourcq to the Vesle, which runs roughly parallel to it. A Boche deserter reported that the enemy was pulling back, but there was no sign of it.

“In the small hours of Friday morning, MacArthur crawled into no-man’s-land with an aide: ‘The dead were so think in spots that we tumbled over them. There must have been at least 2,000 of those sprawled bodies. I identified the insignia of six of the best German divisions. The stench was suffocating. Not a tree was standing. The moans and cries of wounded men sounded everywhere. Sniper bullets sung like the buzzing of angry bees.’”

“Abruptly a Very flare blazed overhead, and he and the aide hit the dirt. In the flickering light, MacArthur saw, dead ahead, ‘three Germans — a lieutenant pointing with outstretched arm, a sergeant crouched over a machine gun, a corporal feeding a bandolier of cartridges to the weapon. I held my breath waiting for the burst, but there was nothing. The seconds ticked by, but still nothing. We waited until we could wait no longer.’

“Watching the Germans’ position, the aide ‘shifted his poised grenade to the other hand and reached for his flashlight. They had not moved. They were never to move. They were dead, all dead — the lieutenant with shrapnel through his heart, the sergeant with his belly blown into his back, the corporal with his spine where his head should have been.’”

— William Manchester,  American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964

Bravery and Bribery

Arthur McArthur as an 18-year-old adjutant

Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s father, Captain Arthur MacArthur, was a Union Army Civil War veteran of conspicuous bravery. He went on to become part of that western cavalry that later came riding to the rescue in the horse-opera movies, but was actually engaged in the steady, colonial displacement of the Native American tribes.

“As Douglas told the story late in life, his father was serving on a military court in New Orleans when a cotton broker, urgently needing the loan of army transport facilities, attempted to suborn him. The bribe was to be a large sum of cash, which was left on his desk, and a night with an exquisite Southern girl. Wiring Washington the details, Arthur concluded, ‘I am depositing the money with the Treasury of the United States and request immediate relief from this command. They are getting close to my price.’”

— William Manchester, American Caesar.