macarthur is still hated at least in my little area of the world. mainly due to how he handled things in ww2. due to inaccurate intelligence he had no bloody idea of what the coditions were like to fight in because like some english generals in ww1 he never got any where near the battlefeild.(the battalion that recruited from my area sent 600men to PNG only 21 were left fit for duty after buna) so that might have sumthing to do with why they hate him still. He basically tried to take the credit for what better commanders acheived. macarthur in a report to washington on the 6th sept 1942 wrote"the australians have proved themselves unable to match the enemy in jungle fighting. aggressive leadership is lacking". but neglecty to talk about the letter he had recieved from general blamey stating that "American troops here at present can't be classified as attack troops and are definatly not equal to australian millitiaand from the moment they met oppisition they sat down and have hardley gone a yard"
quite interesting that he forgot to add that bit ithink. He blaimed the aussies for any failures and tried to take all the credit for himself.


a quote from a recent biographer about new guinea including the battle of buna" Macaurthur, in short, never saw the battlefeild. Six days later the feild commander wrote bluntly that the c-in-c hadn't visited the front once 'to see at first hand the difficulties our troops were up against', and later he wrote bitterley that 'the great hero went home without seeing BUNA before, during or after the fighting but printed press articles from G.H.Q. to say that he was leading troops in the battle.... macarthur just stayed over at port moresby for 40 minutes and walked the floor. i know this to be a fact.'

After the war Douglas Southall Freeman, a biograhper off lee asked Eichelberger, just when did general macarthur move his head quarters to buna?' Eichelberger doged the question, and subsuquently the general said to him, 'Bob, those were great days when you and i were fighting at BUNA, wern't they?' and laughed. Eichelberger interpreted this as a warning not to disclose that he (macarthur) never went to BUNA.
In Brisbane macarthur had told phillip lafollette that he would never follow the examples of those world war 1 commanders who had clung to their chateaux in the rear areas while 'flinging millions of men to there slaughter in the stupidity of trench warfare'. yet in PNG he did something very close to that!"

taken from William manchester's "American Caesar, Douglas macarthur, 1880-1964. pp.326-327

he was an arrogant barstard .

It looks like it's pretty unanimous on MacArthur.

He deserves to spend eternity in the lowest circle of Dante's Inferno just for leaving his men swinging in the wind in the Phillipines, thanks to his cowardice and ineptitude.

But, to top it off, all those men who are honored in the new Korean War Memorial have MacArthur to thank. The Chinese made it pretty clear that MacArthur better give some berth to the Yalu River, but MacArthur ignored them and his superiors. Then, to paraphrase Custer, "Where did all these Chinese come from?"

The best I can say about MacArthur was that he wasn't that bad a tactician, however, he was a terrible strategist. He was narcissistic, arrogant, morally bankrupt and exhibited a supreme lack of judgement.

MacArthur was a mama's boy who was lucky to have a politically connected mother in Washington, DC. After she died, and he screwed up (again) in Korea, he was finally sacked (since Mama wasn't around to bail him out for the umpteenth time).

Certainly Australia owes alot to the US during WW2.

Unfortunately plenty of Australian soldiers who fought bravely and doggedly through the jungles of New Guinea (an absolute hell on earth!) did not think much of MacArthur's criticisms of them as being to slow. Particularly at Buna while the US forces were "island hopping".

Look MacArthur was still a great General but he didn't want to take any blame for things that went wrong. He was a great egotist.

My worst US military leader was I think General Clark at Anzio. Initially very indecisive.The US forces may have reached Rome much faster but poor leadership resulted in the them having to battle a very tough German defense costing thousands of lives.

Maj. General Lloyd R Fredendall, the II Corps Commander in the early stages of the North African campaign.

GuyontheRight,

Maj. General Lloyd R Fredendall, the II Corps Commander in the early stages of the North African campaign.

While I agree that General Fredendall was certainly badly defeated at Kasserine Pass, we must at least acknowledge that he was on a “new” battlefield where combined armed tactics with an unmatched military machine were to be utilized in a manner the American forces were yet to experience much less study.

Aussiejohn,

My worst US military leader was I think General Clark at Anzio.

I do agree that his tactical blunder of allowing the Germans to retreat in Italy is hard to forget, but I think he was forgiven when he was promoted to commander of the 15th Army Group and later accepted the surrender of those German forces in Italy. As an assistant to Eisenhower during the North African campaign, I do think he was very he was instrumental in the African Vichy surrender. He was given command of the US 5th Army in and about 8 or 9 months later spearheaded the invasion and subsequent campaigns.

I know I many poor American commanders, but I do not think neither of these gentlemen should make the list – or at least be on the top 10 list.

i have to agree with both individuals listed above..they really werent the cause of the problems or losses under their leadership.

for Clark, it was pure bad luck. The germans simply got there firstest with the mostest.

For Fredendall its worse: given big tanks with limited firing patterns, unseasoned men, and a bad battle area to start with, and you have the recipe for a disaster. It was the americans first foray in tank and desert warfare agaunst a skilled opponent. That, and the general didnt have that much experience with tank warfare: not many americans, with the exception of Patton, even considered the tank as a player until after WWII started.

I think the selection of a few more field stinkers is in order: you got to remember the rule of 20-80

its 20 percent of the force that does 80 percent of the brillant things...

Wow, I cannot believe that nobody has mentioned Ambrose Burnside!
Grant got a vote or two but not Burnside? Look at his record, he has a bridge named after him at Antietam because he didn't have the sense to look for a way to ford the creek and instead spent precious hours trying to get over the bridge. He got thousands of Federal troops killed or wounded at Fredericksburg by not updating his strategy to account for the current conditions (not to mention waiting on the field for 2 days for the pontoon bridges). And then, just when you thought it was safe, he was responsible for another turkey-shoot at the "Crater". There is a reason why this man is largely considered to be the worst general in American history.

I do not agree about Grant. His attacks on Fort Donelson and his Vicksburg campaigns were very well executed. He was also one of the first generals to recognize how to beat the South - not by taking cities but by destroying armies. You can't argue with his record, he destroyed nearly every army he fought against.

The post I put in here prior to the Database Crash ... well, my statement was that most of the Potomic Army commanders prior to Grant would have a strong case for being the worst US commander ever.

Grant got a vote or two but not Burnside? Look at his record, he has a bridge named after him at Antietam because he didn't have the sense to look for a way to ford the creek and instead spent precious hours trying to get over the bridge. He got thousands of Federal troops killed or wounded at Fredericksburg by not updating his strategy to account for the current conditions (not to mention waiting on the field for 2 days for the pontoon bridges). And then, just when you thought it was safe, he was responsible for another turkey-shoot at the "Crater". There is a reason why this man is largely considered to be the worst general in American history.

Yea, Bursnside should of used the Fresh Black troops he had availible for the assult on the lines outside of Petersburg.

Can't believe I forgot to mention him. Yeah, Burnsides is definitely in the top 3 for worst American generals. But see, I like the Confederates more than the Union so =)