Lilmissflamethrower
Active member
According to Ambroise Pierce they were both brilliant and difficult.
He said many people effuse over MacArthur like he is the second coming of Christ or just too magnificent for words...
He wouldn't follow military regulations re: dress. He would contradict himself if he got into trouble, but he also brought West Point up to date and enfused modern day thinking into the academy when he was Superintendent.
He didn't want anyone to get close to him and he wanted to maintain an air of austerity. He also referred to himself in the third person.
Pierce says:
"He had a deeply rooted need to always be right. It increased as he grew older. Henceforth he would hold to his ideas, no matter wht any member of his staff might say, and if the event proved him wrong, he would deny, vehemently, that he had ever said or ordered this or that. His monumental egotism allowed him to ignore all contary documentary evidence-he simply denied its existence. MacArthur had to be right, to be omnipotent, to be MacArthur."
He failed in the Phillipines because he had an idea how Asians thought - and was sure the Japanese would not advance and they did (and they bombed Pearl Harbor).
He also had a persecution complex (I guess because the foreign policy of the President and everyone else was different then his).
He could be extraordinarily petty. Even though he lost the Phillipines, Marshall awarded him a medal of honor. Marshall wanted to award a medal of honor to someone named Wainright who served under MacArthur but they had to have a letter of recommendation from MacArthur and he refused. Finally the guy got it after the war and only because Marshall insisted.
He refused to credit the Marines for helping him in the Phillipines and when he went back to return he said "I came through and I shall return." The Office of War Information asked him if they could change it to "We shall return" and he insisted it be only "I."
Yet he did fight to go back to the Phillipines and he did and five months later the Japanese surrendered.
Pierce never denies that MacArthur was a brilliant leader and none could beat his strategy and brilliance campaigns.
Oddly enought when he went to occupy Japan he turned into a very liberal and democratic leader there.
In Korea, with an under equipped and unprepared soldiers he did a fairly good job of holding the North Koreans at bay. At one point he had idea to take his X Corps to Inchon, the Port of Seoul, and cut the North Korean supply line. Both the Army and the Navy opposed saying there was not enough landing craft, the port was too small and the tides amongst the highest in the world.
MacArthur ignored everyone and ignoring careful scientific planning, he went on instinct and totally triumphed. The Marines did get ashore, raced to Seoul and broke the siege at Puson, they went on to take back the 38th parallel, the pre-war boundary.
This time he also decided to thank the Marines and the Navy.
So I don't know what to say - he was both great and terrible. Egotistical, selfish, petty and brilliant.
He said many people effuse over MacArthur like he is the second coming of Christ or just too magnificent for words...
He wouldn't follow military regulations re: dress. He would contradict himself if he got into trouble, but he also brought West Point up to date and enfused modern day thinking into the academy when he was Superintendent.
He didn't want anyone to get close to him and he wanted to maintain an air of austerity. He also referred to himself in the third person.
Pierce says:
"He had a deeply rooted need to always be right. It increased as he grew older. Henceforth he would hold to his ideas, no matter wht any member of his staff might say, and if the event proved him wrong, he would deny, vehemently, that he had ever said or ordered this or that. His monumental egotism allowed him to ignore all contary documentary evidence-he simply denied its existence. MacArthur had to be right, to be omnipotent, to be MacArthur."
He failed in the Phillipines because he had an idea how Asians thought - and was sure the Japanese would not advance and they did (and they bombed Pearl Harbor).
He also had a persecution complex (I guess because the foreign policy of the President and everyone else was different then his).
He could be extraordinarily petty. Even though he lost the Phillipines, Marshall awarded him a medal of honor. Marshall wanted to award a medal of honor to someone named Wainright who served under MacArthur but they had to have a letter of recommendation from MacArthur and he refused. Finally the guy got it after the war and only because Marshall insisted.
He refused to credit the Marines for helping him in the Phillipines and when he went back to return he said "I came through and I shall return." The Office of War Information asked him if they could change it to "We shall return" and he insisted it be only "I."
Yet he did fight to go back to the Phillipines and he did and five months later the Japanese surrendered.
Pierce never denies that MacArthur was a brilliant leader and none could beat his strategy and brilliance campaigns.
Oddly enought when he went to occupy Japan he turned into a very liberal and democratic leader there.
In Korea, with an under equipped and unprepared soldiers he did a fairly good job of holding the North Koreans at bay. At one point he had idea to take his X Corps to Inchon, the Port of Seoul, and cut the North Korean supply line. Both the Army and the Navy opposed saying there was not enough landing craft, the port was too small and the tides amongst the highest in the world.
MacArthur ignored everyone and ignoring careful scientific planning, he went on instinct and totally triumphed. The Marines did get ashore, raced to Seoul and broke the siege at Puson, they went on to take back the 38th parallel, the pre-war boundary.
This time he also decided to thank the Marines and the Navy.
So I don't know what to say - he was both great and terrible. Egotistical, selfish, petty and brilliant.
