Why do Aussies and Kiwis hold grudges about Douglas MacArthur?

[S2]

raafbloke Reply

Bill,

You've come on too strong for my tastes with respect to awards. In our military, they pass through a fairly rigorous verification and endorsement process. Lying for awards isn't unheard of, to be sure, but a high-visibility award like the DSC or silver star- awarded multiple times to a high visibility personage- puts paid to the notion that he was a coward.

I'm no fan, if perhaps an admirer of his carefully-crafted image, so make your case but do so with respect to his staff management, campaign decisions, inculcation of a cult of personality, and aborgation of responsibility for failure- if you can.

Oh! Can you break your thoughts up into paragraphs, please? Bit hard on the eyes otherwise...;)

[zraver]

G'day Zraver,
Thought I'd touch very sensitive nerves on this topic. It was not my intention to stir up a bee-hive, rather present what I've, and others have found to be reliable estimates, at least, of facts from corroborated sources.

BS, you knew you'd kick the hive over. You chose very colorful language just for that purpose.

Big Mac was a gambler, never a sign of considered and time-tested experience.

Again BS, gambling is half the battle. There are no sure bets in war. Inchon was and remains a classic example of a commander finding an enemies unknown linchpin and pulling it so the rest of the machine coems crashing down.

Inchon, well, his troops managed to pull that off, daring move, certainly but if he'd failed in his gamble he'd have been pilloried as much as our Gordon Bennett was for runming away from Singapore.

He didn't fail, that what you don't seem to get. Your taking him to task becuase he might have failed.

I have read documents in the Australian National Archives that prove Mac thought the Kokoda track or trail was more of a road that could easily take tanks and heavy artillary. Trouble was he spent most of his years in Australia in 3 and 5 star hotels and his direct understanding of the terrain was filtered and censored by the cotery of his senior staff who were loath to tell the great man anything approaching the truth that might upset him. Your apparent contention that he understood the terrible difficulties of the track just doen't pan out. One of the main reasons he sent Blamey up to PNG to dress down and then, reluctantly, sack Australian General Sydney Rowell was because Mac thought the Australians just weren't up to the task. Fact is, by the time Blamey got up there and had his unwanted confrontation with Rowell Australian forces had driven back the bulk of the *** threat.

You might get to the truth at some point. At no point until the Japanese out ran and then used up thier meager supplies did the Austrailians push the Japanese back. The Japanese withdrew under very light pressure back to the other side of the range. Then and only then, and with signifgant US gorund force support were the Japanese bested at Buna Gona.

Mac was an impatient man, unwilling to listen to bad news and obsessed to press on with his 'divine' quest to return to the Phillippines no matter what. I am more than willing to give a flawed man his dues, case in point is Blamey, a deeply flawed personality but with a far greater strategic understanding and a wealth of experience in large planning overviews of multi-faceted operations. (Plus hands-on battlefield command, although limited in quantity.) Mac turns up in PNG with his razor sharp creases in his new uniform, takes a quick look around and then scrurries back to Prime Minister Curtin, that afternoon with a literny of complaints about the fighting capabilities of Australian troops, their 'sub-standard' leadership and their logiistic shortcomings. Upshot of it is I just can't take this man seriously, although almost all he did was seriously wrong. He even lied about how tall he was. Heavens, what a lunatic. His photographers shot him 'up' as we say in the trade, that made him look taller than those around him. Blamey was 5'10" tall. General Eichelberger was a former basketball player and a good 6'2" tall. I have photos taken by Mac's staff that make Mac appear taller than him. Jack Gallaway, whom I've interviewed swore to me the most striking feature about him meeting Big Mac for the first time was how short the man was. No more than 5' 7.5" max. In photos taken by Australian press photographers Big Mac is glaring at them angrily because he knows he's standing next to Prime Minister Curtin and others who were taller than him. This is the personality profile of a true tactical and strategic genius? The debate continues.

Basically an ad hominem attack.

I bet you even think Austraila won the first land battle vs the Japanese as well with the battle of Milne Bay. The rest of your view sure seems to point this way, with some sort of need to castigate Mac to soothe your own bruised self.

[clackers]

Clackers, have you by chance looked at pictures of the Owen Stanleys? There was no way to use tanks there. Once across the mountains Mac switched to leap frogging airborne attacks and amphibious landings. A lack of tanks is due more to Terrain than generalship.

That's not right, Zraver. The big battles in PNG happened on the coast, not inside the Stanleys themselves.

The foolish frontal assaults on Buna that Big Mac ordered but that got Harding (commander of the American troops) sacked did not succeed under ex-basketballer Eichelberger either until he waited for tanks (which he used on the eastern flank), more planes under the new air commander (George C. Kenney) and a squadron of PT boats.

Spector p217:

History has not been kind to MacArthur's "striking victory" in Papua. 'The only result', concluded the army's official historian, 'strategically speaking, was that after six months of bitter fighting and some 8,500 casualties, including 3,000 dead, the Southwest Pacific Area was exactly where it would have been the previous July had it been able to secure the beachead before the Japanese ever got there'. Others have pointed out that the Japanese entrenched at Buna and Sanananda could have been isolated and bypassed once the Allies had secured an airstrip at Dobodura

In the Phillipines, Mac did not want to fight for the city

That's simply not true, Zraver. Even the Sixth Army's General Krueger knew the reason that MacArthur kept driving him on despite larger than forecast Japanese numbers in Luzon was that he wanted to be in Manila by his birthday, January 26th.

The First Cavalry's tank commander was told by Big Mac "Go to Manila, Go Around the ****, Bounce off the ****, but go to Manila"

neither did the Japanese commander, but his junior officers put bushido over orders and chose to fight.

It was the old Army/Navy demarcation thing, Zraver, plaguing the Japanese as well as the Americans.

Yamashita wanted to withdraw, but Rear Admiral Sanji chose to stay - and he had 16,000 naval personnel. The existing army troops joined them, but that was only three battalions.

[zraver]

G'day S-2,
Yes, I'm aware Purple Hearts are wound decorations and I agree they are, and should be held in high regard. Yet there are miriad reports of troops and officers getting the Purple Heart for having abcesses lanced in war zones.

You just said the American military hands out purple hearts for abseceses. This might have happened, but the term "miriad" is one chosen to make it look common.

Truman dismisssed him for being a genius?

Because he forgot his place. Generals do not rule in America presidents do. That dispute has nothing to do with his abilites as a commander.

I think not. Roosevelt, apart from being detached from such matters of on the ground fighting would never have touched Mac because they were both patriticians of the ruling class.

Nice backhanded swipe at America.

Rounding off this particular gripe of mine, I state again that the US saved our asses on numerous occasions, often by sheer weight of numbers,

Another backhanded compliment. There is zero evidecne to show the American fightign man was any less capable than yours.

however, I have great personal esteem for the American fighting man, having met many of them, of yesteryear and today.

Save the tripe, if you really respected them you would not be throwing backhanded comments around.

[glyn]

This is becoming interesting! I will merely remark that some of the posters who are so ready to denigrate other nations, their forces and leaders are so swift to take umbrage if criticism is levelled against their country.

[S2]

Glyn Reply

"I will merely remark that some of the posters who are so ready to denigrate other nations, their forces and leaders are so swift to take umbrage if criticism is levelled against their country."

Merely? Go fcuk yourself, Glyn. You're just looking to start a row. Bill hasn't attacked my country. He's slandered the personal bravery of MacArthur. That's different (and sloppy) as MacArthur's personal bravery is well-documented and definitely NOT in dispute for all the dubious personal qualities and decision which might RIGHTFULLY be.

Slag away. There are plenty of correct reasons to do so. His personal bravery isn't one of them.

[raafbloke]

Dear Zraver, your apparent zeal to pick up on one or two of my words, or select a phrase then turn it against me to back up your extremely sensitive standpoint on these issues suggests either an element of doubt in your own argument or smply a desire to swipe back at me because I raise issues unpalatable to you. This, of course, is your right. Backhanded compliments and swipes are shallow and pointless. You'll really catch my drift if I descend to those. Let's agree to disagree. Douglas MacArthur was a dog of a General, as were many of ours, and the Brits. (Monty was a semi-functional lunatic who was simply lucky and, by the way, far too cautious which cost many lives and allowed many enemy troops to escape to kill our folks another day.) See, I'm even handed. I admonish all senior commanders, ours and theirs and yours for screwing up because they were simply beyond their depth.) The tragedy of Mac was that he was given far too much power and then left in an exalted position way beyond his his use-by date. The only sensible thing he could have done at the end of the war was have that famous portrait of himself with the Mikado taken and then drawn his 45 and blown the puny murderer's head off. Have a nice day.
Regards,
Bill

[Officer of Engineers]

I'm sorry, Bill but I think it is best you go somewhere else. You're no longer arguing history but venting your personal feelings on the man.

[clackers]

... The tragedy of Mac was that he was given far too much power and then left in an exalted position way beyond his his use-by date. The only sensible thing he could have done ... etc

RAAFbloke, there are plenty of sources, mainly American, that can list the guy's shortcomings ... including the Inchon campaign, which was simultaneously a stunning victory then a stunning (and sadly for units like the US 2nd Infantry Division, very avoidable) defeat, including the longest retreat in US military history.

But if this summary of a review in the Australian Journal of Politics and History is anything to go by, your Jack Galloway (a journalist, rather than an academic) book may be less than useful for the debate:

"... There is little to commend about Jack Gallaway's The Odd Couple: Blamey and MacArthur at War. The book purports to provide a comparative biographical assessment of the two generals. In reality, The Odd Couple is little more than a character assassination of US general, Douglas MacArthur ...

[astralis]

i think MacArthur just never really transitioned well from small-medium unit command to army command.

[glyn]

"I will merely remark that some of the posters who are so ready to denigrate other nations, their forces and leaders are so swift to take umbrage if criticism is levelled against their country."

Merely? Go fcuk yourself, Glyn. You're just looking to start a row. Bill hasn't attacked my country. He's slandered the personal bravery of MacArthur. That's different (and sloppy) as MacArthur's personal bravery is well-documented and definitely NOT in dispute for all the dubious personal qualities and decision which might RIGHTFULLY be.

Ah, a man(?) of charm as well as infallible erudition? No.

Slag away. There are plenty of correct reasons to do so. His personal bravery isn't one of them.

I don't slag. I let others show themselves up for what they are - but at least you should be happy in getting yet another person banished!

[S2]

Glyn Reply

"Ah, a man(?) of charm as well as infallible erudition?"

I save what little charm that I possess for those far more worthy than you.

"...at least you should be happy in getting yet another person banished!"

I've no desire to see Bill gone. There was more vehemence than knowledge on display. None to good purpose. Were I so powerful, though, you'd have been long gone.

Trust me.

[astralis]

okay guys, please drop the argument.

the man got panned, had he stayed on he would have been pounded into sand, and thus to save time as well as trouble OOE had him banned.

and as you can see, this mod here needs his coffee fix before writing on WAB on a monday morning.

[clackers]

I'm sorry, Bill but I think it is best you go somewhere else. You're no longer arguing history but venting your personal feelings on the man.

That's a banishment, OoE?

RAAFbloke's 'personal' attacks weren't against a fellow board member, they were against a celebrity ... a historical figure!

[Ray]

I think we were getting another viewpoint.

The heat must be due to the Global Climate Change!