Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur (26 January 1880 – 5 April 1964) was a General of the Army of the United States, holding a rank equivalent to "Field Marshal" (a rank which he held in the Philippines' army). MacArthur liberated the Philippines from Japan in October 1944 during the Pacific War, and he also commanded US forces in the first two years of the Korean War before he was dismissed due to disagreements with President Harry Truman.

Biography

The son of a general and first in his class at West Point, the supremely self-confident Douglas MacArthur was destined for a high-flying military career. He distinguished himself fighting with the 42nd "Rainbow" Division on the Western Front in World War I, ending the war as a Brigadier-General. By 1930, he was US Army chief-of-staff, and in 1935, he undertook the building of an army for the semi-independent Philippines.

War in the East

Formally recalled to US service in July 1941, MacArthur was caught unprepared by the Japanese offensive after Pearl Harbor. Unable to prevent enemy landings on the Philippines, he withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula. On President Franklin D. Roosevelt's orders, he left his troops to escape to Australia in March 1942. Installed as supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific, he launched an offensive in New Guinea and instituted an "island-hopping" strategy, bypassing Japanese strongpoints. He used the media to press for his preferred strategic choices, invading the Philippines in 1944 against the judgment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

After the war, MacArthur led the occupation forces in Japan, and at the onset of the Korean War in 1950, he was given command of UN forces. He stabilized a perimeter around the port of Pusan, then launched a brilliant counterstroke with landings at Inchon that forced a communist withdrawal northward. In pursuit toward the Chinese border, he met with large-scale Chinese military intervention that sent his army reeling into retreat. His public advocacy of an invasion of China and the use of nuclear weapons led President Harry Truman to dismiss him in April 1951.

Gallery: