General MacArthur’s War Path with Walter Borneman

0:04 Welcome to AMSEcast, coming to you from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a global leader in science, technology, and innovation. My name is Alan Lowe, director of the American Museum of Science and Energy, and the K-25 History Center. Each episode of AMSEcast presents world-renowned authors, scientists, historians, policymakers, and everyone in between, sharing their insights on a variety of fascinating topics. Welcome to AMSEcast. I’m very pleased to welcome, on this episode, Walter Borneman. Walt received degrees in history from Western State College of Colorado, and his law degree from the University of Denver.

0:47 He’s become an award-winning author of books like The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King, Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, and the book we’ll discuss today, MacArthur at War: World War II in the Pacific. Walt, it’s so good to see you again. Welcome to AMSEcast. Thanks for having me, Alan. Good to be here. Now, I have to tell our listeners, if anyone out there has a real desire to learn more about James K. Polk, we spoke on the podcast I produced separately, American POTUS, about Polk, an amazing personality, in our history, amazingly important personality, kind of like Douglas MacArthur. So, let’s turn to Mr. MacArthur, shall we? He had a long, accomplished career before World War II, and I know, again, I’m skipping over a lot of things.

1:31 He was commandant of West Point, he was Army Chief of Staff, all these things, building up an amazing resume. Why, then did he leave in 1936 to assume the role of Field Marshal in the army of the Philippines, and military to the advisor of the president of that country? Well, I think not to be flip, but I think he was bored, or at least he knew he was going to be bored. To fill in a few of those details, MacArthur is born in 1880, he graduates from West Point in 1903. To your point, he goes on, and he’s been commandant of West Point, and Herbert Hoover in 1930 appoints him chief of staff. It’s a four year term, and then Franklin Roosevelt gives him another year.

2:16 So, it’s 1935 and he’s only 55 years old. He’s sort of done everything. And remember that at this point, the Philippines are an American territory. I think what he really wants to be is high commissioner to the Philippines. That may not sound like a very big deal today, but in that era, William Howard Taft, former president, has been high commissioner to the Philippines, and it’s a pretty high-profile role. But if he were going to take that, he’d have to resign from the army, and that’s [laugh] not something that Douglas MacArthur would willingly do. So, this idea that he will go as a military advisor to the Philippines and then become a Field Marshal in the Filipino army, this is really a part of a transition to get that American territory on the road to independence.

3:10 And this is all happening in the late-1930s. I see. And again skipping over this part, but I was amazed, in his early life, the really important role that his mother played in his career. I mean, she was there for him every step of the way, making sure he made those advancements. His mother actually goes with him to West Point, if you will, and takes up residence there. And it’s kind of interesting. The only other major figure that we’re going to mention today and talk about whose mother is similar to what today we might call a helicopter parent is Sarah Roosevelt, who does almost the same thing with Franklin at Harvard. That’s very true. Very true. So, before the war commenced—our war commenced—with Japan in 1941, MacArthur’s in the Philippines.

3:56 What were his plans for defending the Philippines, and how did those mesh with the overall American strategy in the Pacific. I think there’s always a general aspect of fighting the last war in any type of military. And for decades, the American military has sort of thought back to 1898 and the Spanish American War, where Admiral Dewey has gone and captured the Philippines and attacked Manila, and this idea that there’s going to be a drive across the Pacific to oppose Japan, or anyone else for that matter, is ingrained in the American military psyche. But slowly but surely, there’s a thought that the American military is going to really hunker down around Manila and try to hold that on as a strong point.

4:47 Now, Douglas MacArthur says that he can defend the entire archipelago. And the core of that is his plan for a 200,000 man and Filipino army. And that’s supposed to be the defense, mostly trained and certainly commanded by American troops. And there are definitely—because, again, it’s American territory—there are definitely American troops in the Philippines. But that’s MacArthur’s plan. It never really comes to fruition because it’s just tough to train and keep trained that number of men, and again, spread out across the islands.

5:28 When that attack occurs in the Philippines, how did President Roosevelt and General Marshall respond to it? And at the end of the day, we know MacArthur has to leave to go to Australia, but he later says, if I remember correctly, that he could have held Bataan. Is there any merit to that? Well, you know, I think there’s a tendency, certainly, one of the themes that MacArthur himself had is that he was always outnumbered, and that the United States, particularly Franklin Roosevelt and Chief of Staff Marshall, didn’t give him the adequate number of supplies and things. But it’s kind of interesting. I’m sure many of your listeners are familiar with the classic movie Tora!

6:10 Tora! Tora! Those B-17 that fly into Pearl Harbor on that morning of December 7th, you know where they’re bound for? They’re bound for MacArthur in the Philippines. And in the time when American military strength is pretty minimal and spread pretty thin, MacArthur has actually gotten a number of airplanes, not only B-17s, but P-40s, he’s got a number of men. And in the big picture to the Pacific War, the Philippines is as heavily defended as anything else we have out there, west of Hawaii. Now, could he have held Bataan until a relief force came along?

6:55 I think at the end of the day, the answer is probably no because he had simply failed to train and mobilize this 200,000 man Filipino army that he had in his plans. And they also were facing a very experienced Japanese juggernaut at that point. No question about that. And we’ll talk about island hopping a little bit, but you know, the Japanese military really surrounds Bataan, and they don’t stop. They keep rolling eastward, ultimately into the Solomons, and what we know is going to be a major fight in the summer of 1942 at Guadalcanal.

7:36 So, when MacArthur gets to Australia, what is his overall role, then, in the Pacific Command in the war, and how did that role evolve over time? If you think of a map of the Pacific Ocean, MacArthur’s got this small little quadrant in the extreme lower left-hand corner, and it’s basically called the Southwest Pacific area. Now, he becomes commander-in-chief Southwest Pacific area, that’s his official title. It includes the Philippines, which, of course, by then, are occupied by Japan, New Guinea, where Japan is attacking, and Australia.

8:16 Now, to the east of that line, there’s the South Pacific area, which is going to include the great battles around Guadalcanal and a fair chunk of the Solomons. It’s kind of interesting because that begs that MacArthur is going to have to work in cooperation with Nimitz and Halsey and the Navy, but it’s kind of interesting that the Joint Chiefs adjust that line because originally, the dividing line goes almost directly through Guadalcanal. The Joint Chiefs adjust that line westward so it’s really clear that the fighting around Guadalcanal is under the command of Nimitz and later Halsey, and principally a navy show, while MacArthur is relegated to this Southwest Pacific Area west of there.

9:05 It seems like that relationship with the Navy was never an easy one for MacArthur. Is that correct? I think anecdotally—and Alan, I have to take a little bit of responsibility, maybe, myself because I have a chapter in my book The Admirals quote, “Fighting Japan and Macarthur,” close quotes. That may be a little bit of an overstatement. But I think at the broad strategic level, recognizing that MacArthur is always going to say that he never got enough men or materiel, there really was close cooperation, or at least close cooperation that developed over time between MacArthur and the two principal naval commanders of Halsey in the South Pacific and then Nimitz overall.

9:53 I think where there was really some friction was at the staff level. And the major chief of staffs for each of these commanders and other operational commanders sometimes were a little bit more fractious, if you will, and a little bit more ready to wave their [laugh] own flag of their independent service. So, when he arrived in Australia, was there a real threat of invasion there from Japan, or was that a real possibility? I think at the time, there was more of a thought that Japan might invade Australia, particularly after the war. When more archives were made available, Japanese archives, I think it was always pretty clear that Japan wanted to strike across the northern border of the larger Australia continent there, New Guinea and into the Solomons, and really sever the United States-to-Australia lifeline, and in doing so, kind of leave it as an apple that was going to—the continent of Australia—an apple that was going to drop from a tree, as opposed to really trying to invade Australia.

11:08 It would have taken a huge number of troops that even Japan wasn’t going to be able to mass at that point. Remember, Australia is just a huge continent. You mentioned New Guinea a couple of times. I think probably an area not a lot of people are necessarily familiar with. Why was that area in and around New Guinea so vital to the Allied war plans? Well, first and foremost, it’s really the defensive perimeter to Australia. Think of it as really a chain of islands across the northern part of Australia. Secondly, it’s certainly the key Japanese route to the Solomons and continuing to strike eastward.

11:50 I think the final point is that it really is the route back to the Philippines for MacArthur. I mean, say what you want about Douglas MacArthur, there is one theme: “I shall return.” And he meant that individually and everything that he does is really occasioned on his goal of returning to the Philippines. And that certainly led through New Guinea and those islands immediately to the west of New Guinea, in the Netherlands East Indies. My stepdad, Harry [Ottie] , was one of those island hopping in World War II, and occasionally he would speak of it.

12:31 And he mentioned he once saw Douglas MacArthur, an important moment. He said, MacArthur looked very spick and span compared to the folks who have been [laugh] island hopping. But what was MacArthur’s role in formulating and then implementing that island hopping plan? Well, island hopping, which essentially was bypassing strong points, okay—I think Douglas MacArthur is a great implementer of that. It’s not fair to say that he was the originator of island hopping because, as we mentioned earlier, in some respects, the Japanese already did that with bypassing Bataan and Corregidor, strong points in the Philippines.

13:15 Now, the Americans, remember, actually do a little island hopping of their own in 1943 in the Aleutians, where they bypass the Japanese held—sometimes we don’t remember that Japan actually invaded Alaska in 1942, and in taking those islands back, we bypassed the strong point of Kiska and attacked another island farther out, at Attu. Halsey has certainly done this in the Solomons too. And the first big, major Japanese strong point at Rabaul, Halsey wants to basically bypass that. MacArthur is pretty skeptical of that at that point.

13:56 Well, the end result is that they do bypass Rabaul, and once MacArthur kind of gets into that, it takes him a little bit of time, but he’s going to implement it very effectively with his leaps to Hollandia and other points along the north coast of New Guinea. So, he’s a great implementer of it. And I guess I would just add, in that implementation, even though he’s not the originator of it, where I would give MacArthur credit is combined operations and the ability to put great commanders in charge of his Air, Navy, and land operations, and have them work together.

14:38 And in some respects, it’s dictated by the geography, the vastness, the distance and everything else. But again, I refer back to MacArthur being a 19th century man in the old army school. This is kind of a new thing for him, and to his credit, I think, he adapts to this idea of combined operations, and certainly that’s a key part of being able to implement island hopping. And those combined operations do lead to successes, as you said, and we arrive at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. And you say that, quote, “May have been the greatest victory ever won by the United States Navy,” unquote.

15:19 Why do you say that? Well, maybe I could go back and eliminate the word ‘maybe,’ and simply call it that it is. But I think I wrote that originally because arguably, in World War II, at least, there might have been other turning-point battles, certainly very specifically, the Battle of Midway in June of 1942 which blunts the Japanese attack across the Pacific toward Hawaii. And you know, sometimes we overlook the Battle of the Atlantic. This multi-year campaign against German U-boats, that had it not been won because of a convoy system because of anti-submarine warfare, you know, it’s arguably that we may not have been able to stockpile all of the men and materiel in Great Britain to afford the Normandy invasions in 1944.

16:15 So, specifically about the Battle of Leyte Gulf, there’s really four major sea battles. And you know, it involves battleships. It involves—that’s the kind of the old thing—it involves aircraft carriers, certainly the new thing. And I guess the reason why I would stand by the greatest victory ever won is that afterwards, the Imperial Japanese Navy really ceases to exist as a fighting force. And you know, just a comment, Alan, about America’s industrial might. The idea that we have these relatively aging battleships destroyed at Pearl Harbor, and some of the early amphibious operations that MacArthur does are really done with just a couple of destroyers and landing craft, really a shoestring.

17:07 By the time that Leyte Gulf comes along in the fall of 1944 and MacArthur himself is invading Leyte and en route to recapturing all of the Philippines and Manila, there’s this huge concentration of American military strength. And I think it’s a testament to America’s industrial power and the ability to launch all kinds of ships, big aircraft carriers, escort carriers, and everything else. Truly an amazing production that we revved up really quickly. They say, “They have awakened a sleeping giant,” and they certainly did, and evidence there.

17:48 As they move closer and closer to the Japanese home islands, we know that plans are being drawn up for the invasion. I spoke of my stepfather earlier. My father was getting ready to be part of that invasion force. What was MacArthur’s role in planning that invasion? And if he had a role in that, what were his plans? What did those plans look like? Well, you know, I think that’s a question that Franklin Roosevelt and George Marshall probably asked themselves multiple times. What in the world are we going to do with Douglas MacArthur? Because all along, throughout the war, there have been these twin drives westward across the Pacific. Nimitz through the Central Pacific and MacArthur from New Guinea, kind of Northwest toward the Philippines.

18:29 And eventually, by early-1945 they converge on the Philippines. And then the question is, does Nimitz lead the operation against Japan, or does MacArthur? MacArthur, of course, as we’ve mentioned, has always simply wanted to return to the Philippines. He’s done that. He’s liberated Manila at a horrendous cost—this is February, March of 1945—and of course, the forces under Nimitz are going to get into, again, another horrific campaign of literally, yard-by-yard fighting on Okinawa.

19:09 But then the question is, what does MacArthur do in terms of invading Japan? And finally, in April 1945, he’s made commander-in-chief of all US Army forces in the Pacific. Now, Nimitz is still going to be commanding all naval forces. It’s kind of interesting. MacArthur, as soon as his order is printed, MacArthur’s chief of staff and some of his other officers race into Nimitz’s headquarters like they’re going to start giving orders and take over. And, you know, no. The Joint Chiefs of staff, their intent was that this is kind of a slow transition.

19:50 And Nimitz has really still got the ball until the American troops are going to go ashore at Kyushu with the Invasion of Japan, which by that point, is being set for November of 1945. When did MacArthur learn about the atomic bomb, and what ultimately did he think about its use in Japan? MacArthur is not told about the atomic bomb until really late-1945, and the reason, of course, is that Marshall and the Joint Chiefs don’t want him knowing about it because they’re afraid, in typical MacArthur fashion, he’s going to go ahead and put it in his communiques, or talk to the press about it, or whatever.

20:32 So, he’s told very late in the process. And of course, Nimitz and King are more involved with it because of some of the naval operations and everything. I’m curious if he realized the importance in terms of warfare right away that that weapon made. I don’t know if that’s something you researched or not. He’s on record as saying in his memoirs that he thought the use was completely unnecessary, but that’s an after-the-fact comment. And at the same time he’s making that, he’s arguing for the invasion of the Home Islands.

21:14 There are people in the Navy, including Chester Nimitz, who are more interested in simply blockading Japanese islands and trying to use that blockade to force a surrender. And you know, from MacArthur’s side and his ego side, one is tempted to suggest that he really wants the invasion to go forward because, by that time, I think it probably would have been the largest amphibious operation in American history, even greater than Normandy. And of course, who would the commander have been at that point but Douglas MacArthur?

21:58 It would have been a horrible, bloody affair, if you just look at Okinawa as an example, and then much, much larger, you’re going into the Japanese home islands. I think that’s another debate for another day, Walt. It is, but it would have been horrific, Alan. That is for sure. So, we all know later—and we don’t get into this in your book; you stop at the end of World War II—but we know that MacArthur later plays a very important role in Korea, and then has the big falling out with President Truman. But at the end of World War II, with the death of FDR and President Truman now in office, Truman appoints him to be supreme commander for the Allied powers to govern Japan. So, why did Truman do that? Well, that appointment comes on August 15th of 1945, which is indeed the date that Japan signals it’s going to surrender.

22:48 As we know, the formal ceremonies don’t take place until September 2nd, 1945 on the deck of the battleship Missouri. But at that point, certainly America has borne the brunt of the Pacific campaign, but there are definitely allies. I mean, Australia and New Zealand too, have been heavily involved. And of course, the British have been heavily involved, particularly on the western aspects of MacArthur’s theater of operations. So, I think the short answer to your question is that Truman, and including the Joint Chiefs and Admiral Leahy, really feel that MacArthur is the logical one to do it.

23:32 He’s the one who’s commanded, also, these Allied troops with the Australians and New Zealanders, so he’s the appropriate person to be the supreme allied commander, except the Japanese surrender on behalf of the allies. And then, of course, Nimitz, because of his role, is going to be the one who signs the surrender documents for the Americans. And of course, now MacArthur also has to deal with the Soviets who came in late to the war against Japan. Indeed. And that invasion through Manchuria, and there’s certainly concern on MacArthur’s part what the Russians—or Soviets, at that point, technically—might be doing in terms of the northern islands of Japan.

24:20 So, he wants to move very quickly once the surrender is done, to really get American troops on the ground. And you know, when you think of how much resistance the Japanese have put up, it really is pretty amazing that there, once the surrender is announced. And I think MacArthur understood the role of the emperor in announcing that and saying, “We’re done.” And you know, the question might be asked, well, why does MacArthur take on this role of administering Japan and everything else? But give MacArthur credit that going all the way back to his early experiences in Japan as a young aide to his military father, that MacArthur really does understand and appreciate the Japanese culture, the system with the Emperor, and the general politics of Japan.

25:17 Yeah. Pretty masterful job overall there in Japan. This is going to be an unfair question to close this out today, Walt, but how would you, in overall fashion, define MacArthur’s legacy in World War II? I think there’s kind of two pieces to that. The one piece is psychological. MacArthur, particularly in the first months of 1942, really becomes the hero that America needed. His, “I shall return,” is a rallying cry. Admittedly, he’s the only one out there putting out some of these communiques because the Navy certainly doesn’t want to put out communiques and suggest where their ships are.

26:01 MacArthur, through those communiques and the fact that this great rallying cry of, “I shall return,” I think he’s the hero that America desperately needs. And I think he comes to personify the American success. He’s kind of the face of victory in a way that no one else is in the Pacific, with the possible exception of Admiral Halsey after he begins the operations through the Solomons. Now, the second piece of that is, what is his legacy militarily? And we’ve talked about combined operations. Again, today, we take it for granted that air, land, and sea are going to work all together, but that definitely wasn’t the case in 1941, in 1942, and I think to MacArthur’s credit, he finds strong leaders for each of those arms, and they work well together, and they need to do so in terms of the far-flung and varied terrain of his theater of operations.

27:07 But today that’s a given that it’s combined operations, and I think MacArthur deserves a lot of credit for that. Truly an incredible and important story in our history. I really appreciate you bringing that to us. Walt, what are you working on right now? I know you always have a book in the works. Well, Alan, I’m trying to finish up a post-war history of the American West. I want to talk about the themes of natural resources, water, transportation, land use, and, you know, amid a huge population growth in the Rocky Mountain West. So, trying to put some finishing touches on that one. I was just out in Los Angeles. I used to live out there years ago, and water issues, a fairly important topic in post-war western states.

27:50 I’m looking forward to that book, Walt. When do you think that’d be out? That’s a good question, Alan [laugh] . Don’t push me on that one. I’m working on it [laugh] . We’ll let our listeners know when it does come out, for sure. How’s that? That sounds like a plan. I appreciate it. Well, Walt, thank you so much. I enjoyed our conversation as always. Thanks for joining us on AMSEcast. Good to be with you, Alan. Thanks. Thank you for joining us on this episode of AMSEcast. For more information on this topic or any others, you can always visit us at AMSE.org or find, like, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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