Macarthur and the Australians

The way I see it, Mac could have been on the list of Great generals.. But he went and dug his own grave.

 

I feel like this is slowly deteriorating into an Army v. Marine contest and I'd like to envelope that and leave it like the Roman army at Cannae. All of the branches of the U.S. military, and indeed all of the Allied militaries, did their part in the Second World War. Each made important, and at times quite vital contributions. All did what was asked when it was needed. And we should all take a moment and step back and recall that we owe a debt to all the brave soldiers . . .

Except Douglas MacArthur.

Which is to say I think we can question COs and their decisions so long as we're careful not to question the service or dedication of soldiers fighting alongside them as a group.

To be completely fair, I am not intimately familiar with MacArthur's operations. I will accept that it's quite possible he was, at times and in places, a capable tactician or even strategist. I will grudgingly admit that he was a skilled politician. None of this changes the fact that I sincerely believe his decisions in the Philippines before the war were material mistakes that cost the lives of both U.S. and Filipino soldiers.

^Belasar

I believe he could have reduced the loss of American and Filipino lives principally by reducing the number of lives risked. He was calling for (and receiving) reinforcements. Why instead could he not remove all non-essential personnel from Luzon by the time it's obvious that war will not be avoided? This had been the Army's position before MacArthur took command. He changed the strategic direction almost single-handedly. Certainly there will be fighting once the ball drops and I wouldn't recommend he surrender without a fight, but if his personnel number in the thousands or even tens of thousands and not hundreds of thousands he could conceivably have fought a holding action for a period of time long enough to evacuate many or even most of his troops, particularly if adequate preparations had been made in advance. No relief was coming, but at least some of the ships stationed there in 1941 were able to evacuate.

^ Volga Boatman

I've heard the Marines of the Pacific in WWII called many things, but never before lavishly equipped and supplied.

Buna is quite different from the bloodiest Central Pacific assaults for several reasons. First, it was essentially a land objective. It was never necessary to land troops directly into fixed defenses at Buna. It could be attacked over land either by amphibious forces making distant landings on either flank or overland via the Kokoda Track. There was at least limited room for maneuver and there were alternatives to a direct amphibious assault. Second, the Japanese troops on New Guinea were poorly supplied and had been in possession of the contested territories for less than a year. While they were dug in fairly well, the swampy terrain worked against them nearly as much as it did against the Army: their defenses were necessarily above the water table and not the kinds of linked caves seen late in the war. They also didn't have the artillery that later war Japanese defenses possessed. It was a difficult objective, particularly in the absence of artillery or air support, but not impenetrable. Even so, the casualties were considerably worse than at the similarly scaled amphibious assault of Tarawa. (Presumably a direct result of the smaller commitment of Allied Troops at Buna and the lack of decent support.)

First off, Biak isn't a coral atoll at all. It is a small rocky island. I cannot find decent information on the geology of the island, but the relief map on Wikipedia makes it clear that the topography approaches 3000 feet. Atolls are the flat reef remnants of volcanic islands now eroded below the ocean surface. Their relief, as a rule, barely exceeds a few dozen feet above sea level. As a result, atolls typically have a long but very narrow shape. Cover, such as it is, is provided only by sand dunes and vegetation.

That said, Iwo Jima, Guam, and Okinawa are also not atolls. Midway, Wake Island, Tarawa, Eniwetok, and Kwajalein are all atolls and after the mistakes of Tarawa even comparatively heavily defended atolls like Kwajelein (c. 8,000) fell fairly quickly and with relatively modest casualties (372 dead and 1,600 wounded).

As at Okinawa (but not Guam or Iwo Jima) there appear to have been several good landing sights to chose from. Next to the above three battles the defenses were comparatively light. (11,000 vs. 120,000, 22,000, and 22,000 respectively.) Lastly, Japan was much more intent on holding the Marianas, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. The Marianas were the final credible line of defense outside Japanese territory. Iwo Jima had been Japanese for 60 years by that point and Okinawa for centuries. (Long enough to be sometimes thought of as one of the Home Islands, albeit a minor one. Rather like the U.S. might have seen Texas. Not really a whole other country.) As a result the defenders were not only more numerous, but presumably much more motivated. Better equipped, better supplied, better situated, and damn determined to win or die trying, since if they lost there'd be nothing left to defend anyway.

But the most important difference might be that you are cherry picking battles. Yes, there were assaults that were much much bloodier than either Biak or Buna, but there were also others that were quite a bit less so. The reasons are myriad. Mistakes were made. Terrain was different. Available troop strengths were different. Equipment and tactics changed. But if you want to compare Buna and Biak to bloodbaths like Okinawa and Iwo Jima you have to also compare them to Kwajelein and Eniwetok.

You say the numbers speak for themselves. They don't. That's quite simply false. The numbers speak only in context. It's all well and good to "hit them where they ain't" so long as you only need to take and hold places where they ain't. The U.S. strategy against Japan was predicated on an eventual invasion of Japan, which seemed pretty sensible at the time. Japan won't be one of those places. Neither will any useful staging ground for an assault on Kyushu or Honshu and the Kanto Plain.

It's really nice if you can take the Philippines without many casualties. But what does it contribute to the defeat of Japan? If the answer to that is nothing and you still have to take Japan then those casualties are unnecessary when, after said conquest, you can liberate the Philippines without any casualties at all.

Now, would it really have been better to take Formosa and stage your invasion there? I'm not sure. But I am sure that you can't bypass Guam and Okinawa in the same ways. These simply aren't optional invasion points. We needed bases in the Marianas at a minimum for logistical reasons: as ports to stage through, as supply dumps, as repair bases. The Marianas are rocky and there are relatively few good harbors. Arpa, on Guam, is the best of the slim pickings. The invasion of the Japanese home islands would necessarily have been a massive undertaking. It was not within the logistical capacity of even the United States to make such a venture without a secure local base. The invasion of Okinawa required seven divisions. This was the single largest amphibious assault ever undertaken. Operation Olympic was scheduled to use fourteen and a regimental combat team. (Operation Coronet called for another fifteen four months later.) And that entire army would have been needed in short order, but even the U.S. could not load so many men and all their attendant supplies and equipment into transports at once. The Philippines are close to Japan, but the round trip distance would still be a week or more. Staging an invasion of Japan from anywhere further away than Okinawa would have involved insurmountable delays, risks, and expenditures of materials.

The numbers are no good without context. You have to ask what an operation achieved. Was the objective necessary? Could it have been achieved in other ways, and if so what would their cost have been in men, materials, and time? Only once you've answered these can you begin to evaluate whether the operation was worth the cost. I've not seen a satisfactory evaluation of MacArthur's return. I don't know that it was unnecessary, but by the same token you have not proven that it was. Instead what you've done is to imply that these unevaluated numbers tell us that MacArthur was a more skilled commander than Nimitz, or Eisenhower, or Patton. The numbers alone tell us no such thing.

 

Well stated, Couldn't have put it better my self.. literally.. never paid much attention in English

For the record, If any one has gotten the impression that I have little or no respect for the US soldier or serviceman from any branch that is not the case.. I have but the utmost respect for all that would fight for the country (Even the Nazi's, Don't agree with them but not to say they didn't fight bravely).

As for the Australian's refusing reinforcement from the 41st US army division, Well that was to stick it to Mac, Not the US army. Out boy's had nothing but respect for you Army blokes, Fought bravely even under poor leadership, Plus our boy's had fun stealing stuff from the Army depots

 

Oh, I cannot claim to be an Army bloke. I am a lowly civilian, though the descendant of one of the Marines that had occasion to work with MacArthur in the Southwest Pacific and later in Japan. Also descended from an Army electrician and related to assorted other Army, Navy, and Marine sorts. Including distantly one who rests with the Oklahoma, alas. The Marine grandfather tried to join the Navy with the cousin in question but couldn't get his mother's consent, as I understand it. After Pearl Harbor he got that consent. Or perhaps no longer needed it. Might have been some prevarication involved. But he ultimately ended up in the First Raider Battalion, who made some landings for Mac before being rolled into the new 4th Marines of the 6th Marine Division.

So for the sake of full disclosure, I should say that I have some small connection to the Marine Corps of WWII. And I particularly enjoy Naval history. (With all that this entails in combination with a Yankee [but not baseball] background.)

Anyway, thank you von_noobie. It's been an interesting thread. In spite of appearances I will probably walk away from it with (marginally) more respect for MacArthur. I may never like him, but I'll try to accept that he can't be quite as bad as Sgt. Solovic would have me believe. (Not really possible. With all due respect to Grandpa S.)

 

THe withdrawal of personal was not done because Mac decided against that he could hold the Phillipines. A key factor was to be the B17's, so his lack of attention to the strike negated much of his plans and combined with the Japanese ability to hit them where they werent and the lack of trained troops doomed Mac's plan from the start. By the way Mac guessed wrong as to where the Japanese would land. They checked out the beaches where his best troops were and then landed elsewhere.
I am not a marine verses army guy, I am simply saying that comparing casualties to grade generalship is not a good method since the conditions were so different. I am asking if Mac had had to repeatedly attack strong points like the Marines did would his casualty rate had been so low, or if the Marines had been able to avoid defened places like Mac did what would their casualty rate had been.

 

Or what if they forgot the Island hopping adventure nad went the way the Commonwealth nations wanted to.. Up through NEI and British Malaysia. Would have allowed for more freedom of movement, Far less beach massacres and gotten them in a position for Mac to take the Philippines far sooner then actually happened.

 

Wrong side of the ocean. ALso freedom of manuever for the carrier groups.

 

Actually not realistically that far away, As for freedom of movement for Carrier groups, Well while it is referable, Due to the land available they would have been able to field larger forces on land.. The need for Carriers at the time would be negligible.

They may be needed for an Invasion of Timor.. then from there they can island hop to Java then Sumatra.. The next time after that Carriers would be needed due to lack of land based aerial support range would be for an Invasion of Borneo..

Sometimes an advantage has to be sacrificed for the Greater good...
Losing freedom of movement for your carriers compared to gaining freedom of movement for your land based forces, greater access to air fields and also denying the Japanese eventual rubber, crop and oil resources.... To me doesn't seem like much of a choice..

 

Since Pearl was the primary base, you are adding a 1000 or more miles back to Pearl and you either have to go by New Guinea which means taking the north half or all the way around Australia. There are too many bases for Japan to use for airfields to inderdict the supply lines. You still need the carriers to seize the bases needed to provide the aircover. It is similar to the idea that the best way to Berlin was through the alps.

 

I wouldn't go as far to say Pearl harbour was the primary base.. Australia it's self was heavily used as a staging ground.

And as I stated, The Carriers would be needed in the opening phases, Such as an Invasion of Timor, As for your belief that Papua and New Guinea had to be taken.. Why??

And to which bases are you talking about.. The Allies had fairly effective convoy systems that Japan's limited sub force would be hard pressed to counter, And there aircraft just wouldn't have the range nor the base for which to field a large enough force to cause any major danger.

As for having to go ALL the way around Australia, Why?? North of Australia would be just as fine with effective air cover and a line of frigates and corvettes around to keep the Submarines away.. or if your afraid to take the Carrier that route, or the long way around Australia.. Well they would not be needed anyway.. Timor still in range of Land based fighters in Australia.. Really the whole Commonwealth idea of swinging up through SEA rather then Island hopping across the Pacific wouldn't actually need Carriers until after the Capture of Vietnam or the Philippines...

The SEA area provided the more manoeuvrable area.. It also would have hindered the IJN if the allies fielded good aerial cover.. So to say the idea is Similar to reaching Berlin via the Alps is just hog wash mate.. It would have actually been the quicker, less costly route and would have removed the resources from Japan for which they were using to fight..

 

There are major bases in the Phillipines that would be in range and there are many smaller islands in the area. Japanese aircraft were built with range in mind and island hopping would be a solution for the others. The problem is that there would not be effective carrier cover until 1944. So to count, Mindanao is not that far away, there is Borneo, about 5 bases in Papua and others in New Guinea plus 5 or 6 good airfields in Java. How do you know it would be less costly to assault larger islands. For carriers the SEA does not offer more room unless you are operating in the Indian ocean. There is alsio the question of repair bases, only Sydney offers facilities for large ships and it is not very large.
Finally even with the total cut off of resources, the Japanese were still willing to fight. It was a combination of the bomb and the Soviet attack that convinced the Emperor to surrender. With your approach the US does not take the Marrianas and therefore does not have the islands for a bombing base.

 

I'd have to agree that Pearl was the primary base, but that doesn't make it the only one. Australia was certainly an important staging ground, particularly for operations in the South Pacific. But there are problems with using it as your primary base. (Either your primary fleet base, or your primary staging area for operations against Japan proper.) And I'll go into that in a minute. But first, alternative routes to a Japanese surrender:

Several options were considered. The Army and Navy had been jointly studying war against Japan since more or less the Roosevelt administration. The Theodore Roosevelt administration, I should say. Over that time many many plans were evaluated. Several early ones involved attempting to fortify either the Philippines at Manila or Subic Bay, or Guam and using the choice "Gibraltar of the East" as an advance base. The trouble was that a fighting force loses effectiveness the further it is from it's base. (Fouled hulls slow ships down, short rations damage morale, fuel depletion limits maneuver and so forth.) A fast "thrust" to the Western Pacific would leave the Fleet and its train too diminished to be effective, playing into the hands of the IJN rather as the Russians had at Tsushima. In order to overcome this dilemma the solution was to build a string of staging bases with supply dumps, minimal drydocks (generally floating), and light repair capabilities. These could be built pretty quickly, if you had the shipping for it, but we never did and it would always take time to build it. Further, even done quickly this is still a lot slower than a mad dash across the Pacific: many months, at minimum. Thus the idea of retaining Western Pacific bases was abandoned.

But that leaves you with the question of what route to take. And logistics are still going to be a problem. This is going to be a long war and a large one. No one thinks Japan will surrender easily or quickly. Thus you will have to take mountains of material across a very long distance. By 1920 it was clear the U.S. had the industrial capacity to do that, but as large as the U.S. warmaking potential was (roughly 50% of the world's on the eve of WWII) there were still limits. The further from your logistical base the fighting is, the costlier it is in terms of fuel, hulls, delays, and so forth. A South Pacific route was considered, terminating in either the Philippines or China, particularly after it became clear that Britain would be an ally in the fight. But it was abandoned pretty quickly.

And in the end, I believe simple distance is the biggest reason why. If the majority of the supplies, troops, munitions, and so forth for the war are coming from the United States it's far far quicker to just go across the Pacific. At around 5,000 miles, the shortest route would be via the Aleutians, actually, but climactic and geographic considerations ruled that out. After that your best route is the shortest one you can secure with useful harbors along the way. Working via Australia and the Philippines for the final conquest of Japan would have required a route of nearly 15,000 miles. That's about twice as far as going through the Central Pacific. Which means you'll need a much larger merchant fleet to do it. Which means it will take considerably longer; time the Japanese will use to strengthen their defenses even further. Which means you'll take a lot more casualties when you do finally get there . . .

Some of the landings were darn costly, but probably much less costly than a longer war. In 1945 the U.S. probably didn't have enough shipping to use any other route for the primary axis of advance. We were stretched pretty thin as is, odd as that is to say. With a bigger supply train we could, theoretically, have landed more troops against those late war monsters and taken fewer casualties as a result. It's all about concentration of force. (So long as you're not tripping over each other, anyway.)

Further, Steverodger is right. Working via Australia and the Philippines would have required us to use the same tortured, sub infested supply routes where we so punished the Japanese. The IJN had an terrible mass of subs they could have unleashed against us. The longer the supply route the more opportunity to attack it. The larger the number of escorts required to defend it. And so on. And there were more sites for airfields, so it would have been much harder to suppress them all; a feat you'd have to accomplish were you to send merchant ships through in numbers.

The Central Pacific route is shorter. You can more easily control the battlefield. And on top of that, the weather is more favorable outside typhoon season. (Not so blisteringly hot as the tropics.)

I hope this explains the problem in brief. If you want a detailed explanation War Plan Orange by Edward S. Miller is a surprisingly good read. It examines not only the prewar planning, but how that correlated to actual execution during the war. And he goes into a good bit of detail on the politics surrounding it to boot. You can't go wrong.

Sincerely,
David

 

The submarine arm of the IJN spent the entire Pacific war chasing the 'big' kills, trying to knock out carriers and battleships, as their traditional training had focused on.

Our merchant fleet held little or no interest for them, strange as it may seem. So, I don't know where you get the idea that the IJN would have done much of anything in this department.

TThe phrase used was "...tortured, sub infested supply routes."

 

Add in the vast size of the Pacific and the likely hood of massive losses in the merchant fleet is to bloody high for me to calculate.

As for the distance, Well I think you are a little off in those numbers, From San Diego, to Darwin then to Naha Japan is actually under 10,000nm.

This site may help, SEA DISTANCES - VOYAGE CALCULATOR

You must also remember to take into account longer distance doesn't always mean longer duration. In reality the SEA land area's in Japanese hands were actually to big for them to hold while they were in China, They didn't have the troops to do it. Also must remember, When they first started off there Island hopping campaign, Much of the forces were already in Australia and New Zealand.

As for Japanese air power, While they had a large number of air fields at there disposal, They were all spread out, And the Japanese showed many times there failure to use coordinated mass air strikes.. All these Japanese air strikes would be piece meal, Something the Allies would have no trouble dealing with.. And that's for he ones that were in range.

 

A few points:

Firstly, I was talking more about what Japan could hypothetically do than what they actually did. (Since we're talking about what the United States could hypothetically have done.) Japan didn't use their subs against our merchant fleet, but there's no particular reason they couldn't have, particularly if we had sailed routes more susceptible to submarine attack, such as routes through the tortured and (by us at least) Southwest Pacific. Further, securing the route requires you to secure it against more than just subs. Aircraft are quite capable of sinking merchant ships. Japanese aircraft accounted for quite a lot of U.S. merchants and auxiliaries. Japan held a great many airfields within striking distance of a route between Darwin and Manila; too many to suppress them all indefinitely. (Remember, the A6M had a combat RADIUS of nearly a thousand miles.) It was much easier to control the air over lonesome mid Pacific archipelagos where bases were few and isolated. And there's less ground clutter to obscure surfaced submarines and the weather really would have to have been much less stifling aboard ship in the days before air conditioning was common.

Secondly, if you read the fine print that was San Diego - Australia (Sydney, actually, for no good reason beyond thinking of supplying Australia), Manila, Tokyo. (I was essentially drawing competing invasion routes, so I think Saigon was in there too.) Darwin would make more sense if it's a heavy enough port. I'm not familiar enough to say, but even if it weren't it could no doubt be rendered so. But we were talking a reconquista of the Philippines for Don Douglas so I included Manila. And Naha's still an awfully long hike from The Kanto Plain, and we were talking about winning. Still, even if you wish to sail direct(ish) from Darwin to Naha (which isn't really possible until after you've made enough beach-heads to secure a safe route) t's still quite a lot shorter to go via Pearl. (6300 nautical miles versus 9700.) So there's your answer: we weren't comparing the same routes. Mine were all to Tokyo with hostile ports of call along the way. And in miles. And very rough. Apples to apples we get similar numbers. We just have to use the same assumptions going in.

Thirdly, there are many airfields in the Dutch East Indies that are close together, and many more in the Philippines. Around the Celebes and Banda Seas there are modern airstrips at Ambon, Kendari, Makassar, Manado, Balikpapan, and Kupang. Several of these have multiple strips very close to one another and the whole area is only about 500 miles wide. These are easily mutually supporting airfields. And I'm not at all sure where you get your information that the Japanese didn't use massed aerial attacks. While they never fielded the thousand plane streams the USAAF and RAF used in the mid and late war, they used formations of over a hundred aircraft for coordinated attacks on numerous occasions. The U.S. entered the war after one such. Darwin was bombed by another. Several massed kamikaze attacks at Okinawa involved a hundred or more aircraft. While the Japanese never had either the resources or the need to engage in massed British style carpet bombing, I see no reason to think a stream of bombers would be particularly effective against a target at sea anyway. Neither Britain nor the U.S. ever found such an expedient necessary, generally settling instead for a few formations of 15 or so bombers for attacks on shipping . . . very much in line with Japanese practice. Keep in mind that if you have a stream of aircraft coming through on predictable vectors it becomes somewhat easier to get the flak on target as the stream flows past, and since attacks on maneuvering ships are necessarily made from much shorter ranges and usually in much lighter aircraft this improving AA solution will be something of a concern. In any case, I find the idea that Japanese aircraft will be ineffective against allied shipping highly spurious in light of actual historical results.

I see no way to make the route you propose cost effective when you're shipping out from the West Coast of the U.S. There are too many places the Japanese could use to harass shipping from the air and they were pretty good at that. Even if their subs never attack a convoy, they regularly attacked our major combatants, and you just don't make beach-heads without some kind of support. You'll have to make more landings capturing more islands. That's more opportunities for mistakes and casualties of all kinds. There are many more islands there and you can't ignore them all, particularly when they're mutually supporting. It will take longer, as each successive stage is further and further afield from your industrial base. Darwin, Australia is further from San Diego than Naha, Japan. This is not a trivial matter. Each place you secure has to serve as the staging point for the next landing. If the second point on the line is further from the first than the last point on the line there had better be a really good reason for it. Australia is just too far away to serve as the primary staging ground for the United States to use in a war aimed at a country in Northeast Asia. And there's really no way to change that this side of a geological time scale.

 

The only port suitable for repairing large ships is Sydney and I dont know if it can do all the repairs that Pearl can. Darwin would be okay for minor repairs, but is not large. I would also point out that taking the north part of New Guinea can do most of what you want of cutting off the DEA. By doing it the way that we did you have the option of using bases for air cover and of seizing undefended spots. As I asked how do you know Noobie that seizing Timor and some of the other DEA would result in less casualties. Some of those bases were larger islands and held more troops then a typical island.

 

The casualty figures can be deceiving and another factor to consider is time. Guadalcanal lasted from 07 August 1942 until December 1942, for the 1st Marine Division, a period of five months. (the island wasn't actually secured until 09 February 1943) The division suffered 674 KIA, 64 DOW, 1,962 WIA and 36 MIA. What isn't considered is that the division suffered an additional 8,580 non-battle casualties from various tropical diseases, malaria in particular. The division was wrecked as a fighting unit, not from combat, but from disease, and it took nearly a year for it to recover. It wasn't a simple matter of replacing the dead and wounded that were too badly wounded to return to duty within a reasonable time frame. Jungle fighting is very debilitating to the troops. Tarawa by comparison (20-23 November 1943) lasted 76 hours and the 2nd Marine Division took 1009 KIA and 2101 WIA, but retained it's combat ability. By early January '44 they were already training up for Saipan/Tinian. Guadalcanal was also the first step in moving up the Solomons chain towards Rabaul on New Britain, a distance of only 650 miles. Tarawa advanced the front lines by 1500 miles, then the Marshall's by another 420, and Saipan by another 2100 miles. They were still fighting on Bougainville (at the top of the chain) and New Britain when the war ended. The total casualties for the Guadalcanal Campaign, from 07 August to 09 February, 1943 were also much higher when you consider the other allied forces involved (2nd Marine Division, Americal Division, Marine, Naval and AAF aviators and ANZAC and US sailors at sea), a total of about 7100 killed. The confined waters led to numerous ship sinking's, 29 in total. Figure in all the little island landings up the chain, the losses on Bougainville and New Britain, all the aircrews. It was a very costly 650 miles in, time, ships and men. MacArthur, while taking credit for it did not invent the bypassing strong points strategy. It was contained in Major Ellis' prewar treatise, "Advanced Baseforce Operations in Micronesia". It was also a part of pre-war war plans and was practiced in the Central Pacific. In the Gilberts operation, Tarawa was a tough one, heavily fortified, but there was an even tougher target, Nauru which was bypassed. Truk was also bypassed among other strongpoints. Peleilu, another of the costly central pacific assaults that is often pointed to when arguing which approach was more appropriate, was actually at MacArthur's behest, "However, before MacArthur could retake the Philippines, the Palau Islands, specifically Peleilu and Angaur, were to be neutralized and an airfield built to protect MacArthur's right flank." What's really sad about that battle is that it was not necessary by the time it took place. The blame for this needs to be spread over a number of individuals, MacArthur for insisting on it, Nimitz for following through with it after it's need was questioned (he was however in a bad position because he had promised to fully support MacArthur's operations) and Major General Rupertus, USMC for his flawed conduct of the battle.
MacArthur was a very astute politician, he was extremely arrogant, both traits that helped him with his postwar administration of Japan. In this one area he was as good and successful as he thought. His opposition of Wainwright's Medal of Honor is one of the most petty, and arrogant acts ever! So Dugout Doug leaves Wainwright in a hopeless situation, but Dugout deserves his MoH for his "courageous defense of the Philippines" even though he was responsible for much of the situation and was evacuated, while Wainwright stayed till the end and entered captivity. Another point I find amusing is that he blamed much of the problem with defending the Philippines on inadequately trained troops, and antiquated weapons, WTF he was in charge. He couldn't have instituted more rigorous and effective training? He used the same excuse during the early days of Korea, again he was in charge and should have seen that the US Arny troops in Japan were trained. They were sent to Korea and disintegrated. It's funny that the troops shipped from the US, that had undergone the same downsizing and budget cuts, and had the same weapons, managed to be properly trained, fought well and won.
Here's an example of his extreme arrogance, the 1st Marine Division had been serving in MacArthur's command on New Britain, "General MacArthur, extremely desirous of retaining a Marine division in his theater of operations,protested that the First had not fully completed its mission. However, Admiral Nimitz, as CINCPOA, had already slated it for Operation S[SIZE=-1]TALEMATE[/SIZE] (Palau Islands) and declared that substitution of a division without amphibious combat experience would seriously jeopardize success of that venture. He countered MacArthur's contention that he had no unit suitable for the relief by transferring the 40th Infantry Division from his own theater to Southwest Pacific, with the result that the 1st Marine Division completed its movement to the Russell Islands by early May." This in itself was disingenuous of MacArthur, because all Japanese forces had been forced back to the immediate vicinity of Rabaul, bottled up and that position was to be bypassed. The communication quoted took place on 3 April, 1944. The division was relieved by the US 40th Infantry Division, who in turn were relieved by the Australian 5th Division in November 1944. Rabaul surrendered on 21 August 1945. Anyway, MacArthur was not pleased with the decision and tried to get senior Marine Corps officers in the division to protest the transfer and told them, 'You know in the Central Pacific the 1st Marine Division will just be another one of six Marine divisions, if it stayed here it would be my Marine Division." By all accounts they were glad to be re-assigned away from him.

 

To contrast Mac with another controversial figure, Monty, there was absolutly no doubt that Monty cared greatly for his troops and that he would do all that he could for them. Mac did what was best for Mac, and his troops often suffered for it.