The scumbag side of General Douglas McArthur

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In the darkest days of World War II, Gens. Douglas MacArthur and Jonathan Wainwright faced unsurmountable odds. Only one of them, however, was responsible for their dilemma. Against the threat of Japanese invasion in 1941, MacArthur had convinced George Marshall, the Army chief of staff, that the long-held American strategy to defend the Philippines by concentrating forces around Manila was flawed and that MacArthur could protect the entire archipelago. Marshall approved, and MacArthur scattered his forces and supplies across Luzon and the other islands.

Only after Pearl Harbor did MacArthur acknowledge that the well-equipped, 200,000-man American-led Filipino army he had proposed existed solely under the brim of his gold-braided garrison cap....

Wainwright believed in an agile armed force. During his commencement speech to the graduates at Fort Riley’s Cavalry School in 1935, Wainwright argued that “mobility,” whether by horse or by mechanized vehicle, “must still remain our watchword.” When they received their orders, they “should be able to move out at once.” MacArthur’s standard mode of operation—at least early in the war—was the opposite of mobility and proved downright paralyzing in the hours immediately after Pearl Harbor.

MacArthur led the public to believe he was outnumbered in the Philippines. In fact, the Japanese troops who made surprise landings at multiple points on Luzon numbered only half his force. Yet MacArthur’s penchant for hyperbole was never more misdirected than when he gave false hope to Wainwright’s men on Bataan during his lone visit there. Japan’s “temporary superiority of the air would soon be a thing of the past,” MacArthur promised, and he “would soon reoccupy Manila.” Wainwright knew better. He saw the future in the hollow eyes and sagging bellies of his men during his daily visits to the front.

Recounting battle scenes with riveting prose, Mr. Horn minces no words in his descriptions of the horrors of Bataan. The food stores that MacArthur had ordered to be held in reserve never made it to Bataan in sufficient quantities. ....

Two months after MacArthur escaped from Corregidor, Wainwright, placed by Marshall in overall command of the islands, had no choice but to surrender the Philippines or face mass extermination. MacArthur was livid. He never forgave Wainwright, thinking the surrender impugned MacArthur’s prior actions—which in many respects it did.

Shortly after MacArthur fled to Australia, Marshall recommended MacArthur for the Medal of Honor for his defense of the Philippines, an award calculated to boost American morale. After Wainwright’s surrender, amid rumors of the Bataan Death March, Marshall recommended Wainwright for his own Medal of Honor. It would show the world and Wainwright himself—who battled doubts and depression about how even his own family viewed him—that he had fought honorably. Opposition to the medal came from only one person—Douglas MacArthur. Wainwright’s actions did not measure up, MacArthur told Marshall, who chose to defer the award and avoid a wartime dispute with MacArthur.

After three years of captivity, an emaciated Wainwright was present at the Japanese surrender ceremony on the deck of USS Missouri, not because MacArthur had invited him, but because Marshall ordered it. Marshall also saw to it that Wainwright finally received the Medal of Honor, a medal, Mr. Horn concludes, that Wainwright did not need “to find honor.”

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