War at the End of the World

by James P. Duffy

  In a sense, MacArthur and the Australian leadership were whistling past the graveyard. The general hoped the Australians might influence Washington to begin immediately sending men and supplies to the country so that he could start organizing his forces. The Australians, as Forde later explained, believed that “MacArthur was the man who would influence his government along the right lines.”42

  A cordon of Victoria state constables surrounded MacArthur’s party as they detrained. Some five to six thousand people crowded the outer ring of the platform, from which the Australian police had barred them, and cheered as they caught sight of the man they all hoped would save Australia from the Japanese.

  Before departing the station, MacArthur made a brief statement for the 60 correspondents gathered behind the constables and 360 American soldiers, some of whom were actually Filipinos flown earlier to Australia to have their wounds treated. An Australian Broadcasting Company microphone picked up his comments and broadcast them to radio sets across the vast country. “I am glad indeed to be in immediate cooperation with the Australian soldier. I know him well from World War days and admire him greatly. I have every confidence in the ultimate success of our joint cause.” He then explained that success required more than personal courage and a willingness to die. It required, he said, “sufficient troops and sufficient material to meet the known strength of the potential enemy.”43

  MacArthur was clearly making a plea to the governments in Washington and London to not abandon him there in favor of their “Europe first” policy, which called for a defensive holding action against Japan while the majority of American resources were devoted to fighting Germany. One reason it did not turn out quite as Churchill and Roosevelt expected was that over the next few years, MacArthur and his supporters in the American Congress never ceased pressuring Roosevelt, both privately and publicly, for additional resources to fight an aggressive offensive campaign against the Japanese.

  Among the journalists at the station was John Lardner, who described the effect MacArthur had on the officials, soldiers, and reporters forming a semicircle around the general as mystical. “More than a record, military or otherwise, goes to form this effect. There is a facile but genuine magic in such men. There is magic in MacArthur.”44

  Press reports indicated thirty thousand people lined the streets of Melbourne, cheering and waving small American flags as a military escort drove MacArthur to the Menzies Hotel.

  An Australian war correspondent claimed, “The arrival of MacArthur has done more to lift morale on the mainland than anything else that has happened in this war.”45

  The Melbourne Herald celebrated the arrival of the man many Australians saw as their “national savior.” It opined that the “United States would not send its greatest contemporary soldier to a secondary war zone, and the fact that it regards Australia as a sphere of supreme importance is by far the most heartening circumstances which the Commonwealth Ministers have encountered since Japan’s entry into the war.”46

  Unfortunately, the Melbourne paper was incorrect. As far as Washington was concerned, Australia was simply a backwater that could be used to stop or slow the Japanese advance while the newly formed United Nations focused on the primary task of fighting Germany. More than ten thousand miles from Washington, MacArthur’s influence on war policy was limited, even though most of the public and many members of both parties in Congress clamored to have him put in charge of the entire war. Prime Minister Curtin had even less influence. His statement in December altering Australia’s relationship with Britain in favor of the United States had angered Roosevelt, who thought it “smacked of panic” and was an attempt to subvert the “Europe first” policy.

  The MacArthur magic carried over to his meeting with Curtin. On March 26, MacArthur’s escort drove him to the Australian capital of Canberra to meet Curtin and his government. After spending a few minutes together alone, they quickly came to not only like and respect each other but also to agree on how they were going to fight their war. Leaving Curtin’s office to meet with the Advisory War Council, MacArthur put an arm around the prime minister’s shoulder and said, “Mr. Prime Minister, we two, you and I, will see this thing through together. We can do it and we will do it. You take care of the rear and I will handle the front.”47

  MacArthur, who generally did not befriend politicians, had found one he could like and trust. As for the prime minister, he had found the experienced military leader he had sought, and was willing to turn over to him all his country’s resources to fight the Japanese.

  Following his meeting with Curtin, MacArthur met with the Australian Advisory War Council, where he expressed his opinion that the Japanese would not invade Australia because he doubted they had the available troops for such a large undertaking, considering their commitments elsewhere. He predicted they would attempt to seize airfields in New Guinea from which they could raid Australian cities, but as for an actual invasion, the “spoils [from occupying the vast empty reaches of northern Australia] are not sufficient to warrant the risk.”48

  That evening at an official banquet in MacArthur’s honor sponsored by the prime minister at Government House, the general was treated like a conquering hero. The assembled dignitaries cheered when the American ambassador, Nelson T. Johnson, rose to read a cable he had received a few hours earlier from Washington announcing that MacArthur was to finally receive his country’s highest recognition, the Medal of Honor. The citation accompanying the award, written by George Marshall himself, read: “For conspicuous leadership in preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest, for gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against invading Japanese forces, and for heroic conduct of defensive and offensive operations on the Bataan Peninsula. He mobilized, trained, and led an army which has received world acclaim for its gallant defense against tremendous superiority of enemy forces in men and arms. His utter disregard of personal danger under heavy fire and aerial bombardment, his calm judgment in each crisis, inspired his troops, galvanized the spirit of resistance of the Filipino people, and confirmed the faith of the American people in their Armed Forces.”49

  Clearly affected by the award and the response to it by the Australian officials present, MacArthur rose to toast his hosts. He was, he said, “deeply moved by the warmth of greeting extended to me by all of Australia. Although this is my first trip to Australia, I already feel at home.” He then explained his war goal directly: “There can be no compromise.” He added slowly and emotionally, “We shall win or we shall die, and to this end I pledge you the full resources of all the mighty power of my country and all the blood of my countrymen.”50

  Unfortunately, MacArthur’s pledge of the “full resources” of the United States to defend Australia and defeat the Japanese was in opposition to official policy in Washington. He had still to battle the “Europe first” policy agreed to by Roosevelt and Churchill. What they did not count on was that MacArthur was not about to fight a defensive holding action against the Japanese while U.S. resources were shipped across the Atlantic. In the coming months, he would use every communication, whether written or in meetings with visiting Americans, to request more men, more ammunition, more ships, and more planes to fight an aggressive war.

  With little on hand with which to fight, MacArthur wanted and needed everything. Perhaps more than anything, he wanted pilots and aircraft, both fighters and bombers. Despite being an infantry officer, he recognized the value of airpower. As early as 1931, he told the secretary of war: “The next war is certain to be one of maneuver and movement. . . . The nation that does not command the air will face deadly odds.”51

  He was also badly in need of trained and experienced officers. While serving as Army Chief of Staff, he had tried to explain the importance of such officers to a cost-cutting Congress. “An army can live on short rations, it can be insufficiently clothed and housed, it can even be poorly armed and equipped, but in action it
is doomed to destruction without the trained and adequate leadership of officers. An efficient and sufficient corps of officers means the difference between victory and defeat.”52

  Over the next few months, he would begin the process of requesting that specific officers he had known and respected be transferred to his new command.

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  After his grand reception in Canberra, MacArthur returned to Melbourne, where his staff had set up a headquarters. He was a great believer in the study of maps, so a map room was quickly established. Over the next few years, every senior officer arriving in the theater was required to spend time studying the maps. William Manchester wrote that MacArthur spent long evening hours in the map room “mastering the intricacies of the continent’s twenty-nine hundred mile eastern coastline, which lay naked to invasion all spring.” He learned all he could about the “beaches, bays, inlets, and tides of the oceanic islands between him and the Philippines.”53

  This knowledge, and his appreciation of rivers and seas as highways over which to transport his troops, would contribute to the eighty-seven amphibious landings his forces would successfully make in the coming years. The military correspondent for the Baltimore Sun would later describe them as “ingenious and dazzling thrusts which never stopped until Japan was defeated.”54

  Meanwhile, Washington debated the fate and very existence of MacArthur’s new command. The Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff, created in January, had agreed that the Pacific would fall primarily under American jurisdiction. Now it became a battle among Americans over what role the Army and Navy would play in fighting Japan.

  The new chief of naval operations, Admiral Ernest King, decided that the war in the Pacific should be the Navy’s to fight. He based his claim on the expectation that most of the action would be across vast stretches of ocean, but he was also likely influenced by the embarrassment the Navy suffered at Pearl Harbor. The sailors wanted their revenge. Dwight Eisenhower, chief planner for the Army, had his own description of King’s plan for fighting the war: “The Navy wants to take all the islands in the Pacific, have them held by Army troops, to become bases for Army pursuit and bombers.” King even used the term “garrison troops” to describe the Army’s role. Frustrated by having to deal with the notoriously abrasive and argumentative admiral, Eisenhower wrote in his diary entry for March 10, 1942, “One thing that might help win this war is to get someone to shoot King. He’s the antithesis of cooperation, a deliberately rude person, which means he’s a mental bully.”55

  Throughout the war, King would be MacArthur’s greatest nemesis, the two men doing battle on almost every important issue. The first was who was going to be in command of the Pacific War. As far as King and his admirals were concerned, it should be a Navy man. They disliked Army officers in general, and especially MacArthur after he complained about the Navy offering no support to his troops trapped on Bataan. The Navy, meaning King’s men, never forgave MacArthur for this. As Secretary of War Stimson described their attitude toward MacArthur, “The extraordinary brilliance of that officer [MacArthur] is not always matched by his tact, but the Navy’s astonishing bitterness against him seemed childish.”56

  The Air Force chief, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, said, “It was impossible not to get the impression that the Navy was determined to carry on the campaign in that theater, and determined to do it with as little help from the Army as possible.”57

  It is ironic that two rivals whose decisions would so greatly shape Allied strategy in the Pacific War were in many ways similar. Both were products of a nineteenth-century education—MacArthur was born in January 1880, King in November 1878. According to a naval officer who studied the personalities of the two men, each “was confident to the point of arrogance, tenacious to the point of obstinacy, and possessed practical intelligence bordering on genius. These three traits, mixed with a good deal of vanity, a keen sense of honor, and driving ambition, allowed both men to dominate those around them throughout their lives.” King was the more fortunate of these two “dominant personalities,” from a standpoint of the major decisions of the war. He sat on the war councils in Washington and could use the force of his personality to get his way, while MacArthur had to operate at a distance of nearly ten thousand miles.58

  While MacArthur struggled with the question of how to create an army of sufficient size and strength to achieve his goal of liberating the Philippines, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had their own difficulties. The questions of how to organize the Pacific War, and who would be in charge, brought many factions into a conflict that took them several weeks in the middle of March to resolve. Many observers expected the result would be a unity of command under one commander in chief for all forces in the Pacific, similar to what later occurred in Europe. The obvious choice for the post was the most senior officer in the Pacific, and the one with the most experience fighting the Japanese, General Douglas MacArthur.

  Chief of Staff General Marshall, the man in charge of organizing the war for the United States, made his feelings on the subject of a unified command known in late December 1941. On Christmas Day, he told a meeting of the British and American chiefs of staff, “I am convinced that there must be one man in command of the entire theater—air, ground, and ships. Human frailties are such that there would be emphatic unwillingness to place portions of troops under another service. If we make a plan for unified command now, it will solve nine-tenths of our troubles.”59

  The Navy would not agree. Admiral King took the position that since the Pacific War would be primarily a naval war, the supreme commander should be a Navy officer. The thought of turning over control of his precious aircraft carriers to MacArthur, or any other Army officer, was anathema.60

  The Army’s position, as explained by one historian, was “dead set against relinquishing the entire Pacific area to the Navy, and, in any event, no naval officer outranked General MacArthur or enjoyed anywhere near his prestige and popularity.”61

  Caught between these two powerful forces, the Joint Chiefs finally reached a compromise that went against all established military doctrine. They divided the Pacific theater into two separate theaters with two separate commanders. While many agreed on the importance of a unity of command, they also agreed that it was not practical. They gave the Army what became known the South West Pacific Area (SWPA), and the Navy the entire rest of the Pacific, excluding along the coast of South and Central America; it was designated the Pacific Ocean Areas (POA).

  The SWPA included Australia, the Philippines, New Guinea, the Solomons, the Bismarck Archipelago (New Britain and New Ireland), Borneo, and all the Netherlands Indies, excluding the island of Sumatra. When Washington asked its allies—the Australians, New Zealanders, Dutch, and British—to approve the arrangement, the only serious objection came from New Zealand, which resisted separation from her sister British Dominion. It wanted to be more closely tied to the strategic planning of Australia, and wanted to have the territories of New Caledonia and the Fijis included. King argued that the defense of New Zealand was primarily a naval issue, whereas the defense of Australia was primarily a land-air problem. Not wanting to waste time arguing over this, New Zealand accepted the arrangement.62

  On March 31, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the directive establishing the two theaters of war in the Pacific and appointed MacArthur, as expected, supreme commander of the South West Pacific Area. Two weeks earlier, Prime Minister Curtin had cabled both Roosevelt and Churchill, telling them “the Commonwealth Government desires to nominate him as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in this theater.”63

  MacArthur quickly changed his title to commander in chief, explaining why in a letter to Australian minister for defence coordination Frederick Shedden: “I can find no precedent anywhere for the actual title of Supreme Commander and its use for general and colloquial designation was not in my opinion intended to be the actual formal title to be assumed by the individual selected to command
.” Besides, he thought “the title to be somewhat tinged with military egotism.”64

  Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who had been made commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet ten days after Pearl Harbor, was now appointed commander in chief of the Pacific Ocean Areas. The Navy divided its theater into three subtheaters—the South, Central, and North Pacific Areas. Nimitz retained direct control of the Central and North. The South, adjoining MacArthur’s theater and covering his lines of communications to the United States, was assigned to Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, who reported to Nimitz. The more aggressive Vice Admiral William “Bull” Halsey would later replace Ghormley.

  MacArthur was cheered when Halsey took command in the South Pacific Area in October 1942. Although he did not personally know Halsey at the time, the latter’s reputation was such that MacArthur ranked him with such bellicose American naval heroes as John Paul Jones, David Farragut, and George Dewey. MacArthur felt the Navy had abandoned him and his army on Bataan, and he held many naval leaders in low regard, yet Halsey was one major exception. The general never wavered in his admiration and support of Halsey. When, during the invasion of the Philippines in October 1944, Halsey allowed his fleet to be lured away from protecting MacArthur’s invasion forces by a Japanese trick, he came under severe criticism—yet not from MacArthur. During dinner with members of his staff, MacArthur listened as several officers accused Halsey of “abandoning us.” When he had enough of the criticism, MacArthur slammed his fist on the table and roared, “That’s enough! Leave the Bull alone. He’s still a fighting admiral in my book.”65