Douglas MacArthur

by Arthur Herman

  MacArthur especially wanted Wainwright to make sure that the men on Bataan understood this, understood that he was not running out on them. Wainwright said he would.

  “If I get through to Australia you know I’ll come back as soon as I can with as much as I can,” MacArthur said. “In the meantime you’ve got to hold.”

  Wainwright said that for him and his men, holding Bataan was “their one aim in life.”

  They discussed particulars and tactics briefly, and then Wainwright said, “You’ll get through.”

  “And back,” MacArthur said with fierce determination.16

  Wainwright rose to go. MacArthur gave him a box of his cigars and two jars of shaving cream as a parting gift.

  “Goodbye,” MacArthur said as they shook hands. “When I get back, if you’re still on Bataan I’ll make you a lieutenant general.”

  “I’ll be on Bataan if I’m alive,” Wainwright replied with a wry smile. He walked back alone to the Malinta Tunnel, and the painful parting interview was over.

  MacArthur went back into the house, his face flooding with emotion. “I was to come back,” he wrote many years later. “But it would be too late. Too late for those battling men in the foxholes of Bataan, too late for the valiant gunners at the batteries of Corregidor, too late for Jim Wainwright.”17

  March 11 dawned bright and clear.

  Private Rogers was seated at his typewriter as usual when Sutherland handed him a copy of Special Order 66. It was the summary of orders for leaving Corregidor; Rogers was to type copies for every officer selected to go.18

  As Rogers typed, he noticed at the bottom of the list Sutherland had written “M/Sgt Paul P. Rogers,” with his serial number. Rogers wasn’t just going with MacArthur, he realized with a jolt. He was getting a promotion.19

  “I looked around the room,” he remembered later, “at the men who would be left behind with a feeling of shame, guilt, and regret. God knows, I would be glad to leave,” he realized, but also he could perform one last service for those left behind. He told two friends what was happening, and that if they had anything they wanted sent out with him, he would take it along.

  By three o’clock his barracks bag was full of last letters to loved ones and friends.20

  Dick Marshall then appeared at his desk, looking gaunt and grim (he had been struck down by extreme dysentery and had learned from MacArthur only the night before that he was leaving Corregidor). “Rogers, it’s time to go.”

  Rogers grabbed his barracks bag and headed out of the tunnel, not daring to look at the men being left behind, who were still working, or pretending to work, at their desks. Silence reigned. Then they went out to the west entrance to meet the jeeps that took them to the North Dock.

  —

  Jean MacArthur, meanwhile, was busy. She and Sid Huff spent the day stuffing four duffel bags with K rations, one for each PT boat: Bulkeley had told them he had no food he could spare for his passengers. There was also the question of what else she should bring, both for her and for little Arthur. Finally she decided she would leave everything except two dresses—one of which she would wear—a dressing gown, and a pair of straw shoes, while Arthur was allowed to bring his teddy bear and the gift from his fourth birthday, his six-inch-long cast-iron motorcycle. His ayah and his mother dressed him in a blue zipper jacket, khaki pants, and the overseas cap that Ah Cheu had had made for him. Ah Cheu’s own belongings fitted into a single folded handkerchief.

  At 7:00 P.M. the general appeared at their side. “Now we go, Jean,” he said. “We have to go now.”21

  As for MacArthur, he was traveling with nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a razor (he would borrow Bulkeley’s). He was not even in uniform, just a nondescript suit and some brown wing tips. The one personal item he did insist on was his four-star license plates. “We may not be able to replace them in Australia,” he said sensibly. It was also his first direct reference to his future command after the Philippines.22

  Still, given the number of people going, it took three staff automobiles to load all the baggage in the tunnel. The general stepped into the first car “and left the tunnel in a kind of stunned silence.” Jean, Arthur, Ah Cheu, and Sid Huff followed him as the little caravan made its way down to the North Dock—the South Dock had been pounded to pieces by Japanese air attacks—where a rather battered-looking PT sat tied up, with a nervous Lieutenant Bulkeley waiting for them.23

  MacArthur’s face had turned a ghostly white, and a muscle in his cheek was twitching constantly. Some thought it might be nerves, but Jean knew the truth. “He was just heartbroken, you know just heartbroken,” she said many decades later. A small crowd of soldiers and officers had gathered in the dusk. Jean heard someone mutter, “He hasn’t a ghost of a chance.”24

  One of the officers present was General Moore, who commanded the harbor defenses. He and MacArthur discussed what to do if Corregidor finally fell, how to destroy all the artillery and fortifications so the Japanese couldn’t use the fortress as a base to repel an American retaking of the Philippines.

  But MacArthur was convinced that Corregidor would not fall. “Hold Corregidor until I return,” Mac said. “George, keep the flag flying. I’m coming back.” Sid Huff heard him say distinctly, “I shall return,” and so a legend was born.25

  MacArthur exercised his privilege as commanding officer to be the last to board. For a moment he stood, looking back at the fortress from which he had run the campaign to save the Philippines for nearly two and a half months, framed against a black sky with no moon—a good omen.

  Then he raised his braided cap over his head. It was both a salute, and a signal to the commander of artillery Colonel Paul Bunker—who had been an all-American halfback at West Point when MacArthur was superintendent—to open his diversionary bombardment to draw away Japanese attention (meanwhile, on the other side of the bay Philippine Q-boats were staging a diversionary attack on Subic to draw Japanese naval vessels). The guns boomed, the air was filled with sound and flashes, as MacArthur stepped onto PT-41.

  “You may cast off, Buck, when you are ready,” he said to Bulkeley.

  The PT’s engines roared to life, the nervous crew threw off the mooring line, and PT-41 headed out into the moonless night toward the turning buoy. This marked the beginning of the outer mine-free channel through Manila Bay—and the rendezvous point with the three other PT boats, which had picked up their passengers earlier and had been anchored at Mariveles.

  The rendezvous went like clockwork—no one knew it would be just about the last item on the agenda that did go according to plan. The four PT boats circled for a moment, then set off in single file through the mine channel into Manila Bay. They were sailing into the South China Sea, bound for Cabra Island, which lay to the southwest. Once clear of the mine channel, three boats dropped back, as the flotilla sped forward in a diamond-shaped formation.26

  Almost everyone on PT-41, including the general, was instantly seasick as the boat bounced around in the wake from the other boats. The only exceptions were the navy men and the unsinkable Jean, who sat with the general at the bow on chairs facing each other. Jean wasn’t seasick, but she didn’t feel like eating anything either, as she clutched a thermos of hot cocoa. Meanwhile wave after wave swept over them, and “the flying spray drove against our skin like stinging pellets of birdshot,” as MacArthur later described it.27

  As they sped along, they passed several silent shapes in the dark, Japanese ships flashing lights to each other as a signal that someone had broken the blockade. Fortunately no Japanese naval vessels tried to intercept them. But then their their luck ran out. Just as they were leaving Apo Island to aft, the magnetos of PT-41’s worn-out engines became soaked with spray and had to be shut down for repairs. The other boats experienced similar difficulties and, bobbing in the wash, soon lost contact with one another.

  No one had sighted any Japanese ships or patrol boats. But there was every reason to believe that that blessing wouldn’t last for long. Afte
r endless hours in the dark, first light began to appear on the eastern horizon, and Huff and Bulkeley began to look around for land.

  But there was none. The island they were supposed to rendezvous at by dawn was nowhere to be seen. Nor were the other boats. It took a moment for the situation to settle in.

  Douglas MacArthur, commander in chief of U.S. Armed Forces, Far East, and soon to be Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area, was lost in the South China Sea.

  —

  On Bataan, news of MacArthur’s departure hit like an emotional battering ram.

  Alvin C. Poweleit, a doctor, wrote in his diary, “This morning we learned General MacArthur had left Corregidor via PT boat. Several men were upset by this. However, most of them felt he could do a better job in another area like Australia.”

  “Of course, there was a great deal of resentment among those left behind,” noted Irv Alexander, quartermaster officer of the Seventy-first Division. “[T]he expression ‘ran out on us’ was on many tongues.” Alexander himself was one of those who had been given two hours’ notice to leave for Corregidor in order to join the general’s departing staff. The call, however, never came.28

  “I think it hurt morale all the way down to the front-line people,” remembered General Bluemel. “There are always soldiers who say it’s nice to fight under a lucky commander,” and MacArthur was considered one of those. “I said to some of the American officers, ‘we’ve lost our luck’ and I think we did.”

  General Brougher, commanding the Eleventh Division, was bitter at what he called this “foul deception…played on a large group of Americans by a commander-in-chief and a small staff who are now eating steak and eggs in Australia. God damn them!”

  MacArthur’s former classmate Paul Bunker, stationed on Corregidor, was more philosophical. He knew where the real blame for their predicament lay. “We have been at war almost four months now and so far as we can see, not the slightest effort has been made to help us,” he wrote in his diary. Bunker was now convinced that the higher-ups in Washington who had concocted both Plan Orange and Rainbow Five had planned to sacrifice the army in the Philippines from the start.

  “Now, if anybody can help us it is MacArthur,” he wrote. “He is our only chance.”29

  Anyway, the troops on Bataan had other things to think about. They were now living on twenty ounces of food a day. Rice had replaced wheat and potatoes, and meat was now whatever they could find in the fields and the forest. “Iguana is fair,” one veteran later remembered. “Monkey I do not recommend. I never had snake.”30

  Besides that, there were more ominous developments. The Japanese were reinforcing their artillery. “Every day or so a new battery would appear in my area,” one artillery officer, Alva Fitch, remembered. Other observers spotted heavy movement of supplies into Bataan from the north, while the surrounding jungle was alive with Japanese troops moving across the Pantingan River toward the east side of Bataan.

  A major attack was coming. The battling bastards of Bataan had been waiting for a final Japanese onslaught. Their waiting was almost over.

  —

  Meanwhile, no one in MacArthur’s party was eating steak and eggs.

  For the passengers and crew on PT-32, it had been a rough and sleepless night at sea. This was the boat carrying Spencer Akin and Hugh Casey, the head engineer. When dawn came up on the 12th they found themselves completely alone near some islands in the Cuyo group. They were idling on one engine, rolling from side to side in the rough sea as Ensign Vincent Schumacher, the boat’s commander, scanned the horizon with his binoculars.

  His head pivoted as “a strange, unidentified craft” appeared dimly in the distance. It grew closer, zeroing in on their boat. Fearing it might be a Japanese destroyer, Akin was preparing to throw a sack filled with invaluable coding devices overboard, when Schumacher realized it was actually one of their missing PT boats—with a familiar figure in a battered field jacket and gold-braided cap standing at the prow.31

  The first feeling at the sight was jubilation. To celebrate, the cook on PT-32 whipped up some hotcakes for the crew and passengers on both vessels, and little Arthur had a hilarious morning cavorting with the cook’s pet monkey, known as General Tojo. 32 But then reality set in. The other two PT boats were still missing, the ones with MacArthur’s top staff officers, and they all were highly vulnerable to being spotted by a passing Japanese plane or patrol boat. “We were still an hour or two short of the island where we had planned to take cover,” Sid Huff remembered, namely, Tagauayan. Meanwhile, when the skipper of PT-32 thought the other PT boat was a Japanese vessel, he had ordered the extra fuel it needed for the trip to Mindanao dumped overboard for a quick getaway. Now it would never make it without help.

  MacArthur paced up and down the deck and finally asked Captain Ray, “What would you think of trying to go on to the rendezvous island by daylight,” where the other two PT boats might be waiting.

  Ray shook his head and advised against it. They were too exposed; best to wait until dark before shoving off. So MacArthur asked General Casey to join him on PT-41 while they worked out what to do next as Bulkeley passed some of his own precious fuel on to the hapless Schumacher.33

  The cautious choice was to wait. But MacArthur grew increasingly nervous and suggested they should set off for Tagauayan. At 2:30 both vessels weighed anchor and set their course for the rendezvous island. The ride was, if anything, worse than the night before, as saltwater spray swept the decks of both boats, soaking everyone to the skin. Bulkeley and Ray literally had to hang on to the stub mast to avoid being washed overboard.

  MacArthur and Jean were hunkered down in the lower cockpit, perched on a dirty mattress. MacArthur later compared the sensation to riding inside a concrete mixer: rising up on a wave “to hang free in space,” then plunging down the other side with a crash, with water flying in all directions.34

  At about 4:00 P.M. they approached Tagauayan Island with, as Bulkeley put it to Captain Ray, “the wettest bunch of generals I’ve ever seen.” There they found a welcome sight: PT-34, which was carrying Admiral Rockwell, as well as others of MacArthur’s staff. The fourth boat, with Marshall and Willoughby, was still missing. But by now “all of us had decided we didn’t want to see a torpedo boat again,” Huff remembered, and MacArthur was one of them. He had overcome his misgivings about traveling by submarine, and suggested to Ray and Bulkeley that they wait for the Permit to carry them all to Mindanao.

  Bulkeley, however, was adamantly opposed. Who could say when the Permit could show up—they had no means of radio contact—and by then the Japanese could have spotted and rounded up the entire group. He did not mince words; the next leg of their journey could be even more dangerous than the first. But Sutherland and Rockwell agreed it was best not to wait for the Permit.

  “We’d better get the hell out of here fast,” the admiral urged. Besides, he promised, the seas would be calmer and the weather better.

  MacArthur listened and sighed, and finally agreed.35

  The only casualty was PT-32. There was not enough fuel to take Ensign Schumacher’s boat, and so his passengers were transferred to the other two. After being told by Bulkeley to “make out as best you can,” Schumacher stayed back to contact the Permit when and if the sub arrived, and then head for Iloilo City—which, ironically, was where MacArthur had supervised the building of docks forty years before.

  Darkness was coming on fast as the two PT boats sped away from Tagauayan Island. PT-34, under the command of Lieutenant Robert B. Kelly, took the lead, with PT-41 following. Rockwell’s assurances about the weather turned out to be mistaken. The sea was as rough as anything the party had seen, and soon everyone was once again soaked in spray.

  Then suddenly at 7:00 P.M. PT-41’s engines cut back. Bulkeley gave tense orders to his crew and spun the helm for a new course, due west.

  MacArthur, still lying in the lower cockpit, listened. He soon grasped the situation: a lookout had spotted a Japanese cruiser headed
on an intercept course. Turning into the setting sun had managed to hide the two PT boats from the cruiser’s lookouts. In a few minutes it was pitch-black, again with no moon. They were safe.

  Meanwhile, Jean began to worry about housekeeping in their cramped little space. The mattress they were lying on was soaked, not just with water but with cocoa, since a rough wave had shattered the thermos, covering her dress and the mattress with hot liquid as well as glass shards.

  Without thinking, she switched on a flashlight.

  “PUT OUT THAT DAMNED LIGHT!” It was Bulkeley shouting at the top of his lungs. Jean did so immediately. They were going to have to sleep on a wet mattress that night.36

  There was one more bizarre incident that night. As they passed an island, the sound of their engines aroused the Japanese garrison there. But they mistook the sound of the PT engines for airplane engines, and for long minutes after the boat sailed past, searchlights continued to probe the night sky, long white fingers reaching up for American planes that never came.

  Huff decided he was exhausted. “None of us had slept ten minutes in the past forty-eight hours,” he recalled. So he found a semi-comfortable position in the lower cockpit and was almost instantly asleep—until he suddenly heard a voice.

  “Sid? Sid?”

  It was MacArthur.

  “I can’t sleep,” the general said.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “I want to talk.”

  “Yes, sir. What about?”

  “Oh, anything. I just want to talk,” MacArthur replied.

  “Yes, sir.”

  And so began what Huff later described as “a couple of the strangest hours of my life.”37 As they plunged along through the darkness with Bulkeley at the helm and the boat slamming through the waves, MacArthur “in a voice slow and deliberate and barely distinguishable above the high whine of the engines,” spoke of what had happened in the past four years and more.