65 years ago today, President Truman relieved the man he once referred to as “Mr. Prima Donna, Brass

[bodecea]

How about some actual data.
Minimum Wage - Wage and Hour Division (WHD) - U.S. Department of Labor

Yes , backs my statement up 100%!

You wish .

YOUR FACTS agree 100% with me.... you still suck cock!

Well, we now know what your hobby is.

 

[daws101]

I am not a pervert, Vigilante, and forced to wear cartoon clothing.

Virginante Fantasizes a lot.

And you have nothing worthwhile to offer...as usual!

You opinion on what's worthwhile and what's not is high farce.

 

[daws101]

Truman Dismisses MacArthur

Dad served under McArthur, really admired him, but thought Truman was right executively and militarily to dump McArthur..

Mc Arthur though he was god.

He did.....and certainly thought he was above the Civilian Authority.

The man who would be king!

 

[JakeStarkey]

Vigilante is the man who would be The Fool.

 

[Publius1787]

LOL, Like WWII, the military draft for Korea was an excellent way to reduce unemployment. The Korean War began in 1950 and ended in 1953. The garbage you posted above is fallacy from beginning to end. It would be as if you said that "after Truman took a dump on the White House lawn unemployment went from 6.6% to 2.7%. Tell me again how taking a dump on the White House lawn kills jobs?" One has nothing to with the other, especially when there's a war on and a military draft. Get that garbage out of here. I rate your post "officially debunked."

 

[there4eyeM]

What kept MacArthur from being 'fired' after his massive failure in the Philippines?

 

[daws101]

LOL, Like WWII, the military draft for Korea was an excellent way to reduce unemployment. The Korean War began in 1950 and ended in 1953. The garbage you posted above is fallacy from beginning to end. It would be as if you said that "after Truman took a dump on the White House lawn unemployment went from 6.6% to 2.7%. Tell me again how taking a dump on the White House lawn kills jobs?" One has nothing to with the other, especially when there's a war on and a military draft. Get that garbage out of here. I rate your post "officially debunked."

Pretentious much?

 

[Publius1787]

What kept MacArthur from being 'fired' after his massive failure in the Philippines?

Perhaps the answer is best cited below.

The President of the United States
in the name of The Congress
takes pleasure in presenting the

Medal of Honor

to

MacARTHUR, DOUGLAS

Rank and organization: General, U.S. Army, commanding U.S. Army Forces in the Far East. Place and date: Bataan Peninsula, Philippine Islands. Entered service at: Ashland, Wis. Birth: Little Rock, Ark. G.O. No.: 16, 1 April 1942.

Citation:

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 the 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 a 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.

 

[regent]

After Pearl America needed heroes, and we made a few, Mac being one. Some of the other heroes have been forgotten,

 

[JakeStarkey]

"There's a war on and a military draft. Get that garbage out of here. I rate your post "officially debunked." Reality asks if the military were counted against employment figures. You are a poor revisionist historian, so I suggest, nicely, you check it out and get back to us.

 

[JakeStarkey]

MacArthur lost the Philippines because he changed the Operational Plan three weeks into the Japanese invasion and THEN failed to have the necessary provisions moved to Bataan INSTEAD of having stayed with the original Operational Plan.

He then ran away.

He then was award a Medal of Honor by the President, who either had to do that for morale or fire the ******'s ass and court martial him.

 

[regent]

Another hero I remember was the pilot that dove his plane into a Japanese ship. Later I think it was debunked. There were a couple of other heroes that could be researched.

 

[Picaro]

What kept MacArthur from being 'fired' after his massive failure in the Philippines?

An excellent, competent staff advising him, and persevering in spite of their commander's mediocrity. Given how small American forces were at the start of the war, especially in the Philippines, I don't particularly fault him for that; the blame for that goes to all those wonderful Republicans and anti-Roosevelt Democrats who deliberately obstructed Roosevelt and his plans to build up our armed forces throughout the 1930's, and all through the war as well.

MacArthur survived by playing politics, playing to the press, and stealing credit for others' ideas. His ego finally caught up with him in Korea.

Even then, he's not entirely to blame for Korea, either, but then the U.S. was still stuck in the pre-atomic era mentality of short decisive wars with big victory parades, clear objectives, and lots of back patting hubris, none of which the Cold War was going to produce, and didn't. His mistakes were not considering other strategies, like conducting landings on the other side of the Korean peninsula at the narrowest choke point and creating an easily defended line there; instead his arrogance led him to start babbling crazy crap about 'nuking China' and invading it and thereby screwing up the whole thing and being driven back to the Armistice Line we're still at decades later. He forgot he was nothing without a competent staff and ignored their advice constantly.

 

[Publius1787]

Everyone's a back seat general.

 

[there4eyeM]

With the resources and warnings MacArthur had on Dec. 8 (in Manila), any competent general could have done much better. Just not letting his airforce get wiped out on the ground would have been a good (and pretty obvious) start. Imagine the invasion fleet, or their base of resupply, visited by 35 B17s. And P40s proved fairly effective against Zeros. All the changes to 'plan Orange' were a mistake as well. It isn't just Monday morning quarterbacking to see that his leadership was lamentable. What is it about American generals? There have been so few really good ones. Imagine a Napoleon leading the Army of the Potomac! The Civil War would have ended in 1862

 

[Picaro]

With the resources and warnings MacArthur had on Dec. 8 (in Manila), any competent general could have done much better. Just not letting his airforce get wiped out on the ground would have been a good (and pretty obvious) start. Imagine the invasion fleet, or their base of resupply, visited by 35 B17s. And P40s proved fairly effective against Zeros. All the changes to 'plan Orange' were a mistake as well. It isn't just Monday morning quarterbacking to see that his leadership was lamentable. What is it about American generals? There have been so few really good ones. Imagine a Napoleon leading the Army of the Potomac! The Civil War would have ended in 1862

He could have evacuated the air units to Australia, yes, but then another General there was just as negligent in not putting his units in the air as well. Can't recall his name, Berensen or something that started with a B. As for the Japanese invasion the Philippine army wasn't going to stop them and neither what was on hand of our forces. It could have been made harder for them, but that's about it; they wouldn't have been stopped.

As for American Generals, part of it is the military 'good old boy' system that prevailed in peacetime, part of it is lack of much institutional experience to draw on, and part of it is whoever happens to be President when a war starts.

Be thankful he wasn't ultimately made head of the U.S. military and then Supreme Allied Commander, despite the lobbying efforts of his mother and family friends, and Patton pushed Ike for the job, Patton also being part of the Establishment's 'good ole boy' system and opting for competence and ability over the usual military and party politics. He was kept in the Pacific, and Halsey could keep him from screwing up too badly.

 

[there4eyeM]

According to at least some figures (Wikipedia), the Japanese invasion force was outnumbered 3-2; That seems to make a case for much better resistance than actually occurred, since attack generally requires more numbers than defense.

 

[Picaro]

According to at least some figures (Wikipedia), the Japanese invasion force was outnumbered 3-2; That seems to make a case for much better resistance than actually occurred, since attack generally requires more numbers than defense.

The Philippine Army wasn't much, and officered by political appointees, and poorly trained; it could have been 5 times the size and it still would have been mowed down by the Japanese troops. Japanese soldiers early in the war were some tough well-trained bastards. Even the Russians were better troops than the fillipino military, and they were only useful as cannon and machine gun fodder in a war of attrition. Size doesn't mean much in modern wars; see the Japanese running over China and Manchuria for an example of numbers being pretty useless.

Military history of the Philippines during World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Material and Training Deficiencies
The Philippine Army received clothing that was of poor quality. Their rubber shoes would wear out within 2 weeks. There were shortages of nearly every kind of equipment such as blankets, mosquito bars, shelter halves, entrenching tools, gas masks, and helmets.

During August, MacArthur had requested 84,500 Garand rifles, 330 .30-caliber machine guns, 326 .50-caliber machine-guns, 450 37mm guns, 217 81 mm mortars, 288 75 mm guns, and over 8,000 vehicles. On September 18, he was informed that, because of lend-lease commitments, he would not receive most of these items. As a result, the Philippine Army was forced to continue using Enfield and Springfield rifles.

The shipment of supplies depended upon the US Navy's limited cargo capacity. In September, the Navy announced its intentions to convert three transports into escort carriers, but this was not done after MacArthur observed that the loss of three transports would delay his reinforcements by more than two months.

The army then approved requests for 105 mm howitzers, 75 mm pack howitzers, 75 mm guns, .30-caliber machine guns, 37 mm guns, ten 250 ft station hospitals, one hundred and eighty sets of regimental infirmary equipment, jeeps, ambulances, trucks and sedans. By November, there were 1,100,000 tons of equipment, intended for the Philippines, piled up in US ports. Most of this never reached its destination. Meanwhile, the Navy did manage to transport 1,000,000 gallons of gasoline to the island. Much of this fuel would be stored on the Bataan Peninsula.

In 1941, many Filipino units went into battle without ever having fired their weapons. Many of the troops had also never even seen an artillery piece fired. The 31st Infantry Division (PA) signal officer was unable to establish radio communication with other units in the same camp. The commander of the Philippine 31st Infantry Division, Colonel Bluemel stated, "The enlisted men are proficient in only two things, one, when an officer appears, to yell 'attention' in a loud voice, jump up, and salute; two, to demand 3 meals per day."

Training and coordination were further complicated by language barriers. Enlisted Filipinos often spoke one language (such as Bikol or a Visayan language), their officers would speak another (such as Tagalog) and the Americans would speak English. There were some first sergeants and company clerks who could neither read nor write.

 

[namvet]

ole Mac there didn't want the bombs used so he could walk ashore again with camera's rolling while he stepped on dead marines and japs

FDR should have left his ass on the rock and sent Wainwright home

 

[JakeStarkey]

"Skinny" Wainwright may not have been any better.

He was not able to convince MacArthur to go with the earlier plan.