General Douglas Macarthur's Failure

THE FAILURES OF GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR

Second Lieutenant Quentin B. Watson
Engineer Basic Officer Leader Course, Class 14-17
February 9, 2018

General Douglas MacArthur is known to be a pivotal figure during the time of World War II. However, his notoriety does not always garner positive reception from historians, due to a grand blunder during his command which led to the captivity of Filipino-American forces by the enemy, who were the Japanese forces at the time. His offensive lives down in infamy, as his lack of resolute strategy and failure to adhere to the school of thought provided for him during wartime cost the safety of others.
He failed to exhibit sound judgement and prepares himself before setting command, which

American troops who were at Pearl Harbor during the time of the flagrant offensive by the Japanese forces were clearly surprised of the attack, but General MacArthur was informed of the attack and brushed it off. He was over-confident and assumed that Pearl Harbor had the strongest defenses in case of any attack. Instead of warning the troops of a possible of attack, he did nothing, and his actions were greatly delayed, especially in comparison to other generals. His inability to build trust continued with his many strategic mistakes on the eastern front. General MacArthur was the commander of the United States Army Forces Far East (USAFFE), and as such, the onus was on him to make sound decisions in order to advance. He continued to refuse the initiation of the Orange Plan and continue to fight on the beaches even with the failure of the submarines and the loss of air forces, sending troops to repel the Japanese forces. He placed one of his only three combat-trained regiments out of harm’s way as beach guards on an isolated island instead of sending them directly against the advancing Japanese, where they may have actually done some

Despite his poor military judgment and other failings as a commander, MacArthur had a talent for self-promotion and cultivation of the media. He established a public relations office on his island stronghold of Corregidor in Manila Bay. During the siege of the Bataan Peninsula, while his desperate troops were starving, fighting, and dying in order to obey his order to hold their defensive lines to the end, MacArthur passed his time on Corregidor promoting an image of himself in American minds as the "Hero of the Pacific". He bombarded the American media with extravagant and self-adulatory press releases that hailed his military genius and determination to fight to the last man in his command. These press releases mostly ignored the heroic resistance of the American and Philippine troops and attributed full credit for delaying the Japanese capture of Bataan to MacArthur's brilliance as a commander.
It is evident as to why General MacArthur was easily able to garner an unfavorable public opinion in a way which does not entail revisionist history. Such a stain within his record as a military strategist and a commander of such a crucial sector of the Army during his tenure goes to show how the leadership attributes and competencies transcend rank. The inability of General MacArthur