I am only writing about this because it keeps coming up in Second World War literature. I first learned about this issue in an undergrad college course I took on World War II several years ago. Douglas MacArthur comes across as a capable commander in both the Second World War and the Korean War. Regardless, any conversation about MacArthur has to reckon with his ego, which was more than just an unsavory character-trait. MacArthur's ego seems to have been a major driving force in US military policy and strategy in the Pacific theater of World War II. I would hate to think the lives of American soldiers were wasted on a strategy grounded on ego rather than military necessity. With that in mind, this discussion question is worth examining.
MacArthur's record in the battles of the South Pacific is on the whole exemplary, but the question is, did those battles have to be fought in the first place? Did the bloody fighting on Peleliu and the Philippine islands help shorten the war against Japan?
The answer is no.
MacArthur proposed a Philippines campaign to the president after the Mariana islands were secured in July 1944. Consider this passage from Antony Beevor's book on the war,
"Marshall and the air force chief ‘Hap’ Arnold, on the other hand, knew that MacArthur’s pet project would not hasten the end of the war in the Pacific in any way. With the Marianas secured, they now had their air bases for attacking the Japanese home islands." (Underline Added)
In July 1944, MacArthur was the only top-tier military official who advocated a campaign of liberation in the Philippines. Marshall, Nimitz, and many others preferred a more direct path to Japan via the Marianas now that Saipan and Guam were secured. This Central Pacific strategy offered a bee-line to Japan, by-passing all the Japanese-occupied strongholds in the South Pacific.
MacArthur's motive was personal. He had been the commander of US and Filipino armed forces in Manila when the Philippines was attacked by the Japanese in December 1941. In early 1942, he abandoned the remnants of his garrison on Bataan, leaving them to suffer the 'death march' without him. MacArthur left on a presidential order, but the defeat and the manner in which he departed the Philippines stung his ego and threatened his reputation as a commander. Besides, who could forget his highly dramatic broadcast in which he vowed to return?
MacArthur ultimately prevailed in making the case to President Roosevelt that the US had an obligation to liberate the Philippines as a matter of honor if for nothing else. MacArthur's argument was grounded in the fact that the Philippines had been a US protectorate and therefore the Americans had a moral duty to honor its security commitment to its ally.
1944 was an election year. Perhaps the timing of MacArthur's lobbying for a South Pacific campaign swayed the president because in July, Roosevelt was concerned that his lead over his challenger was slipping in the polls. FDR may have thought it imprudent to make an enemy of a media darling like MacArthur. Whatever the case, MacArthur got his way. Antony Beevor writes,
"the joint chiefs of staff agreed at the Octagon conference in Quebec that MacArthur could go ahead. He should start with the island of Leyte in the eastern Philippines in October. All preliminary operations were cancelled, with one exception, the capture of Peleliu in the Palau Islands some 800 kilometres to the east of Leyte."
It was decided that the campaign would kick-off with a landing on Peleliu on September 15, 1944. The idea was to knock out the Japanese airfield in four days of combat and then move westward to the Philippines with the rear cleared of major enemy activity. Admiral Nimitz believed, mistakenly, that the island was lightly defended. Instead of a four-day mop-up, it took nearly a month to end major combat operations and another month for the island to be deemed secure.
During my college course in 2006, I was required to read E.B. Sledge's memoir of the Pacific war as a soldier in the Marines. Unfortunately, I do not have the book in front of me for direct quotation, but his description of the combat scene on Peleliu will never leave me.
In With the Old Breed Sledge describes his landing craft being hung-up on coral reef and having to bail-out under a hail of gunfire. Sledge and his comrades had to crawl across the razor-sharp coral to get to the beach. He describes the experience at Peleliu as an absolute hell. Antony Beevor explains,
"Peleliu, less than eight kilometres long and less than three wide, looked on the map like the skull of a crocodile’s head with its jaws slightly open. It consisted of a hilly spine of sharp coral along the north-west shore, a flat centre on which lay the airfield, and mangrove swamps on the south-east shore. The island was ringed with coral reef which made the use of landing craft impossible. Only the amtracs could get over them."
So picture Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan on the hell-zone at Omaha beach. Now, picture Tom Hanks having to crawl across jagged coral on his belly, bullets wizzing above and around him, just to get to the hell-zone on the beach. Beevor echoes Sledge by telling us,"For marines who had fought in most of the island battles, Peleliu was the worst." After securing the beachhead, the Marines had to "get to grips with the defenders , the marines first had to cross the airfield and deal with blockhouses and barracks, which had been turned into a concrete fortress. In the opinion of many, Guadalcanal now seemed like a holiday outing."
In a later passage, Beevor wraps up the damage as follows, "Clearing Bloody Nose Ridge was an arduous affair in which grenades and flamethrowers were vital tools. Its caves provided the Japanese with interlocking fields of fire, and the fighting was such that the bulk of the island was not cleared until the end of September. It was not finally secured until the end of October. By then the 1st Marine Division’s casualty rate had risen to 6,526 , of which 1,252 were killed. And the 81st Division, which had to be brought in as reinforcements, lost another 3,278. Yet Peleliu could have been bypassed altogether. It was one of Nimitz’s rare mistakes."
Folks, this is what it took for MacArthur's Philippines campaign just to begin!
World War II was perhaps the last war in which supreme generals were celebrities on par with movie stars. Bernard Montgomery even autographed pictures for his fans as his army made its way through Sicily. Perhaps the most sickening example of American ego trumping military necessity was personified by General Mark Clark, who diverted Allied troops away from the crucial opportunity of trapping the German armies in central Italy in order to capture Rome- a prize of newspaper- making value, but of no military value. How many more thousands of Allied troops had to die in Italy to pay for Clark's selfish pursuit of glory!
All told, the Philippine invasions cost the Americans more than 62,000 casualties with nearly 14,000 dead. What if those battles didn't need to be fought?
In the run-up to the landings in the Philippines, its desperate people chaffing under Japanese occupation were inundated with leaflets and buttons emblazoned with the picture of Douglas MacArthur and the words "I Shall Return!" Doubtless, the expectation to Filipino and American prisoners that MacArthur was on his way, gave them hope to hang on a little longer. Perhaps honor and commitment really were good enough reasons to divert American strength away from a speedy knockout of Japan in order to liberate populations dear to Americans, but the role personal glory played in the decision-making of placing American soldiers in harm's way has never been thoroughly known by the American people, a people so enamored with their triumph in the Second World War.
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