That fall, his troops repelled the North Koreans and eventually drove them back toward the Chinese border. Douglas MacArthur was put in charge of the American-led coalition of United Nations troops. In June 1950, communist forces from North Korea invaded the western-aligned Republic of South Korea, launching the Korean War. From 1945 to 1951, as Allied commander of the Japanese occupation, MacArthur oversaw the successful demobilization of Japan’s military forces as well as the restoration of the economy, the drafting of a new Japanese constitution and numerous other reforms. On September 2, 1945, MacArthur officially accepted Japan’s surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.” In December 1944, MacArthur-now mockingly nicknamed “Dugout Doug” for fleeing to safety but leaving troops on Bataan-was promoted to the rank of general of the Army and soon given command of all Army forces in the Pacific. Wading ashore at Leyte, he announced, “I have returned. He spent the next two-and-a-half years commanding an island-hopping campaign in the Pacific before his famous return to liberate the Philippines in October 1944. In April 1942, MacArthur was appointed supreme commander of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific and awarded the Medal of Honor for his defense of the Philippines. U.S.-Philippine troops fell to Japan in May 1942 and were forced to begin the Bataan Death March, during which thousands of men were tortured, starved and murdered. Shortly afterward, MacArthur promised, “I shall return.” Roosevelt, MacArthur, his family and members of his staff fled Corregidor Island in PT boats and escaped to Australia. In March 1942, on orders from President Franklin D. MacArthur’s forces retreated to the Bataan peninsula, where they struggled to survive. On December 8, 1941-one day after the Pearl Harbor attack-his air force was destroyed by the Japanese, who soon invaded the Philippines. In 1941, with expansionist Japan posing an increasing threat, Douglas MacArthur was recalled to active duty and named commander of U.S. WATCH VIDEO: Did World War I Lead to World War II? World War II He remained in the Philippines, where he served as a civilian advisor to President Manuel Quezon, who had appointed him field marshal of the Philippines. In 1937, upon learning he was scheduled to return for duty in the United States, MacArthur resigned from the military, stating that his mission wasn’t finished. In 1935, after finishing his term as chief of staff, MacArthur was tasked with creating an armed force for the Philippines, which became a commonwealth of the United States that year (and gained independence in 1946). The incident was a public relations disaster for MacArthur and the military. In this role, MacArthur sent Army troops to forcibly remove the so-called Bonus Army of unemployed World War I veterans from Washington, D.C., in 1932. In 1930 President Herbert Hoover named MacArthur chief of staff of the Army, with the rank of general. The two divorced in 1929, and in 1937 MacArthur married Jean Faircloth, with whom he had one child, Arthur MacArthur IV, the following year. In 1922 he wed socialite Louise Cromwell Brooks. Between Battlesįrom 1919 to 1922 Douglas MacArthur served as the superintendent of West Point and instituted a variety of reforms intended to modernize the school. As a junior officer in the years leading up to World War I, he was stationed in the Philippines and around the United States, served as an aide to his father in the Far East and participated in the American occupation of Veracruz, Mexico, in 1914.Īfter the United States entered World War I in 1917, MacArthur helped lead the 42nd “Rainbow” Division in France and was promoted to brigadier general. In 1903, MacArthur graduated at the top of his class from the U.S. The company continues to produce a corncob pipe in his honor.įather and son shared more than just a keen interest in the military life: "Arthur MacArthur was the most flamboyantly egotistical man I had ever seen, until I met his son,” one observer wrote. The Missouri Meerschaum Company, in business in Washington, Missouri, since 1869, made MacArthur's pipes to his specifications. The younger MacArthur later said of the experience, “It was here I learned to ride and shoot even before I could read or write-indeed, almost before I could walk or talk.”ĭid you know? One of General Douglas MacArthur's trademarks was his corncob pipe.
MacArthur’s early childhood was spent on western frontier outposts in New Mexico where his Army officer father, Arthur MacArthur, was stationed. Douglas MacArthur was born on January 26, 1880, at the Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas.
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