Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur was an American general whose career ran from the First World War to Korea. He commanded Allied forces in the south-west Pacific against Japan during the Second World War, governed occupied Japan from 1945 to 1951, and led United Nations forces in the Korean War until President Harry S. Truman dismissed him in 1951. Brilliant, vain and politically ambitious, he remains one of the most celebrated and disputed commanders in American history.

MacArthur was born on 26 January 1880 at the Little Rock barracks in Arkansas, the youngest son of Arthur MacArthur Jr., a Civil War Medal of Honor winner who rose to lieutenant general. Raised on army posts in the West, he entered West Point in 1899 and graduated first in his class in 1903. In 1914, during the American occupation of Veracruz, a daring scouting mission earned him a nomination, though not the award, of the Medal of Honor.

In World War I MacArthur went to France with the 42nd "Rainbow" Division and became a brigadier general, winning two Distinguished Service Crosses and seven Silver Stars for front-line leadership. He was superintendent of West Point from 1919 to 1922, became the army's youngest major general in 1925, and served as chief of staff from 1930 to 1935. In 1932 he took part in clearing the "Bonus Army", jobless veterans camped in Washington, an operation that drew heavy criticism. In 1935 he went to the Philippines as military adviser to its new Commonwealth government, becoming a field marshal of the Philippine Army.

Recalled to active duty in July 1941, MacArthur commanded American and Filipino forces when Japan attacked in December. Hours after Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft destroyed much of his air force on the ground at Clark Field, and his plan to defend all of Luzon collapsed into a retreat to Bataan. Ordered out by Roosevelt, he escaped by PT boat in March 1942 and in Australia promised "I shall return". The defenders of Bataan surrendered in April and Corregidor in May. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, partly for propaganda reasons. As supreme commander in the South West Pacific Area he directed the long New Guinea campaign and in October 1944 landed on Leyte to begin retaking the Philippines. He was promoted to General of the Army that December.

MacArthur accepted Japan's surrender in 1945 and, as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, became the effective ruler of the defeated Empire of Japan. He kept Emperor Hirohito on the throne and shielded him from prosecution, while his staff drafted a new constitution, in force from May 1947, that renounced war, gave women the vote and reduced the emperor to a symbol. Land reform transferred millions of acres to tenant farmers, and trade unions grew rapidly. He also recommended immunity for members of Unit 731 in exchange for their germ-warfare data.

When North Korea invaded the South in June 1950, MacArthur was named commander of the UN forces in the Korean War. His bold amphibious landing at Inchon in September 1950 recaptured Seoul and routed the North Koreans, but as his troops pushed towards the Chinese border he dismissed the danger of Chinese intervention. China's offensive from late November forced a long retreat. MacArthur publicly challenged Truman's limited-war policy, and after a letter critical of the administration was read out in Congress, Truman relieved him on 11 April 1951. Most Americans disapproved of the dismissal at the time.

MacArthur returned home to a hero's welcome and told Congress that old soldiers "just fade away". He hoped for the Republican presidential nomination in 1952 but did not campaign, and spent his last years in New York. He died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on 5 April 1964, aged 84, and was buried in Norfolk, Virginia.

Our 1945 map shows the Pacific and East Asia at the moment of Japan's defeat, and the 1960 map shows the divided Korea left by the war in which he was dismissed.