0MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964) American
general
The son of General Arthur MacArthur (1845–1912), a
Civil War veteran who commanded American forces in
the Spanish-American War (1898), Douglas MacArthur
was born on 26 January 1880 in the army base at Little
Rock, Arkansas, where his father was stationed. He at-
tended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New
York, from which he graduated first in his class in 1903.
He was commissioned as an engineer officer, and for the
next decade he served in various capacities, including as
aide to his father during a tour of the Orient, and as aide
to President Theodore Roosevelt.
During the American participation in the fighting
in Europe during the First World War, MacArthur, as
the commander of the 84th Infantry Battalion, led his
troops into action in the St. Mihiel salient in September
- As the commander of the 42nd (“Rainbow”) Di-
vision, he was gassed and wounded in action before the
war came to an end in November 1918. In 1919, as a
brigadier general, he was named as the superintendent
of West Point, serving until 1922. During this period,
he revitalized the officer training course and brought
new discipline to the academy. In January 1925, he
was advanced to the rank of major general, and he was
subsequently named as commander of the Department
of the Philippines, in which role he served from 1928
to 1930. On 21 November 1930, President Herbert
Hoover appointed him chief of staff of the U.S. Army
and promoted him to the rank of full general. In 1935,
MacArthur retired from the U.S. Army and became a
military adviser to the Philippine government; he was
named as field marshal of the Philippine army in June- When he wanted to retire in 1937, at age 57, Phil-
ippine president Manuel Quezon asked him to stay on
as head of all the Filipino military forces.
MacArthur was in the Philippines in 1941 when the
United States entered the Second World War. He had
already established a plan in July that year to fight a po-
tential Japan invasion of the Philippine islands, at the
same time integrating Filipino forces inside the American
military structure. When Japan invaded the Philippines
in December 1941, President Franklin Delano Roos-
evelt reappointed MacArthur to the U.S. military with
the rank of lieutenant general and put him in complete
control of the islands’ defenses. Although MacArthur
was able to slow down the Japanese march on the city of
Manila, he could not hold back their forces, and upon
Roosevelt’s direct orders he was forced to withdraw him-
self and his immediate staff to Australia, leaving behind
thousands of American and Filipino soldiers who fell into
Japanese hands; many were tortured and later executed.