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Competent Major General George Grunert, whom MacArthur superseded as commander of U.S. Army Forces, had laid the ground work for vigorous defense before he left. MacArthur set about bringing his more than 20,000 Filipino regulars under U.S. command and prepared for the gradual incorporation of more than 125,-ooo Filipino reserves. Racing against time, MacArthur demanded, and began to receive, a sizable trickle from the spigot of U.S. production. Transports threaded the maze of the island waterways, bringing U.S. troops, planes, technicians, tanks. Out of the East, Flying Fortresses roared to secret concentrations within the islands.
When the Japanese struck at the Philippines last fortnight, MacArthur's men rolled with the punch. If the Japanese plan had been to lure General MacArthur out beyond the mountain bastions of the central core of Luzon, there was no evidence last week that they had succeeded (see p. 14).
Last week General Douglas MacArthur labored through the day, far, far into the night at his Manila headquarters, moving troops about the map, gauging, speculating, ordering. "Well, slaves," he cheerily remarked once to his sweating staff, "I'm going home to eat." Now & then he appeared around town, letting the people be reassured by his presence. Douglas Mac-Arthur, with his innate sense of drama, knew that he was in dead center of the stage, and enjoyed it.
MacArthur's Style. Wherever Mac-Arthur goes he travels as if draped in the American Flag itself and preceded by a guard of honor. But while civilian critics used to consider MacArthur a swashbuckling, colorful, impeccably dressed soldier with a penchant for the William Jennings Bryan type of oratory, most of his Army contemporaries thought him a strict disciplinarian, a magnificent leader of men in action, a first-class fighting man.
Style runs in the MacArthur family. His father. General Arthur MacArthur, left Wisconsin to join the Union forces at the age of 17, emerged as "The Boy Colonel of the West," having led his troops personally on the charge at Missionary Ridge.
Arthur MacArthur died in style. Attending the 50th annual reunion of his Civil War regiment at Milwaukee, he rose to deliver what he said would be his last speech. It was a fiery oration, reverberating with echoes of dead drums and battle cries. As he finished the speech, he faltered, dropped dead. His old adjutant rose, tottered over to drape the body with the flag, then fell dead himself across the body of his commander.
Douglas MacArthur was born at an Arkansas Army post. When he was four his mother and a company sergeant sheltered him from an Indian raid. He entered West Point in 1899. MacArthur was First Corporal as a Yearling, Ranking First Sergeant as a Second Classman, First Captain as a First Classman, graduated first in his class, with the highest scholastic record in 25 years, to enter the Army's Corps of Engineers. Between times at the Academy, the legend says, he became engaged to eight different girls.