by Michael Fassbender

Created on: December 21, 2011   Last Updated: December 22, 2011

General Douglas MacArthur is best known today through two quotations, “I shall return,” and “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”  Over the course of nearly fifty years of military service, however, he left his mark on the modern world in many ways.  His most lasting contributions were in his roles in the Allied victory in World War II, in American relations with the Philippines and Japan, and in the role of nuclear weapons in the Cold War.

The son of a Civil War hero, MacArthur certainly began his career with certain advantages.  In his case, his subsequent performance proved those advantages warranted.  He graduated from West Point with record-breaking high grades, and distinguished himself as a junior general during the First World War.  After spending a few years as Superintendent of West Point, he continued to rise in the peacetime Army, serving as Army Chief of Staff from 1930 to 1935.

In 1935, he began his ten-year relationship with the Philippines, a country that had its own government but was not yet fully independent.  MacArthur took up a Field Marshal’s commission under President Quezon, taking retirement from the U.S. Army shortly thereafter.  Significantly, MacArthur differed from the conventional view that the Philippines could never successfully be defended in the event of an invasion, arguing that in ten years it could be made capable of self-defense.  As it so transpired, MacArthur was not to have those ten years to accomplish the military transformation of the country, but his confidence changed American policy; when World War II came, America would fight to defend the Philippines.

The anticipation of war with Japan led the Army to call MacArthur back into service in 1941; his position in the Philippines became a key part of the American posture in the Pacific.  When the Japanese invasion came, however, MacArthur was unable to hold the islands, and his forces were compelled to retreat to Bataan.  After considerable prodding by the President, MacArthur agreed to escape from this lost position and regroup in Australia.  Disembarking, he made his famous pledge to return.

In 1942, MacArthur was given overall command of the Southwest Pacific Area, a role that essentially placed him in command of Allied land operations and the naval operations that immediately attended them.  He is often credited with the successful strategy of island-hopping; in reality,

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