Brooke's view of MacArthur: November 1945

Brooke did his big tour of the empire as his last assignment.

He met MacArthur face-to-face for the first time.

"He began by asking me my impression of my visit to Korea. I told him that I had been interested to find the same lack of co-operation on the part of the Russians.... This started him off on the threat of Russia to the future peace of the world. In his opinion we should be prepared for trouble and assemble at least a thousand atomic bombs...We must prepare safe aerodromes by tunneliing into the sides of mountains so that we shall be able to go on operating from England.... In the Pacific, with the new super-bomber now on the slips.. we should be able to attack Russia from America..."

"I pointed out that as long as we had armies of occupation in Europe we should have a land front with Russia... we should not be able to hold the Russians back ...and that with the Russians at the Channel we should be in a very difficult position"

"He finished by presenting me with a signed photograph of himself"

"I came away with the impression that he is a very big man and the biggest general I have yet seen during this war. He is head and shoulders bigger than Marshall .."

"In all these operations I never felt he had the full support of the American COS. Certainly King bore him no friendly feelings.."

"He has been accused of taking actions without previous political approval, but he had been unable to obtain the political policy and the guidance he had sought. To my mind a general who is not prepared to assume some responsibility on his own, when unable to obtain political direction, is of little value".

Well, yes, no

Was Brooke so gullible? or, lo and behold, could MacArthur just be ... <a good general?> oh horror and woe to all.

Ivan
 
A bit of flamebait ... but ...

Did Brooke say MacArthur was good? He said 'big', which is not necessarily the same as good.

Much better POD: MacArthur tries wasabe in Nov of 1945, has an allergic reaction, and dies. Who leads Korea?

Mike Turcotte
 
A bit of flamebait ... but ...

Did Brooke say MacArthur was good? He said 'big', which is not necessarily the same as good.

Much better POD: MacArthur tries wasabe in Nov of 1945, has an allergic reaction, and dies. Who leads Korea?

Mike Turcotte

Depends on what you mean by "leads Korea"?

Lt General Walker was long in place as commander of the US 8th Army. That was not going to change & assuming the same policy from the leaders back in Washington Walker will not change much in defending southern Korea.

At MacArthurs level the US ambassador is going to become more important, however I suspect you mean a military theatre commander. That is a wide open question as there were a dozen or more senior US Army and Navy officers with the reputation and political skills. Several of those were both better 'grounded' than MacArthur and had track records equal to his in stratigic and operational matters.
 
Brooke did regard him as the best general of all times.

Well,

I like the fact that MacArthur's present to Brooke was a signed photo of himself! Shows modesty!

Also telling: Brooke looked at the aftermath of the nuclear bombs and concluded: "The impression I had was that the effect of such a bomb on London would have een to set fire to wooden roofs and demolish the poorer houses. I do not believe that the well-built steel and concrete houses woud have suffered much. No doubt, as the bomb is further derveloped the results will be infinitely greater, but for the present my impression is that the effects has been exaggerated".

and the real germ:

"A very striking personality, with perhaps a tinge of the actor....".

Ivan
 
Also telling: Brooke looked at the aftermath of the nuclear bombs and concluded: "The impression I had was that the effect of such a bomb on London would have een to set fire to wooden roofs and demolish the poorer houses. I do not believe that the well-built steel and concrete houses woud have suffered much. No doubt, as the bomb is further derveloped the results will be infinitely greater, but for the present my impression is that the effects has been exaggerated"

That's actually quite good description of Fat Man and Little Boy size atomic bomb effects. In case of continental cities the effect would have been even smaller than on British cities, as in general they were better built. In case of Scandinavian or American larger cities of 1945, even smaller...
 
Is it your plan to repeat these until the facts go away, and Mac the Knife ;-) is as good as you hope? Sorry- not how it works. Several have already given you opinions, over several bumps, and he STILL was a horror in too many ways

And, isn't that politicianry he showed, not generalry, a very DIFFERENT thing? FDR thought he wanted to be a Fascist leader, and was open to the political route, never failing to steal public credit where he could, either.

Can we have a real thread, please? Isn't it long past time to find something different? Like, say, where he does even more damage than OTL? Though I guess you WERE trying, to give you credit ;-). The problem's that the brass rightly found him too annoyingly arrogant to put him anywhere closer or with more impact than the Philippines or Australia. Or Japan, where a decently smart dictator whom couldn't harm troops by his overarrogance in war was fine (and was STILL nicely far from DC).
 
... The problem's that the brass rightly found him too annoyingly arrogant to put him anywhere closer or with more impact than the Philippines or Australia. Or Japan, where a decently smart dictator whom couldn't harm troops by his overarrogance in war was fine (and was STILL nicely far from DC).

How about a 'Balkans Command'. He & Churchill can plan all the attacks on the soft underbelly they want.
 
It is of course interesting to see the general opinion about MacArthur.

However, when a personality as Brooke is claiming Mac to be the best general of them all, I have to admit, I do get a bit curious on that account; hence getting a bit of input from learned people on this site is not a bad idea.

I am not claiming Mac to be the best, nor defending him, but I really thought this site was also about exchange of opinions and ideas.

Ivan
 
That's actually quite good description of Fat Man and Little Boy size atomic bomb effects. In case of continental cities the effect would have been even smaller than on British cities, as in general they were better built. In case of Scandinavian or American larger cities of 1945, even smaller...

Depends on the height of burst. The Japan detonations were estimated as optimal for overpressure or 'blast' effects. Tho I dont know if they actually achieved that. A lower altitude changes the over pressure effect, and it increases the damage from the heat. Lower it enough and the extreme temperature zone affects the ground surface. I got to learn some of these fun facts as part of my artillery training back in the 1980s. My take is they were not understood to other than the physicists and a few ordnance officers back in 1945, and poorly understood at that. It is unlikely Brooke really understood the actual effects of the weapon at the time since the people who built & used it had not grasped all the aspects yet.
 
Brooke's comments on MacArthur are throwaway and should not be considered to be an actual professional judgment on Mac's performance.

Brooke had very little to do with the fighting in the Pacific and thus could not provide an actual evaluation to Mac's generalship.

Brooke made only 6 comments that referenced MacArthur in his diaries, and the comment about him being the greatest general was in late 1942. Brooke made a variety of comments about the generals in Europe, and they could very well be contradictory depending on the subject and time. One could cherrypick his comments on Churchill to support any number of different evaluations of what he thought of the PM.

Brooke also made comments about other generals being the "greatest" during the course of the war.

Brooke clearly thought that MacArthur had splended strategic judgment which I think even his detractors would admit. That does not mean he was excellent in all areas of generalship. And Mac clearly had problems in neglecting fundamental details of his army whenever he was in a complacent frame of mind (Philippines before the war began, during the occupation of Japan before the Korean War, and in the advance in North Korea before the Chinese attacked).

Mac was clearly capable of being a great general when he wasn't complacent and took the enemy seriously. Unfortunately, being directly responsible for the inadequate preparation of the Filipino Army during the build up to WWII, being directly responsible for the disaster in the Philippines, and being directly responsible for the disaster in North Korea greatly harms Mac's reputation. It demonstrates Mac lacked consistency in his quality and means he could not ultimately be trusted with the level of responsibility he was given.
 
Thanks for that useful comentary.

"Brooke made only 6 comments that referenced MacArthur in his diaries, and the comment about him being the greatest general was in late 1942."

Which causes me to wonder what the other five comments were?

The US Lt Gen. Echielberger served under macArthur for most of four years, he had a number of extremely negative comments about Macs abilities. Any have any of Echielbergers comments or books at hand?
 
Alan Brooke was Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He had many qualities but he had never commanded in battle above Corps level.

Not sure how valuable his opinion of an American General in the Pacific would be.
 
However, when a personality as Brooke is claiming Mac to be the best general of them all, I have to admit, I do get a bit curious on that account; hence getting a bit of input from learned people on this site is not a bad idea.

He isn't. From the text, I get the distinct impression that he's talking about Mac's ego, rather than his skills as a general, which he seems to deride somewhat.
 
Just a few quotes and opinions ... it is very, very rare to find an opinion of MacArthurs military capabilities though which is unfortunate.

His monumental tomb at Norfolk, Virginia, describes him as the “Defender of Australia, Liberator of the Philippines, Conqueror of Japan,” which is taking rather a lot of credit to himself.

Among the few individuals of whom Brooke seems to have kept consistently positive opinions, from a military standpoint, were General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Field Marshal Sir John Dill, and Joseph Stalin. Brooke admired Stalin for his quick brain and grasp of military strategy. Otherwise he had no illusions about the man, describing Stalin thus: "He has got an unpleasantly cold, crafty, dead face, and whenever I look at him I can imagine his sending off people to their doom without ever turning a hair." (So maybe Brooke's opinion is not the best example)

The one American who went far beyond logistics and charm was Douglas MacArthur. Alanbrooke regards him as a master strategist and “the greatest general of the last war.”

Eisenhower's disdain was revealed in 1954 when he noted in his diary: 'I just can't understand how such a damn fool could have gotten to be a general.'

Noted Eichelberger, who had known MacArthur since 1911 and served as a corps commander under him during World War II: 'The most outstanding characteristic of Gen. MacArthur was his vivid hatreds. He talked to me many times about his dislike for FDR and his statements about Gen. Marshall and Gen. Eisenhower were rich, rare and racy.'

Talented subordinates such as Eichelberger discovered that to steal "any publicity from MacArthur was like driving a dagger into his heart" (Schaller 1989). While all propaganda involves at least a selective use of the truth, MacArthur's communiques were unusually dishonest, claiming (for example) that Allied losses in his theater between Buna and the invasion of Leyte were just 122 killed, 2 missing, and 529 wounded versus over 150,000 Japanese killed. Besides carefully omitting the bloody conflicts marking the beginning and end of this time period, the figures are simply wrong; Biak alone cost the Allies 474 dead or missing and 2428 wounded. Incorrect figures for enemy casualties are understandable, but wildly incorrect figures for one's own can only be a fabrication. Nor was the dishonesty limited to the text of the communiques: In January 1943, MacArthur posed with Eichelberger in a jeep at Rockhampton, Australia, but released the photos with the caption "General MacArthur at the front with General Eichelberger in New Guinea" (Larrabee 1978).

Roosevelt himself seems to have been caught up in the MacArthur mystique. Cutler (1994) reports that

The President's personal physician, Dr. Ross T. McIntire, revealed after th war that Roosevelt "may have smiled now and then at some of the General's purple communiqués, but always there was appreciation of him as a military genius who had worked miracles in the face of heart-breaking odds." One of Roosevelt's most trusted advisers, Admiral William D. Leahy, wrote of MacArthur: "I had always entertained an extremely high opinion of his ability." And Roosevelt himself told MacArthur, while the latter was serving as Chief of Staff of the Army, "Douglas, I think you are our best general, but i believe you would be our worst politician"
There is perhaps no better portrait of the man that the one penned by a British liaison officer, Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Wilkinson, who reported to Churchill that (Schaller 1989):

He is shrewd, selfish, proud, remote, highly strung and vastly vain. He has imagination, self-confidence, physical courage and charm, but no humor about himself, no regard for truth, and is unaware of these defects. He mistakes his emotions and ambitions for principles. With moral depth he would be a great man; as it is he is a near miss which may be worse than mile.... His main ambition would be to end the war as pan-American hero in the form of generalissimo of all Pacific theaters.... he hates Roosevelt and dislikes Winston's control of Roosevelt's strategy. He is not basically anti British, just pro-MacArthur.
 
I think that is the key:

Mac Arthur might not have been anti anything, just immensely Pro-MacArthur.

I think this is now debated to death.

Just a thought: What if MacArthur had gone into business? teamed up with (and later kicked out) the founder of, say, IBM?

MacArthur the President and CEO and Chairman of IBM?

Or of Ford Motor?

Now, that could be fun to explore. But maybe some other time

Ivan
 
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