Macarthur's Replacement

Cook

Banned
I’ve just finished Bob Wurth’s “1942: Australia’s Greatest Peril” which has got a number of alternative ideas spinning in my head at the moment.

One interesting thing: After he left the Philippines for Australia, Douglas Macarthur’ aircraft landed in the Northern Territory to refuel.
Ten minutes after his plane departed the airfield was devastated by a Japanese air attack.

If Macarthur had died in the attack who would have been most likely to take over the Southern Command and would he become Supreme Commander in the Pacific?
 
I’ve just finished Bob Wurth’s “1942: Australia’s Greatest Peril” which has got a number of alternative ideas spinning in my head at the moment.

One interesting thing: After he left the Philippines for Australia, Douglas Macarthur’ aircraft landed in the Northern Territory to refuel.
Ten minutes after his plane departed the airfield was devastated by a Japanese air attack.

If Macarthur had died in the attack who would have been most likely to take over the Southern Command and would he become Supreme Commander in the Pacific?

The division of the Pacific Theater into two main commands IOTL was mainly to satisfy ol' Dugout Doug's ego. In all likelihood, the entire theater, including Australia, will come under the control of Nimitz and the United States Navy will be firmly in the driver's seat when it comes to what gets done and who goes where. I suppose that means that there will be a greater focus on the Central Pacific and less on the Southwest, and probably much less in the way of Filipino liberation going on if any.
 
Perhaps Walter Krueger or Robert Eichelberger?

Maybe Mark Clark gets sent to the Pacific? Although at first he certainly wasn't senior enough for an overall ground command, naturally.
 
With Dugout Doug out of the way, Wainwright would probably be ordered to Mindanao and after Corregidor falls he would be ordered out of the PI. He would make a great land forces commander
 
Just looking at the seniority list for Lieutenant Generals, here are some possibilities:

1)LtGen Ben Lear, date of rank 10/1/40
2)LtGen Walter Short, date of rank 2/8/41 (although obviously not a possibility post Pearl Harbor)
3)LtGen Walter Krueger, date of rank 5/16/41
4)LtGen Lesley McNair, date of rank 6/9/41
5)LtGen Frank Andrews, date of rank 9/19/41

Hap Arnold and Delos Emmons received their LtGen rank in this time period, but I would rule them out as ground force commanders for obvious reasons. Of the 5 candidates listed above, which are really 4 excluding Short, only Krueger and McNair seem to make sense as possibilities for an early-mid 1942 appointment. However, McNair was named Commanding General Army Ground Forces in 3/42, which seems to rule him out.

So, Walter Krueger it is, if we are looking at both the seniority list and officers who actually had a combat command in the Pacific and was an Army level commander at the time of the PoD.
 
The best hope would lie with Nimitz. However there are more important consequences than who takes over. One being that the Korean War would probably have ended earlier with a similar agreement and Harry Truman would have had a second full term. The bad side might have been that the reconstruction of Japan might have been less succesfull. It would have happened to late to have avoided his being caught napping with his planes on the ground.

It might have been better if Dugout Doug had had his wish and remained on the Phillipines

For another Scenario read Douglas Niles Macarthurs War
 
A man who led charges against the German guns in WWI while carrying a riding crop instead of a gun and flies over enemy positions in Korea in a bomber while in much older age is no coward.

Damn him up and down for letting the Japanese destroy his planes or leaving the army's supplies too close to the beaches for the Japanese to snatch--I don't understand how the man who devised Inch'on could be that stupid--but "Dugout Doug" is slander.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
Just looking at the seniority list for Lieutenant Generals, here are some possibilities:

1)LtGen Ben Lear, date of rank 10/1/40
2)LtGen Walter Short, date of rank 2/8/41 (although obviously not a possibility post Pearl Harbor)
3)LtGen Walter Krueger, date of rank 5/16/41
4)LtGen Lesley McNair, date of rank 6/9/41
5)LtGen Frank Andrews, date of rank 9/19/41

Hap Arnold and Delos Emmons received their LtGen rank in this time period, but I would rule them out as ground force commanders for obvious reasons. Of the 5 candidates listed above, which are really 4 excluding Short, only Krueger and McNair seem to make sense as possibilities for an early-mid 1942 appointment. However, McNair was named Commanding General Army Ground Forces in 3/42, which seems to rule him out.

So, Walter Krueger it is, if we are looking at both the seniority list and officers who actually had a combat command in the Pacific and was an Army level commander at the time of the PoD.
Good work David, except for one small problem. Walt Krueger was a nobody when MacArthur selected him to command Sixth Army. All of the general staff, especially Marshal were perplexed by MacArthur's selection of Krueger. There was plainly nothing distinguishing in the man's record. He turned out to be an adequate, but not brilliant army commander.

Arnold was Army Air Corps, that may have ruled him out for that command, though MacArthur did uitilise air power very efficiently. Bill Kenney and the Fifth Air Force did an excellent job.

If the time factor works out and he can be evacuated, Wainwright would have probably ended up in command. He was an excellent tactician, and his strategic retreat from Luzon to Battan is still studied in the war college as a textbook example of a fighting retreat. The problem with Wainwright was that he --like so many other senior officers in the army of that era--was a functional alcoholic. Might not have mattered in that era.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
A man who led charges against the German guns in WWI while carrying a riding crop instead of a gun and flies over enemy positions in Korea in a bomber while in much older age is no coward.

Damn him up and down for letting the Japanese destroy his planes or leaving the army's supplies too close to the beaches for the Japanese to snatch--I don't understand how the man who devised Inch'on could be that stupid--but "Dugout Doug" is slander.
Have to agree. A lot of that garbage was written by detractors. MacArthur was actually claustrophobic. He had a very hard time dealing with the underground bunkers on Corregidor. No way was he ever hiding in a 'dugout'.

This was a guy who got gassed three times in WWI while leading trench raids (against orders from his Division commander), who was called "Bravest son-of-a-bitch I've ever seen." by no less than Colonel George S. Patton.

The issue with MacArthur was never his courage. Instead, it was that the man was inconsistent. After Inch'on was the bone headed decision to ignore obvious signs of Chinese intervention in the war.

 
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