General Douglas MacArthur

The Nevada and I Survived the War

By Charles T. Sehe

I am of Polish, Irish, and American Indian descent and grew up in the small (population 3,800) northern Illinois town of Geneva. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

The Battle of Biak: “A Terrifying Glimpse Into the Soul of Mankind”

By David Alan Johnson

“All I knew about Biak was that it was an island a degree south of the equator, one of the Schouten group lying north of Geelvink Bay toward the western end of New Guinea.” Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

A Company K in the Pacific: From Guadalcanal to Peleliu

By Jason Abady

In April 1942, a group of young Marines, having recently graduated from Officers Candidate School, arrived at New River, North Carolina, a sprawling tent city that stretched over a vast area and would eventually become known as Camp Lejeune. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Doughboy White: The Lost Battalion of Leyte

By Nathan N. Prefer

On October 20, 1944, General Douglas MacArthur redeemed his personal pledge to the people of the Philippines. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Pathfinder Fire Storm: the B-29s Over Tokyo That Helped End the War

By Robert F. Dorr

Major Sam P. Bakshas woke up that morning with the secrets in his head. He was one of the men flying B-29 Superfortress bombers from three Pacific islands—Guam, Saipan, and Tinian. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Kiwis Over the Pacific: The RNZAF in World War II

By Allyn Vannoy

During early World War II operations in the Pacific, Geoff Fisken would become one of the most outstanding pilots of the RNZAF—the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Voices of the Axis: The Radio Personalities of Fascist Propaganda

By Chuck Lyons

Mildred “Midge” Gillars was born in Portland, Maine, took drama lessons in New York City, appeared in vaudeville, worked as an artist’s model in Paris and a dressmaker’s assistant in Algiers, and taught English at the Berlitz School in Berlin before—motivated by love and fear—she became the notorious “Axis Sally,” one of the Nazis’ leading radio propagandists. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Tom Harrisson: An Anthropologist’s War in Borneo

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

World War II in the Pacific was fought in thousands of remote locations. The island of Borneo was the site of one of the least known clandestine operations of the conflict, led by an adventurous, but arrogant, anthropologist. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Storming the Point at Peleliu

 By Dick Camp

By the summer of 1944, the United States was advancing on Japan’s Home Islands in a two-pronged attack through the Central and Southwest Pacific theaters. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Kerama Retto: Key to Victory at Okinawa

 By Pierre V. Comtois

Close to the northern end of the island of Tokashiki, the largest member of a tiny group of islands called Kerama Retto, located 15 miles west of Okinawa and hardly 400 miles from the Japanese home islands, Corporal Alexander Roberts and the rest of the 306th Regimental Combat Team rested for the night beneath the starry skies of the northern Pacific. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Rock Force Assault: MacArthur’s Invasion of Corregidor

By Gene. E Salecker

Among the many objectives facing General Douglas MacArthur on his return to the main Philippine island of Luzon in 1945 was the recapture of the tiny island of Corregidor. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

“The War Between the Smiths”: High Command Feud at Saipan

By David Lippman

The ferocious battle for the island of Saipan in the Marianas was won by U.S. Marines and U.S. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Defending Bataan

By Arnold Blumberg

In 1941, the Philippine Islands, 7,000 in number, an American-controlled mandate, formed a natural barrier between Japan and the rich resources of East and Southeast Asia. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Silver Salvage in Caballo Bay: Japan’s Sabotaged Treasure Hunt

By Jamie Malinowski

Early in the morning of July 8, 1942, in the calm waters of Caballo Bay south of Corregidor Island in the Philippines, a casco, a 12-foot by 60-foot flat-bottomed wooden diving barge, bobbed placidly in the open water 120 feet above the ocean floor. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

The FCC’s RID and Japan’s Surrender

By Susan L. Brinson

George Sterling received a teletype message from the War Department just after 5:15 am on August 15, 1945. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

The Costly Kyushu Invasion of Operation Olympic?

By Sam McGowan

During the more than half a century since the end of World War II, there has been much speculation about what would have happened if President Harry Truman had not dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the invasion of Japan had actually taken place. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

The Real Hirohito/Emperor Showa

by Blaine Taylor

He was the longest-reigning monarch and head of state in the 20th century, and the third-longest in history behind King Louis XIV of France (72 years) and England’s Queen Victoria (64 years). Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur’s Plan to Win The Korean War

By Blaine Taylor

In his 1964 book Gen. Douglas MacArthur (Gold Medal Books, Greenwich, Conn.), Bob Considine writes, “MacArthur’s final plan for winning the Korean War was outlined to this reporter in the course of an interview in 1954 on his 74th birthday. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Hero to the End: Airman William “Ed” Dyess on the Philippines

By Sam McGowan

Lieutenant Colonel William Edwin Dyess, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot and squadron commander, was considered a hero by men who served under him in the Philippines and who felt they owed their own lives to Ed’s sacrifice. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Richard Bong (1920-1945)

By Sam McGowan

Without dispute, the P-38 was the airplane of the aces. While other fighter types had their share of aces, the P-38 was flown by most of the top scorers, of whom Major Richard Ira Bong was at the top of the heap. Read more