General Douglas MacArthur Archives

In this vivid painting by artist Jack Fellows, Douglas A-20 Havoc bombers of the 312th Bombardment Group, U.S. Army Air Forces, attack Clark Field in the Philippines on January 14, 1945. The planes use parafrag bombs against Japanese kamikaze aircraft on the ground at the air base near Manila. This was a follow-up raid to one that had taken place a week earlier, and both were intended to destroy suicide aircraft before they had the chance to damage American ships.

General Douglas MacArthur

Kamikazes Caught on the Ground: Raid on Clark Field

By Robert F. McEniry, Lt. Col. USAF (ret.)

General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander Southwest Pacific Area, kept his promise to return to the Philippine Islands when his Sixth Army under the command of Lt. Read more

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt talks with a wounded American soldier during her 1943 visit to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

General Douglas MacArthur

Eleanor Roosevelt: American Ambassador to the South Pacific

by Glenn Barnett

On Sunday December 7, 1941, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt hosted a luncheon for 31 people at the White House. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Escape From Bataan

By Glenn Barnett

Most Americans were surprised by the Japanese attack on pearl Harbor, but the military had known that war with Japan was inevitable. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

MacArthur’s Occupation of Japan: Lessons on Counterinsurgency

By Lieutenant Colonel Michael F. Trivet

As the months of 1945 passed at an agonizingly slow pace, Allied forces in the Pacific struggled unwaveringly toward Japan. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Submarine Special Missions in the Pacific

By Steven Trent Smith

Sunsets over Manila Bay are nothing less than spectacular. Once the sun dips below the horizon there is a lingering illumination known as “blue hour” as the sky gradually shifts from pale azure to deep indigo before fading completely into the black tropical night. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

WWII Aircraft: The Douglas C-54 Skymaster

By Sam McGowan

At the beginning of World War II, the globe seemed huge—covered by thousands of miles of ocean and uninhabited land mass, but by the time it ended everything had been brought closer together, thanks largely to the four-engine transports of the United States Army Air Transport Command, particularly the Douglas C-54 Skymaster. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

From the Jaws of Death: MacArthur’s Escape from the Philippines

By Eric Niderost

Lieutenant John Bulkeley knew something was in the wind when General Douglas MacArthur invited him for an informal lunch at his headquarters on Topside, the highest elevation on the island fortress of Corregidor. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Death of the Fighting Lady: Frank Heineman’s Story

By Joan Hunt

The 13,000 ton Independence-class aircraft carrier USS Princeton, which was commissioned on February 25, 1943, quickly became known as the “Fighting Lady.” Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

The National World War II Museum

By Peter Suciu

Opened on June 6, 2000, on the 56th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the National D-Day Museum, as it was then known, initially focused on the amphibious invasion of Normandy. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Pacific Merchant Marine

By Dr. Carl H Marcoux

The American war in the Pacific proved to be largely a maritime endeavor. Fighting consisted of widespread naval battles between the two major opponents followed by American invasions of Japanese-held island bases. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Red Eclipse: Halting the Communist Drive on Seoul

By Marc D. Bernstein

By mid-April 1951, the war in Korea was nearly 10 months old. United Nations forces had suffered a reversal of fortunes in late 1950 with the entry of Communist China into the war, losing the South Korean capital of Seoul but later regaining it. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

A Civilian in MacArthur’s Air Force

By Raymond E. Bell

Stephen Pierce Duggan, Jr., wanted to be a United States Marine. When the United States entered World War II, Steve was all set to do his part. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

First Hell in the Pacific: The Battle for Tulagi

By Arnold Blumberg

The strategic defeats suffered in the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway checked Japan’s advance in the Pacific. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

The Los Baños Raid

By Gene Eric Salecker

On January 9, 1945, after almost three years, General Douglas MacArthur and the United States Army returned to the Philippine island of Luzon, landing at Lingayen Gulf on the northwest coast. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Street Fight in Seoul

By Marc D. Bernstein

On September 15, 1950, the United Nations X Corps, spearheaded by two regiments of the U.S. 1st Marine Division, landed at Inchon, on South Korea’s west coast, 25 miles from the capital of Seoul. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

The Birth of the Viet Minh: World War II’s Prelude to the Vietnam War

By John Brown

In the late 18th century, the French established Catholic missions in Indochina, and until the 1820s they enjoyed local protection, but after that persecution began and increased steadily, particularly under Emperor Tu-Duc, who reigned from 1847 to 1883 and wanted to stamp out Christianity. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

U.S. Forces in the Philippines: Too Little, Too Late

by Sam McGowan

In the popular history of World War II, the assertion that the United States was caught unprepared in Hawaii and the Philippines has become widely accepted as fact. Read more

General Douglas MacArthur

Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa)’s Triumph

By Blaine Taylor

It was fated to be the last wartime conference of the Big Three Allies of World War II, but it was the first not attended by the late American President Franklin D. Read more