The Yanks Are Coming! (18 page)

Returning to America, he was sent to engineering school, served as an aide to President Theodore Roosevelt, and eventually moved back with his parents to Milwaukee, where he had engineering duties. But engineering bored MacArthur. He was slack in his studies and more interested in talking with his father about Asia and the Pacific than he was in working on projects in the upper Midwest—and both shortfalls were noted in his military record. Rejuvenation
came when he was assigned to Fort Leavenworth and command of a company of engineers. Drilling men was more his style. The twenty-eight-year-old lieutenant shook off his anomie, relished taking Company K from the lowest ranked on the post to the highest, and again seemed an officer of remarkable activity and distinction. In 1911 he was made captain and sent on tours of duty that included Panama and Texas. In 1913, his father died and his mother became a grief-stricken invalid, at least temporarily. With his brother's long absences at sea, it was left to MacArthur to look after her—something he found hard to do at Fort Leavenworth. But Army chief of staff Major General Leonard Wood helped finagle MacArthur a job with the general staff in Washington, which settled Mrs. MacArthur nicely.

MacArthur got a chance for action, too, sailing to Vera Cruz in 1914 as an intelligence officer. His mission into the Mexican interior, a reconnaissance that might be useful in case of war, was so top secret that the American commander in Vera Cruz didn't know about it. MacArthur operated on his own with initiative and bravery and proved himself a dab hand at gunfights, of which he had several, leaving many of his would-be assailants dead and his own uniform perforated by bullets. He was recommended for a Medal of Honor, and when that was denied lest it encourage other officers—without MacArthur's War Department orders—to go secretly into Mexico, he protested. Self-regard was an unfortunate component of his merit—and there were those who held it against him.

THE “RAINBOW” DIVISION

In 1916, MacArthur became military assistant to Secretary of War Newton Baker and took on the duty of press officer for the Army. The press liked him—and so did Baker. The two of them
shared a belief that National Guard units should be melded into the American Expeditionary Force, and won the president to their side; MacArthur, in fact, played a formative role in the 42nd “Rainbow” Division (MacArthur called it that because it was assembled from National Guard units that spanned the country). Baker rewarded him with a promotion to colonel (at MacArthur's request, a colonel of infantry, not engineers) and chief of staff to the brigadier general commanding the division. It was, MacArthur knew, his ticket to battle and command.

By November 1917, MacArthur was in France with advance elements of the Rainbow Division, soon to be commanded by Major General Charles Menoher, a favorite of Pershing's. MacArthur, in turn, became a favorite of Menoher's—and of the men of the 42nd. MacArthur was openly proud of the division's men, praising them and defending them at every opportunity, and impressing them with his dash. He removed the wire innards of his hat to give it a more swashbuckling look and patrolled into no-man's-land armed with a cigarette holder, a long knitted scarf, a West Point letterman's sweater, and a riding crop, earning himself the nickname “the d'Artagnan of the A.E.F.”
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While diligent in drafting his plans and pushing paperwork, he was also deliberately not a micromanager. He did not want to make himself indispensable behind a desk. He wanted to be in the field with his men. When an officer reminded MacArthur that a chief of staff's duties did not normally include raiding enemy trenches, MacArthur replied nonchalantly, “It's all in the game.”
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For one raid he was awarded a Silver Star, for another the Distinguished Service Cross for “coolness and conspicuous courage.”
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He seemed invulnerable. Indeed, he once said, “All of Germany cannot fabricate the shell that will kill me.”
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His men wore helmets.
He wore his soft cap. He ordered them to wear gas masks but did not stoop to such precautions himself—and twice paid the price during German gas attacks, and once had to be hospitalized. But he believed such shows were important to inspire his men. “There are times,” he said, “when even general officers have to be expendable.”
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French officers admired MacArthur's
élan
; Pershing was less impressed. Seeing MacArthur's men just out of the fighting line in Lorraine, he rebuked MacArthur for what he took to be their slovenly appearance—and it was telling that he berated MacArthur rather than Menoher. Within the American Expeditionary Force, it was well known that the 42nd Division took its tone from its chief of staff. If an officer personified the Rainbow Division, it was MacArthur, and MacArthur's attitude to dress and conduct was obviously not regulation or parade ground; it came perhaps from his mother's tales of Confederate valor, of
beau geste
officers like J. E. B. Stuart and loyal fighting men in the ranks dressed in any old combination of butternut and grey. In June 1918, MacArthur became a brigadier general—the youngest in the Army. Unknown to him, he had not been on Pershing's list for promotions. Army chief of staff Peyton C. March had put him on the list and deleted five of Pershing's staff officers.

MacArthur won his second Silver Star defending the road to Châlons against Ludendorff's pressing legions in July 1918. Menoher said, “MacArthur is the bloodiest fighting man in this army. I'm afraid we're going to lose him sometime, for there's no risk of battle that any soldier is called upon to take that he is not liable to look up and see MacArthur at his side.”
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MacArthur took his greatest pride—and pleasure—in the fact that when he advanced against the enemy, he need have no doubt that the men of the 42nd would be swarming ahead with him.

At Château-Thierry, MacArthur led his men with “tactics I had seen so often in the Indian wars of my frontier days. Crawling forward in twos and threes against each stubborn nest of enemy guns, we closed in with the bayonet and the hand grenade. It was savage and there was no quarter asked or given.”
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It was successful too, and MacArthur earned his third Silver Star.

Menoher then gave him command of the division's 84th Brigade to put some fire in its belly, turning him loose from his responsibilities as chief of staff.
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MacArthur was immediately at the front, pressing the attack on the enemy. In one eerie reconnaissance through the dead and dying in no-man's-land, a flare suddenly burst overhead, illuminating a three-man German machine gun crew; MacArthur hit the dirt. After a tense few moments, he realized they were dead: “the lieutenant with shrapnel through his heart, the sergeant with his belly blown into his back, the corporal with his spine where his head should have been.”
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He also established the Germans had withdrawn. He personally reported the news to Menoher and Major General Hunter Liggett, commander of I Corps, and then promptly collapsed with fatigue. He had not slept for four days. He had just earned his fourth Silver Star.

He earned his fifth leading his men in the reduction of the enemy salient at Saint-Mihiel. He also deeply impressed Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton, who called MacArthur “the bravest man I ever met.” At one point the two officers were standing on a little hill, when a German barrage began beating its way toward them. Patton flinched slightly when a shell burst nearby, sending up a shower of dirt. MacArthur remarked coolly, “Don't worry, Colonel, you never hear the one that gets you.”
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At the outset of the Meuse-Argonne Campaign, MacArthur earned yet another Silver Star for two successfully conducted raids. But there was a bigger battle to come. MacArthur was drawing up
plans to attack the Côte de Châtillon, a key point in the German line, when Major General Charles Summerall, commander of V Corps, told him, “Give me Châtillon, MacArthur. Give me Châtillon, or a list of five thousand casualties.” MacArthur, who was still suffering from gas poisoning, replied, “If this brigade does not capture Châtillon you can publish a casualty list of the entire Brigade with the Brigade Commander's name at the top.”
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After two days of fierce fighting, MacArthur delivered Châtillon. Reflecting on the cost, MacArthur later said of Summerall, “I have hated him ever since.”
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In the final push to victory, MacArthur was awarded his seventh Silver Star and was briefly given command of the division (Menoher had taken command of VI Corps). He then led the 84th Brigade for its triumphal march into Germany and occupation duties. In April 1919, he and the Rainbow Division came home.

PEACETIME TASKS

MacArthur wasn't left unemployed long. Peyton March tapped him to reform and revitalize West Point as superintendent of the Academy. Not surprisingly, perhaps, MacArthur suppressed hazing, formalized the honor code, broadened the curriculum (though not nearly so much as he wanted, because the faculty opposed him), posted maps of Asia (remember the Philippines) around the campus, and ramped up the Academy's athletic program. MacArthur even provided the motto for Army athletics—“Upon the fields of friendly strife / Are sown the seeds / That, upon other fields on other days / Will bear the fruits of victory”—and had it carved in stone over the school gymnasium.

Most superintendents served four-year terms. Pershing, who disliked MacArthur's reforms, had him transferred to the Philippines
in 1922, but not before MacArthur had married a rich, flapper-like divorcée with whom he shared nothing but a profound physical attraction that had him proposing at their first meeting. Her name was Louise Cromwell Brooks, and she brought to their union two children (on whom MacArthur doted) from her previous marriage.

In the Philippines, the MacArthur name was already legend (from his father, Arthur MacArthur), and like his father, MacArthur established a sincere rapport with the Filipinos. His title was commander of the military district of Manila. Among his official responsibilities was leading a surveying team in Bataan. Among his unofficial responsibilities, he spent a great deal of time building relationships with prominent Filipino political figures, most especially Manuel Quezon, president of the Philippine Senate. MacArthur loved the Philippines. His wife, predictably, hated it; she wanted MacArthur to become a stockbroker.
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Promotion to major general (the youngest in the Army) brought MacArthur and his bride stateside with an assignment first in Atlanta (command of the IV Corps Area) and then in Baltimore (command of the III Corps Area)—dull for him, heaven for her, as it put her back on the social circuit. In 1925, he was detailed to serve on the court-martial of Billy Mitchell, which MacArthur called “one of the most distasteful orders I ever received.” MacArthur defended Mitchell—“It is part of my military philosophy that a senior officer should not be silenced for being at variance with his superiors in rank and with accepted doctrine”—but could not prevent the airman from being convicted.
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In 1927, MacArthur was named president of the U.S. Olympic Committee. After the 1928 Olympic games, he was assigned as commander of the Philippine Department, a prospect that delighted him and prompted his wife (from whom he was already de facto
separated) to file for divorce.
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In 1930, he became Army chief of staff. If not a meteoric rise, it was certainly an impressive one, and MacArthur was a formidable man, striking in manner, quick in decision, neither bound by precedent nor contemptuous of eternal verities, disdaining regulation uniform and useless traditions if he found more dashing or practical alternatives, while holding firmly (and famously) to duty, honor, country, and to the corps, the corps, the corps.

He was an accomplished man—and one who continued to prepare himself for great things. To that end, he kept up a regular exercise regimen. He paced constantly when at work.
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His demeanor was that of a gentleman, his tone usually level, and though prone to dramatic pronouncements and monologues of such flamboyant color that listeners marveled at him, it was part of his self-image and mystique that he kept his temper in check and similarly kept his appearance immaculate even in the tropics. Comprehensive in his views, he expressed them clearly, delegated authority, and did not micromanage his subordinates. He spent most of his evenings reading military history. His mind was powerfully stocked with knowledge and swift in judgment. Dwight Eisenhower, who was his aide for seven years, remarked, “He did have a hell of an intellect! My God, but he was smart. He had a
brain
.”
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At the same time, MacArthur's egotism and eccentricities as chief of staff were also marked. He was notably devoted to his mother—indeed, they now lived and lunched together at Fort Myer.
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He began referring to himself in the third person (as MacArthur). As a confirmed orientalist, he wore a kimono at his desk.
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It was not a pleasant time to be chief of staff. MacArthur wanted a larger Army. But in the Great Depression, and with budget-minded Republicans in office and Herbert Hoover (whom MacArthur liked)
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as president, he had to find creative ways to protect what
was most essential in the Army budget. To MacArthur, the priority was not guns and trucks and planes
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—which could be manufactured by industry in due course—but an educated officer corps, without which an Army was nothing. MacArthur always believed that it was the human element, the moral element, that was vital in war. He was, at bottom, a romantic.
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