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Title: Reminiscences by Douglas MacArthur ISBN: 1-55750-483-0 Publisher: United States Naval Inst. Pub. Date: March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.71 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A fantastic memoir!
Comment: My past understanding of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was vague and perhaps understated. This book by far has peaked my interest not only in the General himself, but also in the history of World War II as well as the history of others involved in that conflict.
General MacArthur does an excellent job covering his life from the time of his birth, to his assignment in Mexico to his command of the Rainbow Division in World War I to his leadership in World War II which lead to his appointment as Supreme Commander in the Pacific. MacArthur spends a great amount of time detailing each of his military adventures, along with noting his achievements along the way, finally ariving at the rank of 5-star General of the Army in 1944.
I was very surprised to find MacArthur to be very, what I would call, deferential in the receipt of each honor. He has been accused by some of being pompus and an egoist, but he came across as a man who, while very deserving, felt he had earned his awards through not only his own efforts, but also through the efforts of those around him.
General MacArthur also shares his experience with President Harry Truman at the Wake Island conference. Prior to reading MacArthur's memoirs, I was lead to believe that the conference was a tense undertaking with President Truman having to reign in one his "errant" Generals. MacArthur's take on the conference was completely different that what I have previously read - indicating that Mr. Truman was very complimentary toward the General and with the General returning the favor. I was surprised to read in Merle Miller's "Plain Speaking" to see that Harry Truman thought General MacArthur was a "dumb son-of-a-b****". When I contrasted the two (MacArthur and Truman), I found MacArthur to be articulate, to the point, and respectful. Truman, I have found was crude and ruthless.
I thought this was a fantastic book and would encourage its reading by anyone interested in the history of this great U.S. General.
Rating: 4
Summary: History That Favors Me!
Comment: Informative and the most self serving narration ever made by and about a single American. Live a lifetime with the general and know what it is to never have made a mistake, never willingly to have submitted to legitimate authority, and never, and I mean NEVER, to have credited anyone else for the success of what ,in most military operations are shared endeavors.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best available history by a military figure
Comment: Better than even Eisenhower and certainly better than Patton, MacArthur tells us a little about himself, his family and his father's legacy before seeing his first (and later decorated) action in WWI. Taking over at West Point in 1919, his book begins to expose particular weaknesses in American idealogy when it comes to the "expense of defense." As MacArthur continued his tale, I could scarcely trust my eyes. In WWII, the Pacific theater had no unified command like Europe and other theaters. MacArthur controlled only part of his forces; those not under his command were oftentimes pulled away on other missions, sometimes at the last moment. For a time he enjoyed command over his own air power, but later he lost this luxury as other missions took precedence. MacArthur's tactics and strategy are always clearly defined and easily acceptable as intelligent courses. His hope and duty to protect his men appears on every page. His objections to frontal assaults on what he termed "militarily insignificant" objectives (both to the Allies and to Japan) on Okinawa and Iwo Jima made me groan anew for the men we lost there. "Only poor commanders turn in large casualties" he wrote. His masterly reconstruction of Japan (1945-50) shows his open and fair concepts of what we now call "nation building." He knew that the reconstruction and reforms would not succeed unless authorized by the people of Japan. Shouts of rage greeted him in 1945 when he entered Tokyo; tears of sorrow witnessed his departure. In Korea, my stomach turned on almost every page, as Mac describes the indecision or timidity that put men in harm's way without a clear objective, without support, and without even the formal declaration of war. The "police action" as Truman insisted it was seemed to Mac (and to any reader or soldier) as actual war, yet the more acceptable phrase continues to be repeated today. Persons who think so today should read this book and reconsider. For instance, the mass murder in Bosnia in the 1990s was diabolically reduced to "ethnic cleansing." In the 1940s we called this "extermination." When the concentration camps ran full speed in Poland in 1945, the German clerks merely wrote "released" whenever they bothered to record names. This book gives a heroic picture of American military might and the idealogy of freedom, but also a horrid picture of inaction and misinformed policy, and a glimpse behind a curtain of US Government-propagated disinformation.
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Title: American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 by William Manchester ISBN: 0440304245 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1983 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
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Title: Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas Macarthur by Geoffrey Perret ISBN: 155850723X Publisher: Adams Media Corporation Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: War As I Knew It by George S. Patton, Rick Atkinson ISBN: 0395735297 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 08 May, 1995 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: A Soldier's Story by Omar N. Bradley, A.J. Liebling ISBN: 0375754210 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 04 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: MacArthur's War : Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero by Stanley Weintraub ISBN: 0684834197 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 15 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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