Thought it might be fun to do this here - saw on X.

Who would have been more effective, had their theaters been reversed?

Ike in the PTO or MacArthur in the ETO?

I think Ike. Have a feeling he and Halsey would have worked well together and I don't see Mac and Patton sharing the press. Disfunction.

I think about any general would have done better than MacArthur. I think he wasted a bunch of resources on the Philippines to save face, which probably prolonged the war with Japan.

On the other hand, the delay created enough time to finish the bombs.

But overall, I think MacArthur was more interested in MacArthur, Eisenhower was more interested in victory.

Yeah - I'm not a MacArthur super fan.

^^This^^

Churchill and Stalin would have never tolerated Mac. The only reason FDR did was because of MacArthur's political friends in congress. In my opinion he should have stayed on Corregidor and sent Wainwright out on the sub.

I'm reading a book titled, "REREAT HELL!" that takes place during the Korean War. There's a lot of subtle snide remarks regarding MacArther. One knickname behind his back was "El Supremo". Dunno how much truth is actually covered regarding Mac's actual part in the war but there is some interesting stuff buried in that novel. Makes some of his closest staff look awfully bad.
PJ

One of the better command decisions was to put McArthur in charge of more or less a backwater area of the war. Absolutely no offense meant to those people who fought bravely in the China/Burma/India theater, but Nimitz and the Central and Southern Pacific was where the Pacific war was won.

Eisenhower was a diplomat holding the European alliance together. He coulda/shoulda given more direct and clear orders to some of his subordinates but overall he was the glue that held everything together there and was absolutely the right man for the job.


McArthur in the ETO would probably have led to de Gaulle declaring war on America, or maybe both of them fighting a duel with pistols at 10 paces, with Montgomery waiting in the wings to take over as Supreme Commander.

So then the question arises - why in the hell does McArthur get so much positive press - on average?

Just my semi-educated opinion - McArthur was a very good Emperor of Japan since it was a perfect compliment to his ego, and he made a good strategic call at Inchon. He wasn't completely lacking in generalship, his lack of preparedness in the Philippines notwithstanding, he just had such a huge ego he couldn't work well with anybody else.

As to his good press, just guessing that his political connections extended to members of the press.

McArthur was a narcissistic blowhard who was the president of his own fan club. He would have screwed things up in Europe to the point of changing history, and possibly losing to Germany or ending up fighting a prolonged war with Stalin. Of course, Patton was also a big fan of steamrolling Russia while they were weak and disorganized from slugging it out with Germany, but Patton could have won that fight. About the only thing that stopped Patton from invading Russia againat Ike's orders was the fact his fuel supplies got cut off. Some of Patton's tanker troops who were employed by our family auto mechanics business in the early 1950s said they didn't even have enough gasoline to run the auxiliary engine that turned the turret, let alone run the main engine to drive their tanks.

[quote=Teal]So then the question arises - why in the hell does McArthur get so much positive press - on average?[/quote

He was a good self promoter . He was very good at staging events in front of the media . If you look up
Narcissist in the Dictionary there will be photo`s of him and Obummer as examples.

Perhaps Eisenhower's greatest accomplishment was keeping the egos of degaulle, Patton and Montgomery under control, and letting them command in the field.

As emperor of Japan, he screwed up Japanese porn forever.

My father served in the South Pacific during WW2. He had a deep hate for MacArthur.

Montgomery was not a particularly brilliant field commander. His only real strength was promoting Montgomery to Churchill.

That’s a great question and one that I’ve been curious about since I was a kid. I think El Supremo or the Emperor or McCarthur was very effective at self-promotion and that, coupled of course with the fact that the victors write the story, is why a guy who abandoned his men and vowed to return eventually…when it was “safer”….is or was thought so highly of.

Lolol….millions of octopuses would take offense to that assertion. 😂