Gen. of the Armies Douglas MacArthur awards and decorations. in The Military History Forum Forum

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Gen. of the Armies Douglas MacArthur awards and decorations.

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Alibi	Gen. of the Armies Douglas MacArthur awards and decorations.	Lead	[-]
Posts: 605 Nov 2 10 8:46 AM Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Tags : None This topic came up for quite a bit of discussion on another forum and I thought some here would like to comment. The original question in the thread was how did Gen. Douglas MacArthur get credit for award of the Combat Infantry Badge? Apparently the criteria for the award was that it may only be awarded to enlisted soldiers, company grade and field grade officers precluded MacArthur from award of the CIB. (It was suggested that perhaps MacArthur considered his WWI service as criteria, however MacArthur went to France as a Colonel on the Staff of the 42nd (Infantry) Division and later commanded one of the Division brigades as a Brigadier General) In any case eligibility for the CIB was from 7 Dec 1941 and was not retroactive to WWI, and even if it had MacArthur would not have been eligible because of his rank. It is interesting that people that get into these discussions frequently provide misinformation and go on to conclude what they want to conclude regarding the situation. In this case the controversy of MacArthur's eligibility for certain awards and decorations is in some cases incorrect. For example in the website that I invite your attention to, the criteria for the award of the Assault Arrowhead Device is mentioned and then it is unequivocally stated that MacArthur was not eligible for the Arrowhead Device on his Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal or his Korean War Medal. I invite the naysayers attention to the well documented "landing" by MacArthur at Leyte Gulf during WWII. As to the Korean Conflict MacArthur did put ashore at Inchon while the Marines were still fighting to clear the city. Neither of these "assaults" may have been in the spirit of landing against determined resistance, but I suspect met the criteria for the Assault Arrowhead Devices, at least in MacArthur's mind. Another of MacArthur's decorations that I have always been dubious about is he award of the Medal of Honor for his organization of the defense of the Philippines. One fact that seems to have eluded people is that MacArthur was in retired status and had been hired by the Philippine Government as their Grand Marshall, or some such title, of the Philippine Army. MacArthur was restored to active duty, but the point is that much of what the citation for the award of the MOH he did while he was not active in the U.S. Army. The story seems to be that FDR wanted to throw MacArthur a bone for avoiding the political headache of his capture by the Japanese. IMO there has been entirely too much politicization of the MOH and great deal of misinformation. I think people reading the citations for award of the MOH forget that until WWI it was the only medal available to acknowledge valor or achievement in combat. The medal was originally awarded to enlisted men, then later opened to officers. Some of the citations for the award of the MOH were for capturing enemy flags, and other feats of arms that might well have been recognized by lesser decorations in later conflicts. Arthur MacArthur, Douglas's father, was awarded the MOH for Civil War action that according to Mr. Manchester in "American Caesar" was much admired by Douglas and inspired him to do some actions that got him "noticed in dispatches" as the saying goes. The bottom line is that Douglas was delighted at the award. In the discussion of the issue of MacArthur leaving the Philippines the website gets into all kinds of speculation and ignores that MacArthur was ordered out because he was a talent that was needed to organize the Army for the campaign to defeat Japan. As with all historically significant military leaders there are those that are admirers and those that are detractors. The web site for which I provide the link to is well known for its cynicism of the government and by extension the military. In the case of the questionable MacArthur awards and decorations there are some very valid questions such as the award of the Command Pilot Rating Badge. I was somewhat startled by this information because as far as I know Douglas MacArthur was never a qualified pilot with any rating. But the web site goes on to question whether MacArthur met the criteria for multiple awards of the Air Medal, indeed if one is not a pilot how is that person awarded an Air Medal? But if MacArthur was in fact a rated Command Pilot would that have qualified him for award of the Air Medal? I invite you attention to the web site for their cynical interpretation of the situation and your input as to any information regarding the criteria of some of Douglas MacArthur's awards and decorations. http://thesmokingun.blogspot.com/2007/10/f...ue-case-of.html Last Edited By: Alibi Nov 2 10 8:50 AM. Edited 1 time.
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eagle7		#1	[-]
Posts: 4618 Nov 2 10 11:08 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	MacArthur was a shameless meglomaniac, so I guess he needed all those awards to feed his ego. After FDR ordered him out of the Philippines (which I think was a good decision for the morale of the USA), MacArthur expected General Wainwright to go down fighting. When Wainwright surrendered at Corregidor, MacArthur expressed the opinion that he should have been courtmartialled for capitulating to the Japanese. From what I've read, around 1938 FDR sent MacArthur to the Philippines to assess the defensive capability of the islands. MacArthur reported that the Philippines were indefensible, and was retained in the islands as a presidential advisor. IIRC, President Teddy Roosevelt rescinded many of the MOH that were awarded during the Civil War and Indian Wars. It was indeed the only medal awarded during that era, and there were many cases in which it was awarded frivolously. For example, it was awarded to Union soldiers that reenlisted in order to participate in upcoming battles. The sole MOH awarded to a woman (a Civil War doctor) was the result of political conniving by her state governor (Ohio). She was so incompetent as a MD that the Army reassigned her to a women's mental asylum in Nashville as the chief administrator.....and she screwed that up too. Teddy Roosevelt yanked her MOH, and Jimmy Carter restored her MOH in the late 1970s as a favor to the women's lib movement. The MOH was abused in the VN War. In his book Soldier, Col Anthony Herbert talks about some cases that he had seen while serving with the IG in VN in the late 1960s. One case had to do with a sergeant who threw himself on a grenade, but found the time to retrieve it and throw it a safe distance away. His unit was not under enemy fire when this happened, and the suspicion was that the guy contrived the episode to get out of VN. He did in fact receive the MOH due to public relations.
7GREEN		#2	[-]
Posts: 880 Nov 2 10 2:50 PM Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Stillwell received the CIB-though an act of Congress, according to Wikipedia. On another board I visit someone noted that in Vietnam all awards to anyone in the rank of Captain and above are suspect.
Alibi		#3	[-]
Posts: 605 Nov 3 10 9:25 AM Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	eagle7's comment regarding Theodore Roosevelt's involvement with the Medal of Honor reminds that awards and decorations are quite unevenly distributed. In some cases people have lobbied for their own aggrandizement and were awarded decorations just to get them to go away. Presumably any general officer with four or more stars could nominate himself (or get his staff to do it) for anything he desired, which seems to be the case with Douglas MacArthur. Roosevelt was nominated for the Medal of Honor for his leadership at Kettle Hill-San Juan Hill. His subsequent campaign to get the troops out of Cuba so irritated the Army command that his nomination for the MOH was derailed. Roosevelt was finally awarded the MOH a few years ago. IMO many decorations are given to people for simply doing their jobs. Several of the decorations in the U.S. military don't have anything to do with military action, but rather for administrative functions. I suppose that since it is impossible to promote or pay someone in the military every time they successfully do something, the only way to show appreciation for their competence is to decorate them. Until sometime after the War with Spain the Army had an interesting system of awarding brevet ranks, which was merely honorary rank used to recognize achievement. Brevet ranks were only granted to officers so apparently served to acknowledge achievements in the absence of any kind of decorations or payment. I guess it can be said that the decorations for doing a job competently replaced the brevet rank system of recognition. Since most of the decorations were established during WWI it has to be assumed that when the AEF got to Europe and looked at the decorations the British and French officers were wearing they were the inspiration for similar awards in the U.S. Army. I recall that someone commented, and I think it had to do with this MacArthur discussion, that Audie Murphy was not the most highly decorated soldier. In fact I vaguely recall seeing that some other WWII soldier had recently been awarded a long overdue decoration that technically put him in the status of the most highly decorated American soldier of WWII. IMO all this is rather academic and illustrates how inequitable the system is. However inequitable is not limited to military decorations but to virtually everything humans are involved in doing. So military decorations should be taken for what they are, however in a society in which integrity seems to have taken a back seat to efficiency there are those of us that will question the integrity of those that diminish honorable aspects of awarding people for their achievements by abuse of the system of awards, decorations and promotion. The Smoking Gun web site mentions the "Stolen Valor Act" and how it applies to the inappropriateness of some of Arthur MacArthur's awards and decorations. Considering how little regard the courts seem to have for the Stolen Valor Act in recent cases that have gone to trial there doesn't seem to be much regard for military decorations. Could it be that the military are their own worst enemy in this regard? Generals awarding themselves decorations and badges that they technically did not earn, the questioning of all Combat Infantry Badges to Captains and above in Viet Nam, and other questionable awards, decorations and promotions has to be a signal that something is amiss. The military is in a sense a separate or sub-society of larger societies that are very diverse in their opinions of what purpose the military serves and whether there should be a military at all. Cuts in military spending are a popular way to demonstrate that elected officials are doing all they can to reduce spending and therefore reduce taxes. The military budget in the United States represents 3% of the cost of running the government. So cutting the military budget is merely a convenient way to try to preserve the illusion that our representatives are doing something significant while at the same time preserving their programs. I only mention this to state that the military leadership would be well advised to learn from history, especially the legacy of those that have deteriorated the integrity of the service, and to make honesty and integrity important virtues to instill.
7GREEN		#4	[-]
Posts: 880 Nov 3 10 2:52 PM Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Always seemed to me that awards and decorations were mainly a matter of paperwork, and in the case of Vietnam, a matter of ticket punching-and brown nosing. In 1970 an assistant division commander of the 1st Cav received the Silver Star for a fictitious event. The clerk was told to type it ip, when he protested he was told to do as he was told. He took the citation for another general, changed the details, it was submitted and approved. On the date the supposed act of valor took place the general being decorated was not in country. I recall an an article in Army Times in 1979 when the then CSA GEN Rogers asked why many awards seemed to be "rank specific" and in recent years it seems Army officers have rows and rows of "fruit salad" for either "popgun" campaigns or staff service which obviously help at promotion time but put them on a par with these South American generals whose awards are inverse proportion to the amount of combat they have seen. When I went through IOBC in 1977 they were pushing the EIB so hard I called the course "EIBOC", the idea being that a lieutenant wearing the EIB would "impress" the troops. It didn't of course as too many troops never had a chance to test for the EIB and as I overheard 2 NCOs say the regulations regarding EIB testing and retesting were not adhered to in IOBC. In 1969 I knew an E-6, he told me he had over 100 jumps but still wore the novice wings because he couldn't get a slot for Jumpmaster's school, he complained "they send all these 2nd lieutenants and they flunk out." It was the standard in the British Army that a senior officer had to witness the act of valor, I have seen SAS founder David Stirling described as the most "under decorated" British officer of WWII because he was usually the senior officer present and his subordinates could not recommend him. In MacArthur's case he decied to accept his MOH as the representative of his troops and for what they had done and when Patton received a high award-DSM ?-he sent a latter to his troops saying "this is not for anything I have done but rather what you have done for me." Study military history? One thing that appalled and angered me as a junior officer-and even a field grade one-was how few officers had studied any military history other than what they were required to.

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