home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text>
- <title>
- (1940s) Gen. Douglas MacArthur
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1940s Highlights
- PEOPLE
- </history>
- <link 07810>
- <link 00049><article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- General Douglas MacArthur
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>(December 29, 1941)
- </p>
- <p> To Douglas MacArthur it seemed scarcely strange that his life
- should have come full circle. Last year, trying to explain to
- a reporter how he felt about the Philippines, he roared: "When
- George Dewey sailed into Manila Bay on May 1, 1898 it was
- Manifest Destiny working itself out. By God, it was Destiny that
- brought me here! It was Destiny."
- </p>
- <p> For Douglas MacArthur the Philippines are more than a battle
- assignment. The Philippines are in his blood. His father,
- Lieut. General Arthur MacArthur, swashbuckling boy hero of the
- Civil War, was military governor of the islands, 40 years ago;
- his mother died there; he himself has served three tours of duty
- there. Under Manila's tropic palms he wooed his second wife, 20
- years his junior, and fathered his sturdy three-year-old son.
- The Philippines are the only home he has known since 1935, when
- he arrived to stake his professional reputation as a soldier on
- the thesis that the islands can be defended.
- </p>
- <p> Last year the U.S. Army buckled to the task of re-equipping
- its Philippine Department. In the summer of 1941 it decided to
- recall MacArthur to the U.S. flag. On July 26, 1941 MacArthur
- was named Lieutenant General in command of the United States
- Army Forces in the Far east (the Army shortens the title to
- USAFEE, but MacArthur prefers to call it the Army of the Far
- East, the A.F.E.). Last week President Roosevelt capped the
- return of the MacArthur to action by making him, again, a full
- four-star General.
- </p>
- <p> To his new command, MacArthur brought a dowry of Filipino
- loyalty. Relations between Filipinos and the U.S. Army in the
- Philippines had hitherto been only cordial. But MacArthur, who
- had created the Philippine Army, trusted it and could command
- it as he wished. "I know a fighting army when I see one," he had
- said, "and these men are a fighting army."</p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-