Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "" video.
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Willard, you could not be more wrong, although he became deeply flawed later in life.
During World War 2, after the Japanese started the War in the Pacific by attacking Pearl Harbour, it became apparent that Japan was intending to attack and invade Australia. Since Britain refused to help, failed to use our troops effectively in the War in Europe and North Africa, and essentially pretended the War in the Pacific was of no consequence in order to serve Britain's own ends, and available senior military officers in Australia were not up to the task, our Prime Minister asked the USA to help by send us an experienced capable general to take charge.
The USA sent Gen Douglas MacArthur, available as he had been ordered out of the Philippines and was then 62 years old and had retired 4 years previously.
He performed brilliantly, preventing by his leadership and strategy the Japanese for getting any closer than they already were, half way across New Guinea.
He took command of the US and Australian occupation forces in Japan, sent there to get the country back on its feet after all their cities had been carpet bombed, keep the communists out, and make reforms so that Japan could be an effective modern democracy. Again, he performed brilliantly, and Japan quickly became an economic powerhouse directly because of the reforms MacArthur drove them to make.
However, he took charge of US forces in Korea in the Korean War. This didn't go well due to huge assistance given to the North by China. MacArthur wanted to use nukes, and when the US President refused to authorise any nuclear bombs, MacArthur proposed to render the North and part of China uninhabitable by spreading nuclear waste around. In this way, MacArthur, now 71, showed that he had lost the plot, was now a dangerous menace, and the US President had to sack him.
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@willarddevoe5893 : You remain very wrong. Ford was in Australia long before WW2 and MacArthur, beginning assembly of cars and trucks in 1925. Philco has never had a presence nor marketed in Australia. Boeing airplanes became common in Australia after WW2 and MacArthur gone - and they have been very good airplanes. Martin pretty much unknown in Australia. GM commenced manufacturing cars and trucks in Australia in 1948, after MacArthur long gone, and at the invitation and enticement by the Australian government, and quickly became the most popular brand due to their comfort, reliability, and low cost.
As I and others has posted, MacArthur was not perfect, especially in Korea when he was quite old. But he was in fact a very very good commander. He had a sense of his own destiny (or as might be put, a swelled head), but his strategy for fighting the Japanese (leap frogging), and the post war reconstruction of Japan and reform of its government and recasting of the emperor was brilliant. And, by the way, done against the opinions of senior generals in the US and Australian forces, and politicians in US and Australia. He proved them all wrong. He suppressed the communists in Japan and kept the Russians out.
Yes, America's might would have prevailed in WW2 without MacArthur - after all he was in command of only an area allocated to him - a fraction of the Pacific region. But he ran that area very well.
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