School of War - Ep 188: Jonathan Horn on MacArthur and the Battle for the Philippines

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Jonathan Horn, former White House speechwriter and author of The Fate of the Generals: MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines, joins the show to discuss the defeats, victories, and legacies of Douglas MacArthur and Jonathan Wainwright, the highest-ranking American POW of WWII. ▪️ Times      •      01:56 Introduction     •      04:36 Arthur MacArthur      •      09:33 The Philippines      •      16:13 Wainwright        •      18:20 War Plan Orange        •      27:06 Crisis      •      32:34 MacArthur leaves         •      35:20 Bataan and surrender        •      43:18 Captivity      •      48:34 Postwar  Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Okay, enough geopolitics. We've spent the last few weeks trying to understand the Trump administration's worldview with regard to tariffs and great power competition and so forth. And today we're going back to military history to the early days of World War II when the defense of the Philippines, a weakly protected outpost of American power in the Western Pacific, staring down the barrel of a belligerent, rising Asian power, was on everyone's mind.

Whether to hold or abandon it was caught up in the politics and emotions of the day. and the personalities of powerful American leaders, in this case, notably Douglas MacArthur, who disagreed passionately about its prospects with consequences that would reverberate throughout the war. So maybe not so divorced from today, after all, I guess. Let's get into it. It is the safety for war this Iraqi invasion of late. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infantry. A bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state.

We continue to face the rain, the situation in France. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing ground. We shall bike in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender. For more, follow School of War on YouTube, Instagram, Substack, and Twitter. And feel free to follow me on Twitter at Aaron B. McLean. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War.

I am delighted to welcome to the show today, Jonathan Horn, who's an author. and a former White House presidential speechwriter. He's written books including Washington's End and a Robert E. Lee biography called The Man Who Would Not Be Washington, which is a Washington Post bestseller. And he is the author most recently of the fate of the generals, MacArthur, Wainwright, and the epic battle for the Philippines. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining the show. Thanks so much for having me.

So tell us a bit about yourself and how you went from speech writing to history writing and why you've now written a book about World War II in the Philippines. And I have to say, for the benefit of listeners, it's a really nicely executed and really thoughtfully conceived book. It has a bit of a Plutarchian kind of parallel lives kind of quality to it, even though, unlike in Plutarch, these guys, of course, know each other. And it is like a fascinating comparison to reflect upon. Well, thanks for those kind words about the book.

I had, as you mentioned, had worked as a White House speechwriter, and one of the great honors that you have as a White House speechwriter on occasion, there's no more moving speech to write than one award in the Medal of Honor, which is our highest military honor. And I had that privilege to write remarks for that two times, both times for Navy SEALs who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of fire. And as you look at the story of Douglas MacArthur, he received the Medal of Honor, I should say, too.

But he received it only after doing something that seemed almost the antithesis of the medal. Instead of facing the danger that the medal salutes soldiers were facing, he left the Philippines under orders from the President of the United States, it's important to say, and went to Australia where there was safety and abandoned his army there to starvation and surrender. And of course, he made that famous vow, I shall return. Well, that got me interested in the story of another general who also received the Medal of Honor for his actions in the beginning of World War II in the Philippines. and he also made a vow. His name was Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright the 4th, and he vowed to stay with his troops in the Philippines and to share their fate, even when it meant becoming the highest-ranking prisoner of war of World War II.

So both of these guys, as is the case, it turns out for a lot of the very senior officers in this war, have family stories that tie back to the Civil War. And I want to start by asking you about Arthur MacArthur. And this is one of, I keep forgetting this. It's one of only two, I think, cases where you have a father-son medal of honor pairing. There is one more, right? It's the Roosevelt's. That's right. That's right. And I've been corrected on this exact question within the last year, and I keep failing.

Tell us about Arthur MacArthur, and your account of his receipt of the Medal of Honor had all sorts of details that I did not know. I had just taken it as a given that it was somewhat, let's just say, more straightforward story. your your account will will probably upset some some wisconsinite listeners but so it goes well i don't i don't mean to take any away from arthur mccarthur's courage he was at the battle of chattanooga in 1863 and basically there was an order to charge up missionary ridge and if you've ever been to chattanooga and looked at missionary ridge it was at the time it was fortified by the confederates on the crest and it looked like a suicide mission, if ever any mission looked like one. But the Union soldiers actually didn't succeed in storming the ridge. And at one point, Arthur MacArthur,

who was a very young man at the time, picked up the flag for his regiment and carried it to the crest. And as Douglas MacArthur told the story many years later, basically he was the only person to accomplish this feat and everyone was looking at him on the battlefield. But in truth, there were many incidents during this charge. It was one of the most improbable charges of the Civil War, but there were numerous officers who had feats of courage, similar to Arthur MacArthur. It doesn't take anything away from him to say that,

who also carried their flags to the crest. And many years later, when Arthur MacArthur remained in the Army, he petitioned and played some role in lobbying the War Department to look back at acts of courage that had happened during the Civil War, and he was able to receive. the Medal of Honor for what he had done on Missionary Ridge. And by the way, I should say also, that wasn't that unusual, too. It was a period of time when many officers were looking back at events during the Civil War and hoping to receive recognition for what had happened.

That's a very generous recounting of the story. And I, of course, I agree completely. I mean, he did a very courageous thing. Every account of the story is consistent on that front. And the fact that others did things that were comparably courageous and did not receive the Medal of Honor. well, you know, that's that's the nature of these things. It's a very healthy attitude. I think it's Carmelanties who probably wrote some of the... Do you know his work? This guy wrote a novel called Matterhorn.

He wrote a very good collection of essays called This Is What It Is Like to Go to War. He has a brilliant essay in there about decorations. Are you familiar with that at all? I haven't seen that. Oh, I really, I commend it to you. I remember when the book came out, it kind of came out with a splash, the essay book, and the chapter on medals and bravery was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal. and I hadn't met Marlante's at this point.

I knew that he had received the Navy Cross in real life as a Vietnam veteran himself. And I saw this article and I kind of rolled my eyes and I thought, oh, my God, I don't think I can survive 3,000 words on, you know, why I deserve the Navy Cross. Surely, that can't be what this is. And indeed, it was not. It was a fascinating kind of harrowing account of how he had gone to Vietnam dedicated to winning a medal, as a lot of young lieutenants are. And he gets his first medal, which is the bronze star. And as he tells the story, you sort of realize he's telling the story of how he very possibly, obviously, accidentally killed one of his own Marines in the course of trying to be a hero and still got the Bronze Star as an outcome of the broader action. And that's prior to the Navy Cross itself.

And it's a harrowing, moving, beautiful essay with, you know, written with real self-knowledge, which concludes with, you know, all these things are in the end, all these decorations or attempts to intervie. interpret a chaotic reality. So the fact that other people did the brave thing, too, I would never hold against Arthur. I will say the lobbying that you described in the book, you know, a bit like I did have the reflection, a bit like father like son. Like, you know, fathers get sons that that reflect them in some ways. And Arthur MacArthur was dedicated on receiving some recognition. I think that's fair. And I think that also Douglas MacArthur was at a particularly impressionable age when his father was carrying out. this latter campaign to receive the Medal of Honor for what he had done all those years earlier during the Civil War. And it must have seemed to him at the time that everyone in Washington was reliving Arthur MacArthur's charge. And I think it probably contributed to an attitude that MacArthur himself, Douglas MacArthur had, that this medal was something of a birthright for his family and his military career would not be complete unless he found a way to receive it. And you can see that in some of the risks that Douglas MacArthur takes, especially as a young officer,

some of the risks when they're being evaluated by the War Department seem to have basically serve no purpose other than to perhaps try to receive the Medal of Honor. And so I think that contributes to how he looks at the medal and the fact that his career will not be complete unless he receives it. I want to get to Wayne Wright eventually, but just sticking with MacArthur for the moment, speaking of birth rights, of course, the Philippines. is a kind of MacArthur family joint, if you will. Say a bit about how Arthur and the MacArthur family's story intersects with the Philippines and the origins of the American interest in the Philippines.

I'm sure every listener is up on their Spanish-American War history, but in case any of us need a refresher, I'd be open to some top lines. Yeah, Arthur MacArthur, his role during the Civil War was much smaller than his role during the Spanish-American War when he was a general. And very quickly when America and Spain go to war, where it looks like they're going to go to war in 1898, it's Theodore Roosevelt who puts out this, you know, if an event of war immediately go to Manila Bay. And of course you have the Battle of Manila Bay with Admiral Dewey. And then you have U.S. Army soldiers who eventually come.

And it is actually Arthur MacArthur who leads the first American troops inside the walled city of Manila. He is there when the American flag is raised over the city. And of course, William McKinley will basically make the decision to keep the Philippines and make them into an American colony. And Arthur MacArthur will play a role as serving as military governor of the Philippines. And he really has a view of America as a Pacific power. And he views the Philippines as the most important position in a chief. achieving this vision of America as a Pacific power.

And he also views the Philippines as the secret to spraying democracy and to other goals that you will hear echoed into the years of World War II. And I think that belief really is also another birthright, as you put it, of Douglas MacArthur. He grows up here in this. And he also comes to see the Philippines as a sacred cause and also one that his father helped begin. I get it. And we'll get into like the sacred. quality of it and what role that may play in his decision-making in the war. But prior to that,

you know, it's fascinating to look back at some of these debates over the Philippines and should we keep it and, you know, all these questions. There are so many parallels to debates you encounter today about American Ford presence in places like the Philippines, you know, for as much as as this change, some things remain the same. And Arthur takes part in these debates and has a strong, strong view because the obvious problem becomes, right, especially, I mean, it's obvious from the start that it will be difficult to defend the Philippines in a lot of scenarios. And then, of course, as we get closer and closer to war with Japan, that becomes even more obvious. And yet the decision is taken to stay. And Arthur is a strong proponent of this. Tell us a bit about that

debate and the stakes of all this. Well, Arthur MacArthur does believe that the possession of the Philippines as a colony of the United States is essential to its future as a Pacific facing power. I mean, he, of course, was interested in Asia even before this. His interest really begins with China. And in some sense, the Philippines is seen as America's door to China as well and to just broader power in the Pacific. And I think it's, you know, as you as you look at this and Arthur MacArthur's role in this, he himself isn't totally correct. He thinks that if America has the Philippines. It's going to serve as a Pacific shield for American interests. And it really becomes exactly the opposite. And it becomes clearer. And Theodore Roosevelt himself comes to acknowledge

that the Philippines are our heel of Achilles, as he puts it. Because in the event of war with Japan, and Japan becomes a rising power around this time itself, if you just look at the geography, the Japanese would be able to bring large numbers of troops to the Philippines far fast. then the United States could send reinforcements across the Pacific and across what probably would be multiple Japanese-controlled island chains on the way to the Philippines. And so you end up with a problem that the Philippines actually is an rather indefensible position for the United States unless the United States is willing to accept the burdens of being a great military power, which really was not in the cards for the United States, at least in the years

before World War II. Right. And it's worth emphasizing. I mean, the strategic situation for the Philippines in the lead-up to World War II is much worse, frankly. I mean, plenty of reasonable questions about our own perils in the Western Pacific. But today we have significant forces in Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Guam. You know, we can basically, much to the chagrin of the Chinese, control that first island chain and much of the second island chain as well. But as you just point out, it's actually the Japanese who after World War I won.

have what we would call the second island chain or much of it. So they're behind the Philippines. They're to the north of the Philippines. The Brits are to the south of the Philippines, but that's obviously only going to be so helpful in the final analysis. So it's dicey. And then anything is they won't they won't fortify, right? They won't do the investments that would have made it, right?

We also reached an agreement with Japan. And one of the agreements is basically they will not, they will limit fortifications, especially on the little island of Corrigador, which will become very important to this story off the coast of a peninsula called Baton, which I'm sure we'll talk about more. And it does limit their ability. But even without that, it would have been very difficult to hold this position for the United States at this time in the event of war.

But Japan. So what do strategists do? They come up with something called War Plan Orange. And basically, instead of trying to attempt to hold the entire, and there's the book, and hide the hold the entire 7,000 islands of the Philippines and not even attempt to hold the entire big island of Luzon, which is the most important island of the Philippines. In the event of war with Japan,

in the event of Japan invading the Philippines, American forces are supposed to immediately retreat to Baton and Corrigador. Baton is a peninsula. It's a stubby piece of land that shields the western side of Manila Bay. And Corrigador is an island just off the tip of, baton in the middle of the mouth of Manila Bay. If you hold these two positions, you can control Manila Bay. And the hope was that American forces there could hold out long enough for reinforcements to come from either the West Coast or Hawaii. But the math never really worked out.

There was always a feeling that the forces would not be able to hold out as long as it would take for these reinforcements to come. And those questions were really never answered very well in the years leading up to World War II. So we'll come back to all that, but let's shift gears for a moment. Tell us about Wainwright. Who was Jonathan Wainwright? What are his own deep running connections to, you know, the American military legacy and how does he come onto the stage here?

Well, Wainwright, like MacArthur, was also the son of an army officer. His father, Wayne Wright grew up in cavalry posts in the Great Plains. In fact, he spent probably the most formative years of his childhood at Fort Custer, which was near the site of the Little Bighorn battlefield. So that involved making lots of visits to visit the memorial there. And by the way, it wasn't very far after Custer had made his famous last stand at the Little Bighorn either. So this was all recent memory. And Wainwright, as a child, becomes somewhat obsessed with the Battle of Little Bichhorn,

not a little bit ironically so, given that he was. will ultimately have to wage a far larger last stand in the Philippines. He ends up going to West Point. He is naturally nicknamed Skinny because he is very skinny. But he's also tough. He's skinny in the tough way. He loves horses. He is a tough guy.

He's got a dry sense of humor. And he's going to also end up in the Philippines on the eve of World War II. So let's let's talk about the eve of World War II. War II in the Philippines and MacArthur's return and everything. So as you suggested, well, sounded crazy to a lot of listeners, I guess, but according to the, to the, by the lights of the planners of the day and very defensively, were plan orange, the U.S. plan to fight Japan in the Pacific, basically had come to the, the planters had come to the consensus that phase one is we're going to lose the Philippines amongst some other things.

Phase two is we're going to come back to the Western Pacific and defeat. beat the Japanese, and then phase three will deal with Japan. But phase one basically begins with the planners accepting the loss and managing it because they've concluded that it's inevitable, essentially, given the balance of power and what we've been willing to invest in the Philippines, etc. What happens when MacArthur is recalled to service and what is his relationship to the execution of Warplan Orange? Well, this is 1941. Douglas MacArthur is in the Philippines. He's He's already been chief of staff for the United States Army. He has been serving as a military advisor to the Philippines,

and he's then recalled into active service of the United States as it looks more likely we're headed into World War II. And Douglas MacArthur has never liked war plan Orange. He sees it as a defeatist plan, and he has been preparing the Philippines for an alternative plan, which is he has been training large numbers of conscripts. He's been saying them to training schools, and the idea is in the event of war,

he would be able to mobilize the Philippine population. And instead of having to just retreat and guard the mouth of Manila Bay, his idea is that the Philippine Army would be able to hold all positions in the Philippines and meet the Japanese wherever they land and send them back into the sea. This is the plan,

and it's going to actually be accepted, by Washington on the eve of World War II. He is able to convince them to go along with the plan. And no small part of what convinces them to go along with it is the fact that 35 B-17 bombers are brought to the Philippines. And it is thought that these B-17s could play a very important role in stopping an invasion of the islands and potentially even turning the Philippines into an offensive asset. Yeah, all 35 of them. All 35, exactly. Numbers that sound, you know, it's funny.

It's sort of, again, these echoes of today, you know, that must have sounded, sounded impressive at the time. You know, a few years later, you wouldn't send 35 B-17s on anything. I mean, that would be a fraction of one mission. Right, right. And, you know, but back then, that was a lot of B-17s. And there were very unrealistic views of what the B-17 could do. I'm not sure Douglas MacArthur himself bought into it as much as some other people did. But there was this irrational sense of excitement about what the B-17s.

17 could transform the Philippines into. And just to stick with this for just a second, so you sort of have MacArthur's, you know, standing and force of character and obviously, you know, emotional connection to the Philippines and these sort of fantasies of, you know, indigenous forces and the B-17 and so forth on the one side of the ledger. You do have on the other side of the ledger all these planners and officers who would come through the planning process and were in senior positions themselves on the other side of the argument, You know, how do they fail to persuade?

How do they, is it, is it, are there just other, just other, like the Brits or the French are somehow going to play a bigger role here? I guess, or I guess just the Brits at this point in 41. No, I mean, I think, you know, there are people even at the time who think it is absolutely crazy to shift from a plan that had been worked on, really for a generation, to this idea that you were going to defend all the beaches in the Philippines. And it becomes even a crazier notion to the other officers in the Philippines when they look at the Philippine conscripts who are called into service. These are men who come wearing shorts. They have no helmets. They are wearing canvas shoes.

Many of them have never even fired a gun. There is no way to communicate across large numbers of troops because of all the different dialects that are spoken. Even giving it the simplest order will require six or seven different translations. This is an impossible situation. And Wainwright is going to see that because he's going to take command of something called a North Luzon force. And I told you Luzon is the most important island in the Philippines. It is the one with Manila Bay and Manila.

And everybody expects that the Japanese do land. They will land at a place called Lingayan Gulf. And that is, in fact, where the Japanese are going to land somewhere after Pearl Harbor. So talk about that. What is the Japanese concept of operations here? what happens beginning in December of 41? And talk a bit about Wayne Wright's role. What is his actual job in the defense of the Philippines?

So Wayne Wright asks MacArthur. He says, where is the most important place? He's the second highest ranking officer in the Philippines. So he asked MacArthur, I want to have the second most important place, the place where I can have the greatest honor. And MacArthur says it's the North Luzon force because the Japanese are likely to land in Lingayan Gulf. and Wainwright himself believes that too. And so he accepts that role.

And basically, if in the event of war, his job will be to immediately proceed to mobilize Philippine troops around the area of Lingayan Gulf and the anticipation of the Japanese landing. And that is, in fact, where the Japanese do land with a slight twist. But what happens before that, the Japanese, just hours after Pearl Harbor or news of Pearl Harbor, comes to the Philippines. It is now December 8th, 1941. Japanese planes from the island of Taiwan will fly over Clark Field, which is the only field on the island of Luzon that can land the B-17

and destroy Douglas MacArthur's little air force, or what was not then considered to be a little air force, but it would just wipe out half the B-17s and the dream that the B-17 could really turn the tide in the war in the Philippines. And you worked on this book, you say, because of your ability to use all of these primary source materials from Wainwright's career. And it is interesting. I mean, I think probably almost every listener will have some idea of who Douglas MacArthur is. I'll bet quite a few more.

And I would include myself in this column are not that familiar with the career of Wainwright, though he was famous. And at the end of the war is, you know, feted for his bravery. But what did you learn sort of diving back in to Wainwright's life and career through the these materials that, you know, what kind of color about these months did you, did you come across? Well, you know, it's interesting you say that because I do think today, Wainwright is a largely forgotten figure. At the time of World War II, he became quite famous. They became famous, especially when MacArthur left the Philippines. He was given command of the islands after MacArthur left, and he did become known in the newspapers. And then he became known as the highest-ranking

prisoner of war. And it was quite a big scene when he finally does return to the United States. in September 1945, and we're jumping ahead here and receives the Medal of Honor. And he is at that point quite well known, but he does sort of slip into obscurity in the years since. He's basically become a footnote to the life of Douglas MacArthur. And it's been more than 40 years since anyone has written a biography of Jonathan Mayhewainwright. And in that time, we've had his diary deposited in military archives. We've had his letters with his family deposited in military archives, all that stuff. had really never been fully examined before, and it couldn't.

We said in a sense, you didn't really have Wainwright's side of the story beyond what he wrote in a memoir afterwards. And so when you look at his diary, the most important entry in the diary is what he writes on April 2nd in 1942, which is he says, I'm going to stay in the Philippines and share the fate of my men on Corrigador. It would be, there is no other honorable course for me. And we'll get into this. There were some other options for him.

He could have potentially avoided capture as that begins to happen. And that is the most important diary entry. In some sense, all the things that happened to him afterwards come from that diary entry. And, of course, in the diary, you get to see what it's like to be a prisoner of the Japanese. You get to see his rationalizations that he's trying to make when he has to surrender the Philippines to the Japanese. he realizes that Douglas MacArthur is going to be very angry at him. In a sense, he is writing his explanation for why he made his decision. And it's really fascinating to be able to have that perspective on him finally.

So let's talk about the respective decisions of MacArthur and Wainwright and the options available to them. So we're now in early 1942. B-17s haven't really worked out. The Filipino forces haven't really worked out. The noose is tightening on Manila. Everything shifts over to the west of Middle Bay, the peninsula there, ultimately Corregador. Talk a bit about this defensive scheme and Wainwright and MacArthur's placement within it. And then, yes, you know, what, I mean, for MacArthur, it's just acute.

I mean, I take your point. He's ordered. He departs under orders. Nevertheless, I mean, he is the man who decided that they were going to stand and fight here. Contrary to a generation, multiple, at this point, two generations worth of planning. Yeah, no, it's interesting is basically. within 48 hours of the Japanese landing, MacArthur's plan is thrown out.

It hasn't worked, and they're going to have to fall back on War Plan Orange. But the problem is, is War Plan Orange wasn't a very good plan to start with, and now it's an even worse plan because you don't have time to collect the food

you're going to need in Baton, and it was already going to be a problem, and now it's going to be a crisis. And so by the time, Wainwright leads his troops into Paton, and very skilled, delaying, move, and retreat, because he can't just run to Paton as fast as he's.

wants. He has to hold the Japanese so forces can slip behind into baton. He managed to get about 80,000 troops into baton, which is a stubby piece of land. And that doesn't even include the civilians. And so food is an immediate problem in baton. And troops very quickly have to go in half rations and then on quarter rations. And meanwhile, as part of this, MacArthur is going to abandon the city of Manila. He's going to declare it an open city. He's going to get on a boat with his wife and son who have managed to stay in the Philippines, despite almost all other army officers having sent their families back to the United States. They're going to go to the island of Corrigador, where MacArthur is going to eventually, after having tried to establish

his headquarters in the wide open, establish his headquarters in the Melinda Tunnel, which is a fortified tunnel running through Corrigador. And that's going to become the base of operations. And talk a bit about the final dilemmas of MacArthur and Wainwright and Stain are going. So eventually, the Japanese basically have the forces of baton under siege. It is clear to people. And MacArthur keeps saying, help is on the way. Help is on the way. But he knows that help is not really on the way because he's reading the letters from Washington.

And the Navy is refusing to try to break the blockade. The Japanese have essentially established around the Philippines and very little. little aid is going to get through. And so eventually, there of course is the famous quote from the Secretary of War who says there are times when men have to die. And that's in reference to the Philippine garrison. But that doesn't apply to Douglas MacArthur because he is no longer just a man. He is a symbol of hope for Americans because all across the Pacific region, the United States and his allies are suffering defeats at the hands of the Japanese. The Hong Kong is surrendered. Singapore is going to surrender the Dutch East Indies.

They're going to surrender. Guam is going to surrender. A Guam is going to surrender. Only in the Philippines can people find evidence that they're fighting back. And Douglas MacArthur's name is top of those efforts, even though he's not on baton himself because he is control of the radio and almost every headline that comes out from the Philippines is MacArthur fights. MacArthur fights on.

So President Roosevelt is going to order Douglas MacArthur to leave Corrigador with his family. and to go to Australia. And, you know, there's much debate about this. You could say, MacArthur himself said that he basically would have been court-martialed if he didn't accept that offer. I think you can be skeptical of that. Political considerations of removing MacArthur

were high on the minds of lots of people in Washington, and they realized it didn't look good to bring the captain off a sinking ship, and it would have looked even worse to court-martial the captain for refusing to abandon the sinking ship, So I think that's unlikely. The other justification MacArthur says is the only other factor that convinced him to finally go

was that he was told that if he went to Australia, he would find there immediately the army and resources he needed to return immediately to the Philippines. Now, if MacArthur really did believe that, he had diluted himself because he knew better. He knew those forces were not in Australia. He knew the Navy was not willing to transport an army at this point from Australia, back to the Philippines. But MacArthur does convince himself of this, or he says he convinces himself of this.

He makes this very dangerous escape from the Philippines. He reaches Australia. And, of course, he issues that famous vow, I shall return. With his family, right? That's one of the craziest parts of the story. With his family, they are on a PT boat heading out from Corrigador.

They have to get down to the bottom island in the Philippines called Mindanao. And from there, they're going to take a B-17. You know, I think being in a PT boat has been compared to tobogging on rocks or being in a cement truck. It is not a pleasant way to travel, especially when the Japanese have control of the sea. It is exceedingly dangerous. But he had been running dangerous risks with his family from the very beginning. Corigador had been under air bombardment and his son, who's four years old, had been living on the island.

Estonishing. Okay. Well, we'll leave Wainwright for a moment. We'll come back to him. what does MacArthur discover when he gets to Australia and how does he come to terms with the fact that he's not heading back to the Philippines? And what I am interested in, we discussed this actually not that long ago on the show, is the way in which, you know, the allies settle on a strategy of Europe first and Japan is going to be dealt with second and in a broad sense that ends up being kind of more or less sort of true. But in a more immediate sense, MacArthur's presence down there on Australia and the sort of political need to do something ends up scrambling. that pretty significantly. So talk so talk so talk about that and about what's to come in Guadal

Canal and things like that. Well, I think it's important to say also when that George Marshall and Franklin Roosevelt are very concerned that the enemy might have a propaganda field day with MacArthur leaving the Philippines because it is the captain deserting the sinking ship. But they prepared a response to what the Japanese are going to say and the response is to give MacArthur the Medal of Honor when he gets to Australia. And that's when he does finally receive the Medal of Honor. And there is no specific act that you can really point to. I mean, he did expose himself when he was in the Philippines to Japanese bombs and other things. But it's not, it's not enough to even George Marshall will concede it's not enough to have actually earned the

Medal of Honor. It really is, and it's admittedly so, a Medal of Honor that is presented for propaganda reasons. And it's very unique, I think, in the history for that reason. And so, yeah, so MacArthur will get to Australia. And then he says he has what's the greatest surprise of the war, which is there is not an army waiting for him there, that for him to lead back to the Philippines. And it's rather hard to believe, as I said, that he really did believe that. You know, one thing I do want to say is it's often said, why does he say, I shall return instead of saying, we shall return. And this is a critical point because he's often criticized for being in egomaniac. And to be fair to MacArthur, it would have made absolutely no sense at that time to say,

we shall return. Because unless he was talking about his son or his wife or his cheapest staff or some other staff members, America had not yet left the Philippines. We were still there. We were still there on Corrigador and on baton, and we were still fighting on. And Washington had put Wainwright in charge of the full Philippine Islands. What is MacArthur's attitude towards receiving the Medal of honor under those circumstances? Well, he accepts the Medal of Honor. I think, you know, I think even he had to realize this was not exactly the circumstance that he hoped to win the Medal of Honor.

It's not that he is, it still receives, of course, a mention in his memoirs. And it wasn't enough of it. It didn't deter him from later objecting to Wainwright receiving the Medal of Honor after Wainwright had become a prisoner of war. So I think that gives you an indication that he's, still held the Medal of Honor. He did not consider his own Medal of Honor to be a propaganda tool. Yeah.

So back to Wainwright then. What are the factors that are on his mind as we go from March into April in May? You have the situation in Baton and Corregador. Well, Baton, of course, goes. And then the situation in Corregador, which is this sort of one heavily fortified spot is worsening. What is his thought process as surrender approaches? Yeah.

So Baton will surrender in April. 9th, 1942, that is the largest surrender of American troops in history. Wainwright by this time has moved to Corrigador, where he is still in command of all the Philippines, even though the forces in Baton have surrendered. And the planners of Warplanned Orange had always known it would be impossible to hold Corrigador Island without baton, because once you lose baton, you lose the high ground, and the Japanese could put artillery and have a field day against Crigador, which is exactly what happens. Corrigador comes under intense assault.

Wainwright is basically forced to live in the tunnel. There is dust and rock falling everywhere. The tunnel is going to hold, but it's constantly shaking. The water system on the island is breaking down. They're running out of drinking water. People are using the same water to wash their clothes and to wash their bodies afterwards. The tunnel is filling up with sick refugees from Baton,

people who managed to escape the surrender. And eventually the Japanese make their landing on the island of Crigador, and Wainwright will try to make a desperate stand to stop them. But Japanese tanks are approaching the tunnel entrance. And at this point, it is a very desperate situation. McArthur, Wainwright knows that MacArthur did not want the forces in the Philippines, the whole islands, to surrender. He wanted to keep at least a guerrilla movement afoot.

and to have soldiers scatter. He didn't even want the soldiers' baton to surrender. He said rather than surrender, they should try to break out a baton and fight on his grills in a worst-case scenario. So that had upset him, and he held that against Wainwright. And Wainwright knew that, that MacArthur was upset about that. And so then Wainwright faces the basically he has full command of the Philippines, but he tries to give up command of the other islands

and says he's reduced his command to just the harbor. Fork's and Luzon, and he then raises the white flag over Crigador and says, basically, rather than have everyone massacre inside the tunnel, which includes women, female nurses, he is going to surrender the position to the Japanese general, the Japanese general, General Hama. But that negotiation does not go very well, which we can discuss. Well, let's say say more. Well, so Wainwright goes to meet General Hama on, on baton. and when they meet, Hama says, basically,

I want you to surrender all the Philippines. And Wainwright says, I know why command all the Philippines. I only command the harbor forts and Luzon. And Hama says, I don't believe you. I know from the American radio you had full command of the Philippines. And this is actually something that Wainwright's aids and he himself had foreseen a problem, that if one person had command of the full Philippines,

and they could be forced to surrender the full Philippines. And that's why there were those who wanted Wainwright to abandon Corrigador and to escape to Mindanao, and then maybe try even to get to Australia as MacArthur had done. And that's why the diary entry that Wainwright makes is so important, that dire entry that, no, there's no other honorable course, but to stay on Corrigador with my men and to share their fate if necessary and become a prisoner.

And that's exactly what ends up happening. Wayne Wright is faced with his choice. Is he going to have the 12 or 13,000 people who are hiding in the tunnel in Corrigador be massacred by the Japanese, or is he going to surrender the full Philippines in defiance of Douglas MacArthur's orders? And he basically reasons that Franklin Roosevelt, George Marshall, would not have given him full command of the Philippines unless they thought in this situation he should exercise it to surrender the full forces of America on the islands.

And he also reasons, and I think even MacArthur himself, he won't admit this later, but would admit it at the time that the guerrilla forces could not have accomplished all that much on the lower islands. And so he does surrender the full islands, and he will become a prisoner of the Japanese. And this surrender amongst other factors is the basis of MacArthur's objection to him later receiving the Medal of Honor?

It's that. It's the fact that, The time surrendered to on April night. McCarthur wants his demand, even as Corrigador is under this massive assault by artillery and air power, Douglas MacArthur is sending Wainwright radio messages saying, I need you to justify what happened on Baton. So, Wainwright, in a sense, is revisiting what happened on Baton

as he's fighting this desperate battle in Corrigador because MacArthur is so upset over what happened. And, you know, I think there's something else, too, which is for MacArthur, the Medal of Honor always was, in a sense, the image of his father carrying the flag up missionary ridge. The idea that the Medal of Honor would go to somebody who stayed to see the flag go down, to see the flag be burned, and the white flag go up was something that MacArthur could not abide. And in a sense, he will threaten Wainwright's reputation when George Marshall sends him a message saying,

George Marshall thinks MacArthur will approve this, and he's very surprised, I think, to get a very angry message from MacArthur saying, you proceed with giving Wainwright the Medal of Honor. I will have to come out, and bad revelations about Wainwright will, too. And I think it's pretty clear what MacArthur is insinuating is that he's going to imply that Wainwright was an alcoholic. And we can talk a little bit about that. And he said, basically, it would be embarrassing to the army. And it does force George Marshall to, basically shelf plans to give the Medal of Honor to Wainwright, which is a shame because Wainwright will spend so much of his time in prison worrying that the American people will not forgive him for what he has done. The Philippines will not understand the decision he has made, even though, in fact, he is a hero in America. And Franklin Roosevelt and others really do see him that way. MacArthur's case would seem to me to have been a stronger one if he had not himself just received the Medal of Honor under, we'll just say, highly political circumstances.

Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's quite audacious to object to the Medal of Honor going to Wainwright when you have just won the Medal of Honor and what the Chief of Staff himself has admitted was to offset enemy propaganda. So it really is quite an audacious thing for MacArthur to do, but he does do it. And George Marshall realizes how explosive this issue is. He'll only keep one copy of this letter that MacArthur sends. And he basically puts in a file labeled super secret. And it's not going to be revisited again until the end of the war. And not just that, but MacArthur, of course, has put Wainwright in the position that Wayne Wright is in with a series of decisions.

Wayne Wright is fighting MacArthur's battle. Yes. Not MacArthur's liking. Okay. nevertheless. No, that's true. And it's also true that the things that MacArthur kept saying, you know, more food will come to Bataun, you know, help is on the way.

You know, the situation of Bataan would have been, it would have been a disaster anyway, but it certainly was even more of a disaster because they initially tried MacArthur's defense of the Philippines rather than immediately going to war plain orange. Let's talk about Wade's time in captivity, which obviously, if anything, passively strengthened the case for his heroism and honorable conduct. It's a rough few years. Yeah, I mean, so he is, he is moved around quite a bit. He is taken from the Philippines to Taiwan, to various different prisons on that island,

and ultimately to Manchuria. Along the way, he is beaten, he is tortured, and he's left to wonder whether anyone will ever understand the decision he made, and he's very worried about it. Certainly it doesn't help being a prisoner of a Japanese because the Japanese themselves don't believe in surrender as many American commanders will discover in the Pacific. So they have even less respect for their prisoners of war, and especially for a general who has surrendered. And, you know, you can see a sense of despair. And he's also, among other forms of torture, there is not enough food.

There's a systematic system of starvation. Wainwright will lose huge amounts of weight by December 1942. He's down to 125 pounds. He is, you know, he's beaten by a Japanese private. He's not even beaten, beaten by a Japanese officer. He's being beaten by a Japanese private. He's a lieutenant general. So, yeah, it's a very, very tough thing for Wainwright.

And, you know, even into 1945, he is so cut off from the outside world. He expects he may be a prisoner until 1947. he has no idea what's happening in the world and he gets very sick. And there's this very moving entry in his diary that I found really moving where he said basically when he's on his bed and he's very close to death. He says, you know, nobody called me yellow in baton or Corrigador. I fought for life then and I'm going to fight for life now. And he does fight on and he does ultimately survive this experience to emerge and discover that he in fact is a hero in the United States. How does he conceive of his obligations to other American prisoners as the most senior American officer in captivity, not only there, but anywhere in the world?

Yeah, I mean, this is another crushing blow in a sense. He is getting reports of what's happening. I mean, Wainwright was tortured, but he wasn't tortured nearly as badly as the soldiers who had to go on the baton death march and end up at Camp O'Donnell in the Philippines and then Camp Cabancheon. they suffered even far worse than Wainwright. Wainwright is at times he gets the benefit. And I hate to say he used the word benefit, but the Japanese tried to use him for propaganda purposes, almost as a tool to write letters to your president

to say, you know, you understand that Japan should be the leading force in Asia and there's no defeating Japan or tell your president that he needs to negotiate with Japan. So he is used that way. And, you know, at first, Wainwright will be a, and all throughout, I think Wainwright does understand that he is still the commander. He's still the highest-ranking American. His example matters.

He has to try to negotiate with the Japanese, with no power, of course. And there's this one moving scene where he is basically beaten in his cell. He is bleeding from his, and he basically walks by all of his other officers. who are staring out from their cells, and they see the trail of blood coming from him as he heads out to face discipline. And, you know, it's a, it's a very, very difficult period. So MacArthur, of course, does return. He takes the Philippines. What is his attitude to the treatment of Americans in captivity by the Japanese, to the treatment of the Philippines itself? And how does he think of dealing with the Japanese at the end of the war as a consequence?

of these things. Well, and that's a great question because the baton death march is not immediately known to Americans. MacArthur will receive word of it at some point during the war. And at first, the war department will try to keep it secret, but it does eventually become public. But when MacArthur hears it, he says the Japanese are going to pay for this. And in fact, they do pay for this.

General Hama will be put to death. As a war criminal, he will face a firing squad, which, which is a fact. which is important to say Wainwright thought was too good for General Hama. He thought he should have been hanged and not faced a firing squad. It wasn't in Hama's defense, and I hate even using those words Hama's defense, but he didn't actually order a baton death march. He just basically failed to make plans for how to transport a large number of starving American and Filipino prisoners off baton.

And the reason they needed to get them, Japanese need to get them off so quickly was so they can continue their operations against Corrigador. And what ends up happening is a system of cruelty, of beatings, of forced marches, of starving men. And, you know, it really is one of the great atrocities of the war. Talk a bit about the post-war period for both these men. MacArthur's story is pretty well known, of course, with Korea and his continuing political role, really, in American life.

Wainwright less so, and it's a difficult story. So talk about the Medal of Honor and the drinking and, and everything else. Yeah, so Wayne Wright comes home. He is, receives a hero's welcome. He is reunited with his wife in Washington. He's immediately escorted to the White House where he receives the Medal of Honor from President Truman, who it's important to say even at this stage of his life, well before the Korean war already detests General MacArthur. So he gives Wainwright the Medal of Honor with great pleasure. He says nothing will make him happier. But it is a very difficult homecoming for Wayne Wright.

Because what does he discover? He discovers that his wife has become addicted to pills and to alcohol in his absence. He's eventually forced to institutionalize his wife. And so all these years, you can see it in his diary, he is planning what their life will be like if they're ever able to be reunited. And they aren't really ever reunited. They have almost no time. he does try to bring her out of various different institutions, and the problem always

recurs, and he has to re-institutionalize her. And so they never are really together. And Wayne Wright's last year's, he does drink a lot himself. It doesn't help that they're all, he is a celebrity in a sense, and that lifestyle is not necessarily what he necessarily needed. And, you know, he does retire from the army, he goes into business. The one thing that I found very moving about Wainwright's last year was he stayed very close with his aides who had gone into captivity with him in the Philippines. Those bonds really did stay and remained strong for the rest of their lives. So you've played it very straight this whole interview and you have a nice balanced,

moderate, judicious tone and approach as you talk about these two men. Did you find yourself developing any sympathies or, or whatever, the opposite of sympathies, antipathies as you went along? You know, I think as I looked back at World War II and the beginning, I think America needed a general MacArthur, and I think we needed a general Wainwright. I say in the book, we needed a general for the front lines, and we needed a general for the headlines, and neither one could have done what the other one did. There was no way MacArthur could have made the sacrifice Wainwright did.

MacArthur had said many times, the Japanese will need. never take me alive. But the Americans needed someone to surrender their forces in the Philippines to take them, to show that leadership to lead them when there was no other recourse besides mass slaughter. And Wainwright did it, and he lived as a prisoner of war for the sake of his men. It would have been easier, to be honest, to die, to die a glorious death, but he didn't do it. And I think that's what MacArthur would have done. On the other hand, do I think that Wayne Wright could have played the role in forcing the United States to live up to its moral obligation to return to the Philippines that MacArthur did? No, I don't think so because it required

celebrity. It required being willing to assert your word against the chain of command and to go around the chain of command when necessary. And so, yeah, I think America needed both of these men. Anything you've learned or as you reflect on the book now that it's done, that you think those of us spend a lot of our time thinking about the Western Pacific today should have front of mind. Well, I guess I would say I go back to the lesson that Wainwright drew from his experiences, which is, you look at this, this is a massive debacle. It's probably the greatest disaster in the history of American arms.

Who is at fault? I hate to say it, but I think to a large extent, the American people are at fault because we had a policy that made no sense. So we wanted to have the Philippines as a colony, but we didn't want to make the investments necessary to defend that islands and to be a great power. And our goals didn't really make a lot of sense. And so as a result, we were not prepared and we left our soldiers on the Philippines and Filipinos themselves to pay the ultimate sacrifice because we weren't willing to bear the

costs of being a great power. Well, on that happy note, which has no strong echoes or parallels to the president. Jonathan Horn, author of the really very interesting, The Fate of the Generals, MacArthur, Wainwright, and the epic battle for the Philippines. Thank you so much for making the time today. Thanks for having me. This is a nebulous media production. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.