A ROOM OF OUR OWN
Follette, Isabel B. La
A Room Of Our Own By Isabel B. La Follette THE return of Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur to the Philippines is one of the great dramatic epics of this war. "Fulfilling his promise made two years and seven...
...MacArthur's Brilliant Fight "Brave men by the thousands were going down to the sea in ships in order that help might be taken to our Allies," Hunt reports...
...Ships were sent all the way around Africa to deliver help through the distant Red Sea and Persian Gulf...
...The story of MacArthur's brilliant fight against almost unheard-of obstacles is graphic history...
...One who could speak English spoke to Mac-Arthur and then turned to his countrymen to tell them, 'This is the great Gen...
...And he reminded me that I was the only correspondent who was with him at Manila and who has now returned with 'him to the Philippines on this first day...
...Most of them were in a pitiable state, clothed largely in bits of fabric and obviously hungry...
...He knew his Japan...
...He had taught them to be soldiers against the day when their liberties, their soil, and their honor would be assailed...
...MacArthur has indeed, "kept the door open...
...Mr...
...For the success of these landings will incalculably cut the length of the war against Japan...
...By some mysterious, instinctive way all this was known deep in the hearts of the plain people of these-Philippine Islands," Hunt writes...
...The United Press story reports, "With the barrio of San Jose, a suburb of Tacloban, the general was cheered by many Filipinos...
...As the only Asiatic country which fought this war shoulder to shoulder with her western "protector," it was deeply significant to me that the Philippine President Osmena and his cabinet should have accompanied Gen...
...To those who went in to the beaches, to those who stood off in vulnerable ships, and to those who flew the planes, the stake seemed worth it...
...He had become almost a part of them...
...It was part of a giant convoy, sailing from New Guinea, which stretched out further than the eye can see," according to the press report...
...With this background one appreciates even more clearly the bitterness of the early years of the Pacific war...
...Among them was Admiral Tojo, the hero of the swift, treacherous attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in the spring of 1904—an act that was to be repeated in all its brutal cunning at Pearl Harbor 37 years later...
...Mac-Arthur were every able-bodied survivor of Corregidor, and Sergio Osmena, successor to the late Manuel Quezon, as President of the Philippines...
...Douglas MacArthur had spent in all 14 years among these people...
...He waded ashore in water knee deep...
...MacArthur when they landed on Philippine soil...
...MacArthur's military career are in themselves a fascinating story, but space keeps me to the point I want to make about his understanding of the Asiatic problem...
...His son, Douglas MacArthur, was to keep it open...
...Fulfilling his promise made two years and seven months ago when he took sad leave of the islands that "I shall return,' MacArthur went back aboard a warship...
...He had never once exploited them for national gain...
...A Political Victory Too As one correspondent put it, "No one who has not been out here can comprehend the huge military task created by distance in moving men and supplies...
...In these days of tragedy and heartbreak, it is fortifying to have times when "the right"—character, brilliance, perseverance, industry—wins out...
...His visits to Japan, the intelligence reports he was receiving," says Hunt, "proved all too clearly how dangerous the situation was becoming...
...The elder MacArthur had treated the captured Filipino chieftain as a full brother in arms, and this one gesture had had much to do with bringing about in 1900 the voluntary proclamation by Aguinaldo that brought the insurrection to a close...
...Thus the American network pool broadcast...
...Surely they would get relief to our own men and our own brothers here in the Philippines...
...MacArthur's intimate knowledge of that area...
...MacArthur come to bring new life to our country.' " Close To The Filipinos This little story reminded me of a small volume I read recently, called MacArthur and the War Against Japan, by Frazier Hunt...
...Hunt, an internationally known correspondent and military observer, not only gives us the history—much of it first-hand—of the war in the Pacific, but he gives the background, new to me, of Gen...
...Arthur MacArthur had planned, with Brig...
...Lieut...
...MacArthur arrived...
...Hunt tells the painful story of MacArthur's being ordered to leave the Philippines for Australia, and his ghastly blow upon finding that not only was there no support waiting to return to the Philippines but that Australia itself was in danger of invasion, and only a handful of American and Australian troops at hand...
...He had laid the foundations for both the Philippine Constabulary and the Philippine Scouts, and originated the basic thought that the Filipinos should be prepared ultimately to defend their own country...
...Fred Funston, the coup that had resulted in the capture of the Philippine revolutionary leader, Gen...
...American carriers boldly sailed through the sub-infested Mediterranean to run the gauntlet of the land-based bombers of the Axis in Sicily, so they might fly their planes to hard-pressed British Malta...
...He had opened the door of a new world to these kindly, gentle people...
...He had been aide to his father, during the latter part of the time when the senior MacArthur was Chief Military Observer with the Japanese Army in the war against Russia...
...Further, when Gen...
...I talked with the general briefly...
...This great step in the war in the Pacific has several significant aspects, it seems to me, Our hearts and prayers have been with the men and their families who made the gallant lonely stand at Bataan and Corregidor, and we eagerly wait for more news...
...The steps in Gen...
...Not only does the American flag flying again over the Philippines mean to the Far Eastern world the resurgence of American power, but it represents to the millions of Asia the keeping of democratic faith...
...he had believed in their independence...
...Aguinaldo...
...I was at the beach when Gen...
...According to Hunt, while the General served in the Philippines from 1928 to 1930, he saw once again how pitifully inadequate our defenses there were...
...It was this same Arthur MacArthur who, as Military Governor of Manila in 1900, laid down the basic code of justice and equality, based primarily on the right of habeas corpus, which had established individual freedom and liberty for the Filipinos...
...He had met many famous Japanese commanders...
...On the military and economic side we are told that this MacArthur strategy will cut off the Japanese home islands from the richest of the fabvdous Indies, including Borneo, eastern Java, and Celebes, whence Japan obtains oil and other essential materials for her modern military machine...
...Surely they would not be abandoned to their fate...
...He had fought for their rights...
...MacArthur completes what he terms the Halmahera-Philippine line by pushing on toward Manila, all routes to Japan proper will be cut, the China coast laid open to assault, and Singapore isolated...
...I had not realized that, as Mr...
...But aside from the military-economic aspect, this Philippine landing is one of the great political victories of this war...
...Hunt puts it, "The Mac-Arthurs, father and son, had been a living part of the Filipinos' long fight for independence and full liberty...
...MacArthur said, 'I'll stay for the duration now.' Going ashore with Gen...
...Moreover, in this case more than in perhaps any Southwest Pacific landing, those going ashore have braved great danger...
...But for those of us who realize that the military victory is only the preliminary to future problems, there is deep hope for our future relations with Asia in the precedent set, maintained, and dramatized in our relations with the Philippines...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 45
