 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2020) |
This is the service summary of Douglas MacArthur, a General in the United States Army, who began his career in 1903 as a second lieutenant and served in three major military conflicts, going on to hold the highest military offices of both the United States and the Philippines.
| Insignia | Rank | Component | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | Cadet | United States Military Academy | 13 June 1899 |
| No pin insignia in 1903 | Second Lieutenant, Engineers | Regular Army | 11 June 1903 |
 | First Lieutenant, Engineers | Regular Army | 23 April 1904 |
 | Captain, Engineers | Regular Army | 27 February 1911 |
 | Major, Engineers | Regular Army | 11 December 1915 |
 | Colonel, Infantry | National Army | 11 August 1917 (Date of rank: 5 August 1917.) |
 | Brigadier General | National Army | 11 July 1918 (Date of rank: 26 June 1918.) |
| | Brigadier General | Regular Army | 28 February 1920 (Date of rank: 20 January 1920.) |
 | Major General | Regular Army | 17 January 1925 |
 | General | Temporary | 21 November 1930 |
| | Reverted to Major General | Regular Army | 1 October 1935 |
| | General | Retired list | 1 January 1938 |
| | Major General | Regular Army | 26 July 1941 (Recalled to active duty.) |
 | Lieutenant General | Army of the United States | 27 July 1941 |
| | General | Army of the United States | 22 December 1941 (Date of rank: 16 September 1936.) |
 | General of the Army | Army of the United States | 18 December 1944 |
| | General of the Army | Regular Army | 23 March 1946 |
In 1955, legislation was in the early stages of consideration by the United States Congress which would have authorized the President of the United States to promote Douglas MacArthur to the rank of General of the Armies. [10] [11] A similar measure had also been proposed unsuccessfully by Stuart Symington in 1945. [12] However, because of several complications which would arise if such a promotion were to take place, the bill was withdrawn.[ citation needed ]
Throughout his career, Douglas MacArthur earned nearly 100 military awards and national honors including:
 | |||||||||||
    | |||||||||||
 |   |  |   | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
  |  |  |    | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
 |   |  |   | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
 |  |  |  | ||||||||
 |  |  |
| Combat Infantryman Badge (honorary) | |||||
| Medal of Honor | Army Distinguished Service Cross with two bronze oak leaf clusters | Army Distinguished Service Medal with four oak leaf clusters | |||
| U.S. Army Presidential Unit Citation with three oak leaf clusters | Philippine Presidential Unit Citation | Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation |
Note 1 - General MacArthur received every U.S. Army decoration and service medal which he was potentially eligible for except for the Legion of Merit.
Note 2 - General MacArthur was awarded a total of 14 overseas service insignias - 3 gold chevrons for World War I, 9 overseas service bars for World War II and 2 for the Korean War.
In addition to the military awards and national honors listed above, General MacArthur received numerous other honors and awards. Below is a partial listing.
General MacArthur appeared on the cover of Time magazine a total of eight times. He was also featured on the cover of Life magazine six times. In addition, his trademark "scrambled eggs" hat appeared on the cover of Life magazine following his death in 1964.
General MacArthur belonged to several military and hereditary societies including the Society of the Cincinnati (elected an honorary member of the New York Society in 1950), Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (insignia number 15,317), Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Sons of the American Revolution (accepted by the Empire State Society on 27 August 1945, and assigned national membership number 65,843 and state membership number 7,723), Military Order of Foreign Wars, Military Order of the World Wars (of which he served as national commander in 1928), Order of Lafayette, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion (member of Post 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin). MacArthur was installed as the Supreme Paramount Carabao of the Military Order of the Carabao at its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on 27 February 1932. [15]
In 1942 he received the American Legion's Distinguished Service Medal. [16] On 13 October 1951, he was elected an honorary national president of the Society of American Legion Founders. [17]
MacArthur was also eligible for membership in Sons of the Revolution, Society of Colonial Wars and the Order of the Indian Wars of the United States, however, his membership in these organizations has not been confirmed.[ citation needed ]
On 17 January 1936, MacArthur was made a Freemason at sight by Samuel Hawthorne, Grand Master of Masons in the Philippines in a two-hour ceremony. After being raised to the degree of Master Mason, MacArthur joined Manila Lodge No.1. On 19 October 1937, he was elected Knight Commander Court of Honor, and on 8 December 1947, he was coroneted to the honorary 33rd Degree at the American Embassy in Tokyo. He was also a life member of the Nile Shrine in Seattle, Washington.[ citation needed ]
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are the military forces of the Philippines. It consists of three main service branches; the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy. The President of the Philippines is the Commander-in-Chief of the AFP and forms military policy with the Department of National Defense, an executive department acting as the principal organ by which military policy is carried out, while the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines serves as the overall commander and the highest-ranking officer in the AFP.
Douglas MacArthur was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He served with distinction in World War I, was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. MacArthur was nominated for the Medal of Honor three times, and received it for his service in the Philippines campaign. This made him along with his father Arthur MacArthur Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five men to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the U.S. Army, and the only one conferred the rank of field marshal in the Philippine Army.
Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV was an American army general and the Commander of Allied forces in the Philippines at the time Japan surrendered to the United States, during World War II.
Major General Richard Jaquelin Marshall was a senior officer in the United States Army.
United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) was a military formation of the United States Army active from 1941 to 1946. The new command's headquarters was created on 26 July 1941, at No. 1, Calle Victoria, Manila, Luzon, the Philippines, with General Douglas MacArthur as commander. The Chief of Staff was Brigadier General Richard K. Sutherland and the Deputy Chief of Staff was Lieutenant Colonel Richard J. Marshall. The core of this command was drawn from the Office of the Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines.
Robert Lawrence Eichelberger was a general officer in the United States Army who commanded the Eighth United States Army in the Southwest Pacific Area during World War II.
South West Pacific Area (SWPA) was the name given to the Allied supreme military command in the South West Pacific Theatre of World War II. It was one of four major Allied commands in the Pacific War. SWPA included the Philippines, Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, East Timor, Australia, the Territories of Papua and New Guinea, and the western part of the Solomon Islands. It primarily consisted of United States and Australian forces, although Dutch, Filipino, British, and other Allied forces also served in the SWPA.
The Philippines campaign, also known as the Battle of the Philippines or the Fall of the Philippines, was the invasion of the American territory of the Philippines by the Empire of Japan and the defense of the islands by United States and the Philippine Armies during World War II.
The Battle of Bataan was fought by the United States and the Philippine Commonwealth against Imperial Japan during World War II. The battle represented the most intense phase of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II. In January 1942, forces of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy invaded Luzon along with several islands in the Philippine Archipelago after the bombing of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.
Charles Andrew Willoughby was a major general in the U.S. Army who was General of the Army Douglas MacArthur's chief of military intelligence during World War II and the Korean War.
The Commonwealth of the Philippines was attacked by the Empire of Japan on 8 December 1941, nine hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although it was governed by a semi-independent commonwealth government, Washington controlled the Philippines at the time and possessed important military bases there. The combined Filipino-American army was defeated in the Battle of Bataan, which saw many war crimes committed and the Battle of Corregidor in April 1942, but guerrilla resistance against the Japanese continued throughout the war. Uncaptured Filipino army units, a communist insurgency, and supporting American agents all played a role in the resistance. Due to the huge number of islands, the Japanese never occupied many of the smaller and more minor islands. The Japanese control over the countryside and smaller towns were often tenuous at best.
The Philippines campaign, Battle of the Philippines, Second Philippines campaign, or the Liberation of the Philippines, codenamed Operation Musketeer I, II, and III, was the American, Mexican, Australian and Filipino campaign to defeat and expel the Imperial Japanese forces occupying the Philippines during World War II.
The Philippine Army (PA) is the main, oldest and largest branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), responsible for ground warfare and as of 2021 had an estimated strength of 143,100 soldiers The service branch was established on December 21, 1935, as the Philippine Commonwealth Army. The Philippine Army has engaged in many conflicts including the ongoing Communist rebellion in the Philippines, the Moro conflict and, alongside other national military forces, in conflicts of international scope.
The Allied leaders of World War II listed below comprise the important political and military figures who fought for or supported the Allies during World War II. Engaged in total war, they had to adapt to new types of modern warfare, on the military, psychological and economic fronts.
The Japanese occupation of the Philippines occurred between 1942 and 1945, when the Japanese Empire occupied the Commonwealth of the Philippines during World War II.
Alfredo Manapat Santos was Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in 1962 to 1965, making him the first four-star general of the Philippines' armed forces.
Thomas John Hall "Trap" Trapnell was a United States Army lieutenant general. He was a career officer who served in World War II and the Korean War. Trapnell survived the Bataan Death March and the sinking of two transportation ships during World War II, put down a rebellion of prisoners of war in the Korean War, was the top US advisor to the French during the French Indochina War, and advised against US involvement in Vietnam. He rose to the rank of three-star general before his military retirement and, at the time of his death, was the oldest living member of the Philippine Scouts.
Far East Command (FECOM) was a unified combatant command of the United States Department of Defense, active from 1947 until 1957, functionally organised to undertake the occupation of Japan and Korea. The 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, who from 1945 to 1948 assisted the Chinese government in occupying northern China, disarming the Japanese, and helping the Kuomintang Chinese without fully getting involved in the Chinese Civil War, were not part of Far East Command and reported to Pacific Command and the U.S. Navy.
The history of the Philippine Army began in December 21, 1935, as the Army of the Philippines, with a general headquarters in Manila, and units and formations based throughout the provinces of the Philippines.
The Philippine War Crimes Commission was a commission created in late 1945 by General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers to investigate the war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during the invasion, occupation, and liberation of the Philippines. The investigation by the Commission led to the extradition, prosecution, and conviction of Class A, Class B, and Class C defendants in Manila, Tokyo, and other cities in East and Southeast Asia through the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.