Douglas MacArthur's mother moved into a hotel overlooking West Point to watch him
When Douglas MacArthur entered West Point in 1899, his mother took a suite at a hotel with a view of the academy grounds. He graduated first in his class with the third-highest marks ever recorded there, and went on to rule occupied Japan as effectively its supreme authority.
He was born in 1880 at Little Rock Barracks, Arkansas, the youngest of three sons of Arthur MacArthur Jr., a Civil War Medal of Honor winner who became a lieutenant general. Growing up on rough frontier posts, he claimed he could ride and shoot before he could read. He was devoted to his mother, who kept him in skirts and long curls until about eight. At a Texas military school he was valedictorian with a 97.33 percent average. Two presidents turned down his family's requests for a West Point appointment, so he won one by passing a congressman's exam, later calling it a lesson in preparedness.
As a cadet he and Ulysses S. Grant III were targeted by hazers, and he testified before a congressional inquiry into the practice. He finished with 98.14 percent in 1903 and joined the engineers. A reconnaissance at Veracruz in 1914 earned a Medal of Honor nomination, and on the Western Front he became a brigadier general with two Distinguished Service Crosses and seven Silver Stars. He then ran West Point, became the army's youngest major general at 45, and served as Chief of Staff from 1930, a tenure that included the controversial eviction of the Bonus Army protesters from Washington in 1932.
Recalled in 1941 to command American forces in the Far East, he lost much of his air power at Clark Field that December. In March 1942 he escaped to Australia, promised to return to the Philippines, and received the Medal of Honor for their defence. From there he ran the fighting in New Guinea, then kept his promise with the Philippine landings of October 1944, becoming General of the Army that December, one of only five people ever to hold the rank.
He accepted Japan's surrender and, as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, oversaw its war crimes trials, demilitarisation and democratisation. Leading the United Nations Command in Korea, he had early success before heavy reverses after China intervened, and President Truman removed him in April 1951. He died in Washington in 1964.
Source: Douglas MacArthur
