MacArthur Memorial Podcast

In April 1944, General Douglas MacArthur’s forces made a 580-mile amphibious leap to seize airfields at Hollandia and Aitape in New Guinea. It was a bold plan that meant making two simultaneous amphibious landings deep in enemy territory and it was the first time Admiral Chester Nimitz’s aircraft carriers supported a MacArthur assault. Join MacArthur Memorial historians Jim Zobel and Amanda Willia...

Part II of a two part interview. From 1942-1945, Ernie Pyle was the most famous American war correspondent. In 1942, his columns were featured in 42 newspapers. By 1945, they were featured in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers. He covered the war from the Blitz to North Africa, to Italy, to Normandy, and then the Pacific. The American public found his writing human and accessible. Those in combat...

General MacArthur's multi-city state funeral concluded in Norfolk, VA on April 11, 1964. Join MacArthur Memorial historians Amanda Williams and Jim Zobel for a discussion of the events and logistics associated with this final salute to General MacArthur. Have a comment about this episode? Send us a text message! (Note: we can only read the texts, we can't reply) Support the show Follow us...

From 1942-1945, Ernie Pyle was the most famous American war correspondent. In 1942, his columns were featured in 42 newspapers. By 1945, they were featured in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers. He covered the war from the Blitz to North Africa, to Italy, to Normandy, and then the Pacific. The American public found his writing human and accessible. Those in combat found him a particular ally – so...

In February 2024, the MacArthur Memorial hosted an event to mark the 125th anniversary of the Philippine American War. This event was in partnership with the Hampton Roads chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society and the Council of United Filipino Organizations of Tidewater. The event featured presentations by several scholars on different aspects of the war. This episode featu...

In February 2024, the MacArthur Memorial hosted an event to mark the 125th anniversary of the Philippine American War. This event was in partnership with the Hampton Roads chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society and the Council of United Filipino Organizations of Tidewater. The event featured presentations by several scholars on different aspects of the war. This episode featu...

In February 2024, the MacArthur Memorial hosted an event to mark the 125th anniversary of the Philippine American War. This event was in partnership with the Hampton Roads Chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society and the Council of United Filipino Organizations of Tidewater. The event featured presentations by several scholars on different aspects of the war. Dr. Brian Linn, au...

From February 29 – May 18, 1944, a thousand troopers of the First Cavalry Division, a few United States Navy destroyers and a handful of “Fighting Seabees” defied the odds and seized the Admiralty Islands, making it possible for General MacArthur to keep his promise to return to the Philippines. The Admiralty Island Campaign was the boldest action of MacArthur’s forces in World War II. Some contem...

Former paratrooper, James M. Fenelon, author of Angels Against the Sun: A WWII Saga of Grunts, Grit, and Brotherhood, joined the MacArthur Memorial Podcast to discuss the story of the 11th Airborne and the liberation of the Philippines during World War II.  Have a comment about this episode? Send us a text message! (Note: we can only read the texts, we can't reply) Support the show Follow us o...

The Philippine-American War (1899-1902) was a controversial war. Many Americans did not support it, including anti-imperialists like Mark Twain. Others did. In response to the war, the English writer Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem The White Man’s Burden, in which he encouraged the United States to “take up the White Man’s burden” to maintain colonial control of the Philippines as a way to bring pr...

The Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 and then the 1941 invasion of Soviet occupied-Poland brought an almost unimaginable scale of suffering to the people of Poland. And yet, in the midst of such terror, there were people who risked their lives to help those targeted for extermination. One of those was a woman posing as a Polish countess. Her real name was Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg. She was Jewi...

In this MacArthur Q&A Part II, MacArthur Memorial historians Jim Zobel and Amanda Williams answer questions posed by MacArthur Memorial Podcast listeners.   When did the MacArthur family settle in America? What battles was General MacArthur directly involved in during the New Guinea campaign? How involved was MacArthur with the United States Army Military Government in Korea during the occupat...

In 1901, during the Philippine-American War, the Governor-General of the Philippines, Brigadier General Arthur MacArthur Jr., father of Douglas MacArthur, approved a daring plan by Frederick Funston to capture General Aguinaldo. Once Aguinaldo was in custody, Arthur MacArthur persuaded him to swear allegiance to the United States and to use his influence to help end the war. What do we know about...

During World War II thousands of British cadets learned to fly at six civilian training schools across the southern United States. The first and largest of the schools was in Terrell, Texas. More than 2,200 Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Corps cadets earned their wings at the No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum in Terrell between 1941 and 1945. To explore the history of this fl...

On September 10th, 1981, with the help of Mrs. Jean MacArthur, President Ronald Reagan dedicated a corridor in the Pentagon in honor of General Douglas MacArthur. Recently, MacArthur Memorial historians Jim Zobel and Amanda Williams sat down to explore the history of the MacArthur Corridor and discuss some of the MacArthur Memorial artifacts on display there.  Have a comment about this episode? Se...

On October 20, 1944, General Douglas MacArthur kept his famous I Shall Return promise when he landed at Leyte with one of the largest invasion forces in history. From the beach, he broadcast his "I Have Returned" speech. It is a short, 2-minute speech, but it is packed with emotion.  MacArthur had written the speech about a month before the landings, and it had gone through several draft...

On September 30, 2023, the MacArthur Memorial opened a new 5000 sq ft exhibit entitled The Price of Unpreparedness: POWs in the Philippines during World War II.  The opening event featured the following presentations: Dr. Frank Blazich, Jr. - Defeat, Death, and Defiance: The POW Experience in the Philippines Mary Maynard - An American Family's WWII Tail of Adventure and Survival Cecily Marsha...

20,000 American troops went into captivity after the fall of the Philippines in 1942. Recent scholarship indicates that half of those POWs did not survive captivity. Surviving the POW experience in the Philippines – including the hell ships and labor camps in Korea and Japan – was no easy feat. For those who did survive to liberation – how did the US Army medical system treat them? How were they r...

Franklin Roosevelt, Douglas MacArthur, and Winston Churchill were all very different men, but they shared a few things. One thing they shared was a common ancestor – Sarah Barney Belcher – a woman born in Massachusetts in 1771. They also all had fascinating mothers who were instrumental in their careers. To explore the roles played by Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt, the MacArthu...

The US Army Veterinary Corps (VC) has a fascinating history. Created in 1916, by WWII its activities were chiefly centered on food inspection to ensure animal products going to feed the Army were being sanitarily procured, produced, and transported. The VC also had responsibility across theatres for about 56,000 horses and mules, thousands of war dogs, and pigeons used by the Signal Corps. On Dece...

In 1942, US Army dental officer, Roy L. Bodine, became a POW when Bataan surrendered to the Japanese.  He spent 41 months as a POW - surviving the Bataan Death March, POW camps, Hell Ships, and labor camps. One month after VJ Day, he was liberated from a labor camp in Korea. Throughout his captivity, he kept a diary which was later used as evidence in war crimes trials after WWII.  To discuss Bodi...

Throughout World War II, Allied leaders met in a series of conferences to discuss and decide joint military and political goals. The Casablanca Conference, held in Casablanca, French Morocco, from January 14-24, 1943, was the third of these meetings. And as with the other conferences, the personalities, the debates, and the eventual agreements are absolutely fascinating.  To explore the Casablanca...

When the Philippines fell to the Japanese in the spring of 1942, tens of thousands of American and Filipino troops became POWs. Approximately 1 in 3 (possibly more) of the Americans did not survive captivity. Their treatment by their captors and their limited access to medical care/supplies is often highlighted by historians. To discuss this in more depth and to highlight the experiences of US Arm...

On June 6, 1944, the Allied invasion of Normandy began. D-Day, as the first phase of this invasion has come to be known, was a critical moment in the liberation of Europe. It did not mark the end of the war, but 11 months later, the sacrifices of June 6 would lead to the total defeat of Nazi Germany. John Long, Director of Education at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, VA joined the MacArthu...

Between 1943-1945, the US Navy operated Naval Air Station Wildwood in Cape May, NJ as a training center for dive bomber squadrons. Thousands of pilots were trained there and during the peak training months of mid 1944 – early 1945, the air station was home to over 200 warplanes. From a historical perspective, NAS Wildwood is a fascinating study in American mobilization and US naval warfare doctrin...