MacArthur Memorial Podcast

Author Ann Todd discusses her book OSS Operation Black Mail - the story of Elizabeth "Betty" P. McIntosh, who spent eighteen months serving in the Office of Strategic Services in what has been called the "forgotten theater," China-Burma-India. Her craft was black propaganda, and her mission was to demoralize the Japanese through prevarication and deceit, and ultimately, convinc...

In 1948, Sibyl Kathigasu became the only Malaysian woman to receive the George Medal for gallantry, the highest civilian honor given by King George VI. Why did she receive such an honor? During World War II she actively resisted the Japanese occupation of what was then British Malaya. As a trained nurse, she provided medical care for members of the guerilla resistance movement. She also passed alo...

In April 2018, the Memorial hosted a talk by Dr. Frank A. Blazich, Curator of Modern Military History at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and editor of Colonel David L. Hardee's memoir Bataan Survivor: A POW's Account of Japanese Captivity in World War II. Dr. Blazich gave a fascinating talk about Col. Hardee's POW experience. Have a comment about this epis...

The Korean War always generates a lot of questions. Did MacArthur really want to use nukes? Did China make use of valuable intelligence from the Cambridge Five? Were Russian pilots engaging American planes on the Yalu River? Why was the air war in Korea so restricted? Or was it? To discuss these questions, the MacArthur Memorial staff sat down with Dr. Conrad Crane, ‎Chief of Historical Services a...

Ned Almond is regarded as one of the more controversial American generals of World War II and the Korean War. While most historians agree that Almond was talented and had a distinguished combat record, he also openly espoused the idea that black soldiers were less capable than white soldiers. This overt racism has dominated scholarship of his life, but does not help explain why men like George Mar...

1942 was an eventful year for the United States military. To mark some of the interesting and important events that happened that year, the MacArthur Memorial and the Hampton Roads Naval Museum hosted a 1942" symposium in October 2017. At the symposium, Pete Bulkeley, son of the skipper of PT-41, discussed his father's role in MacArthur's escape from the Philippines. Have a comment...

In August 2017, Dr. Allen D. Boyer visited the MacArthur Memorial and discussed Rocky Boyer’s War: An Unvarnished History of the Air Blitz that Won the War in the Southwest Pacific. Based on an “unauthorized” diary that was kept by Dr. Boyer’s father, Rocky’ Boyer’s War provides a soldier’s history of General George Kenney’s air war in the Southwest Pacific from New Guinea to the Philippines. Have...

In June 2017, the MacArthur Memorial, the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, and the VA WWI and WWII Commemoration Commission hosted a symposium to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway. Anthony Tully, co-author of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, explored the battle from the Japanese perspective. Have a comment about this episode? Send us a text message! (Not...

In June 2017, the MacArthur Memorial, the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, and the VA WWI and WWII Commemoration Commission hosted a symposium to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway. Elliot Carlson, author of Joe Rochefort's War, discussed how cryptanalysis and intelligence shaped the outcome of the Battle of Midway. Have a comment about this episode? Send us a text message! (...

In June 2017, the MacArthur Memorial, the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, and the VA WWI and WWII Commemoration Commission hosted a symposium to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway. Dr. Timothy Orr, co-author of Never Call Me a Hero, explored the role of USN pilots at the Battle of Midway. Have a comment about this episode? Send us a text message! (Note: we can only read the texts...

In June 2017, the MacArthur Memorial, the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, and the VA WWI and WWII Commemoration Commission hosted a symposium to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway. Walter Borneman, author of The Admirals and MacArthur at War, kicked off the symposium with an overview of the Pacific War leading up to June 1942. Have a comment about this episode? Send us a text mes...

Peter Eisner, author of MacArthur's Spies, spoke at the MacArthur Memorial in May 2017. MacArthur's Spies tells the story of several people who resisted the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II. Through espionage and sabotage, they helped pave the way for MacArthur's return to the Philippines in 1944. Have a comment about this episode? Send us a text message! (...

Bill Lascher, author of Eve of a Hundred Midnights, spoke at the MacArthur Memorial in March 2017. Eve of a Hundred Midnights recounts the meteoric rise of Melville Jacoby, a dashing foreign correspondent who fell in love not only with a country - China - but with Annalee Whitmore, a whip-smart Hollywood scriptwriter-turned journalist. Together they covered the opening days of World War II, report...

January 26 marks the birthday of General Douglas MacArthur. It is also Australia Day. On January 26, 2017, the MacArthur Memorial partnered with Air Vice-Marshal Alan Clements, Head of Australian Defense Services (Washington), to mark each of these significant occasions. As part of the program, MacArthur Memorial Archivist James Zobel gave a very short address on General MacArthur and the ties bet...

During World War II, the Japanese recruited dozens of English speaking women to be part of a propaganda broadcast aimed at lowering the morale of Allied troops in the Pacific. The broadcasters would report Japanese successes and describe the overwhelming advantages of Japanese forces. Often these reports were false, and most Allied troops knew it, but shows with the female broadcasters were just s...

Dr. Theresa Kaminski, author of the book Angels of the Underground: The American Women Who Resisted the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II, spoke at the MacArthur Memorial’s 2016 WWII Symposium. During her presentation, Dr. Kaminski explored the lives of four different women who survived the fall of Manila and the several years of Japanese occupation that followed. Relatively unknown toda...

James Duffy, author of the book War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight for New Guinea, 1942-1945, spoke at the MacArthur Memorial’s 2016 WWII Symposium. During his lecture, Duffy outlined the epic four year fight for New Guinea and explained why New Guinea was one of the most hostile battlefields of the entire war. Have a comment about this episode? Send us a text m...

Walter Borneman, author of the book MacArthur at War: War in the Pacific, presented his latest research at the MacArthur Memorial’s 2016 WWII Symposium. During his lecture, Borneman traced MacArthur’s evolution as a leader during the war and discussed the General’s mastery of combined operations. Have a comment about this episode? Send us a text message! (Note: we can only read the texts, we can&#...

In April 1943, American intelligence officers intercepted the flight plans and travel itinerary of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. The plans indicated that the admiral would be traveling through zone that could be reached by American fighter planes. Yamamoto was a high level target for a variety of reasons. He had been instrumental in the Pearl Harbor attack, at Wake Island, the Dutch East Indi...

In November 2000, the Memorial's Archivist was asked to look at four letters purportedly written by Douglas MacArthur shortly after World War I. The letters were authenticated and today they provide a window into a previously unknown chapter of MacArthur's life. The letters were written to Herta Heuser, a young German Red Cross worker who helped nurse MacArthur back to health during the...

General MacArthur’s biographers often note that he was regarded with admiration by both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Generally the MacArthur/Nixon relationship is marginalized in MacArthur biographies, while the MacArthur/Kennedy relationship is highlighted. Nixon however had a long history of being publically pro-MacArthur. He even described MacArthur as “a hero, a presence, an event.” In t...

Episode Fifty-Nine: The Five-Star Rank (December 2015) On December 14, 1944, Congress approved the creation of the grade of "General of the Army” and “Fleet Admiral.” Over the next two weeks, seven officers in the American Army and Navy were promoted to these newly authorized ranks. The reason for these promotions was simple. American senior commanders needed to be able to work on equal terms...

When ordered to leave the Philippines in 1942, General MacArthur handpicked a small number of officers to take with him. The “Bataan Gang” as these men were later known, formed the core of his inner circle for the rest of World War II. Major General William Marquat was a member of General Douglas MacArthur’s “Bataan Gang.” A highly decorated officer of World War I, World War II, and the Korean War...

On October 20, 1944, General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte to visit the beachhead U.S. soldiers were in the process of establishing. He was also there to deliver a dramatic radio address to the people of the Philippines announcing that the much anticipated liberation of the islands was underway. Broadcast from the beach (and from a destroyer off the coast), MacArthur’s “I Have Returned”...

On September 2, 1945, representatives of Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender in a ceremony aboard the USS Missouri. General Douglas MacArthur presided over this carefully orchestrated ceremony as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. Many of the Allied nations had expressed dissatisfaction with the secrecy of the evening surrender of Nazi Germany in May of 1945, so there was enormous press...