Article of the day for March 11, 2018
The Article of the day for March 11, 2018 is Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines.
Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines during World War II began on 11 March 1942, after U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered him to withdraw. MacArthur left Corregidor Island and traveled in PT boats with his forces through stormy seas patrolled by Japanese warships, reaching Mindanao two days later. Arriving in Australia, he declared, "I came through and I shall return". MacArthur, a well-known general who had a distinguished record in World War I, had retired from the army in 1937 to become a defense advisor to the Philippine government. He was recalled to active duty in July 1941, a few months before the outbreak of the Pacific War with the Empire of Japan, to become commander of the U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, which included Philippine forces. By March 1942, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines had compelled him to withdraw his forces on Luzon to Bataan. The doomed defense of Bataan captured the imagination of the American public, and MacArthur became a living symbol of Allied resistance to the Japanese, at a time when the news from all fronts was uniformly bad.
Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines during World War II began on 11 March 1942, after U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered him to withdraw. MacArthur left Corregidor Island and traveled in PT boats with his forces through stormy seas patrolled by Japanese warships, reaching Mindanao two days later. Arriving in Australia, he declared, "I came through and I shall return". MacArthur, a well-known general who had a distinguished record in World War I, had retired from the army in 1937 to become a defense advisor to the Philippine government. He was recalled to active duty in July 1941, a few months before the outbreak of the Pacific War with the Empire of Japan, to become commander of the U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, which included Philippine forces. By March 1942, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines had compelled him to withdraw his forces on Luzon to Bataan. The doomed defense of Bataan captured the imagination of the American public, and MacArthur became a living symbol of Allied resistance to the Japanese, at a time when the news from all fronts was uniformly bad.
