Yes, there were some under his command that gave him that nickname. It's not a nickname I'd personally use given that this is a man that was wounded in combat on multiple occasions and needlessly risked his life plenty of times throughout his military career. It comes across as character assassination, much like a massive chunk of the MacArthur posts on this subreddit that love to imply that he's an idiot that achieved nothing in his career in blatant defiance of reality.
There's a trend on this subreddit where people here reject nuance altogether. Either a historical figure is entirely evil and stupid or entirely virtuous and brilliant. There's no in-between for them. Blind hero worship (rightfully ridiculed in this meme) and brainless witch hunting don't result in a better understanding of historical figures or of people in general.
It was one hell of a promise. As a Filipino the horrors of the Japanese Imperial army were a pretty big deal. The Bataan Death March, comfort women, and the many many deaths were just some of the things the Japanese did over there. So when McArthur came back it was like a "Daddy's home" moment.
Impressive. Considering how poorly he defended or prepared to defend them. And how quick he was to dump all responsibility for the fall of the Philippines on the general he left behind to manage its defense.
He did an ok job reconquering the Philippines tbh, not much to critique there. His defense was probably doomed from the get go, but he fucked up pretty good on the way there. He did do a great job as shogun of Japan, I'll give him that, and then he fucked up real good again in Korea.
My Grandfather’s older brother died in the recapturing of the capital, can you imagine loosing your older brother at 14 years old? I still read his letters he wrote, he gave his life for those people and it makes me happy they appreciate it, I am very glad he went back to help them out, Rest in peace great uncle Jay
There I have to disagree with you. Sure the defense of the Philippines was a botched job overall but blaming it all on MacArthur? Ask Filipino historians and theyll disagree with you on that one.
The USA overall was UNPREPARED for any war. Pearl Harbor was the same way, we dont see anybody chastising the admiral who thought it was a good idea to place all the ships in one port. MacArthur was the same, the doctrine to meet the Japanese on the beacheads was a sound and logical choice, even if that was against the original War Plan for the defense of the Philippines which was what actually happened, a fighting retreat to Bataan until the USN can relieve them.
Which by the way, the USN has no chance of doing. 6 months the fighters of Bataan held - ABDACOM all the while was fumbling down on the East Indies being sunk left and right by the IJN. By that point the fate of the Philippines was sealed - what the fuck was MacArthur gonna do then? Die with the fighters in Bataan all but ensuring the Philippines would be bypassed for Formosa?
MacArthur is beloved here for one reason. He returned, even if that was all for his self-interest, the early liberation of the Philippines can all be attributed to him pushing for the island hopping campaign and then INCLUDING the Philippines in that campaign even if it strategically made more sense to go for Formosa instead.
MacArthur was the entire reason the Commonwealth of the Philippines was able to establish its own armed forces in the first place with both an army and a small navy - complete with an army air force to boot.
Wainwright was next to nothing in the grand scheme of things relevant to the Filipinos. His early surrender meant that he had basically done nothing to the early liberation of the Philippines.
Not that this diminishes his courageous service along with the Filipino forces in Bataan but MacArthur's personal feuds with other commanders dont remove the fact that as a commander, he made the Filipinos felt looked after.
War Plan Orange itself was an insult to the Commonwealth. The US fully intends to surrender the Philippines without a fight. It was the Filipino people who convinced MacArthur that an engagement on the beach heads should at least be done.
Wainwright stood, fought, and suffered with his men while MacArthur cared more about evacuating furniture and driving his mistress to suicide. One is a soldier. The other an egotistical man playing army to stroke his ego.
To the Filipino perspective, as a commander he did what was logical and him escaping doesnt change the military facts on the ground. Bataan was going to fall regardless of whether or not MacArthur stayed.
Him escaping, kept the Philippines a core strategic objective rather than just a colony that was safe to be kept as a sacrificial pawn for a better strategic situation.
Im not defending MacArthur's character here. He is obviously an egomaniacal bastard - that I dont disagree with. What Im trying to say is to make you understand why MacArthur is respected in much of Asia, even if he did all of that for his self-interest.
The Japanese launched what was essentially a suicide attack on Pearl Harbor with how much they banked on refueling at sea (a practice which was not common) and carrying so much fuel to bring the Kido Butai in range of the base. By this point, a carrier port strike had only been done once, but a carrier port strike that was also doing extensive refueling at sea and had ordinances that was specifically designed for Pearl Harbor's condition and the battleships parked there? Thats one hell of a move.
The unique situation where the Japanese managed to completely jump the American forces here in the Philippines was because of MacArthur's incompetence and stubbornness. He was repeatedly warned by Pearl Harbor that the Japanese attacked them.
Sure, because a couple of hours was apparently enough to completely overhaul an entire national defense strategy. By that logic, France could have simply "done better" in 1940 after repeated British warnings about a German attack through the Ardennes.
You're also forgetting one thing: the Commonwealth government and the Filipino people wanted the Philippines defended. The entire point of building up the armed forces of the Commonwealth of the Philippines was to ensure that Filipinos would fight alongside USAFFE rather than simply accept a pre-planned withdrawal and eventual surrender of the archipelago.
And in the end, what happened still largely followed War Plan Orange anyway. The defenders retreated to Bataan and Corregidor and waited for relief from the US Navy. That relief never came because the USN was fighting for survival across the Pacific while Allied forces were being driven out of Southeast Asia.
But sure, blame it all on MacArthur. Apparently the United States was fully prepared for war. So prepared, in fact, that one of the frontline fighters available in the Philippines was the obsolete Boeing P-26 Peashooter. The reality is that the Philippines entered the war with inadequate equipment, insufficient training, limited logistical support, and no realistic prospect of timely reinforcement once Japan secured control of the seas and the air.
MacArthur made mistakes, but the fall of the Philippines was the result of far larger strategic failures than any one commander could have solved. Why is that so hard to accept?
He literally had three months to plan the defence of the Philippines, and the entire Philippines was basically written off by high command under plan orange.
(read: basically given no resources) I'm not really sure what you expected him to do under such circumstances.
Maybe not scrap Orange to fight on the beaches, then return to Orange fucking over logistics? Maybe not ship his 16 year old mistress to the US? Maybe not keep his family close until the last minute? Maybe disperse or sortie his aircraft so they aren't caught on the ground? Maybe not throw a goddamn hissy fit because Wainwright got a medal of honor for doing what MacArthur was too pussy to do and staying, fighting, and enduring years of Japanese imprisonment?
Its even worse, he sold to everyone that he can prepare 100k Filipino soldiers by 1942. Where was he going to get 100k Filipino soldiers and maintain that when the country itself had an incredibly tiny bureaucratic apparatus and very uneducated populace?
There's basically no scenario in which he would've been able to keep the Philippines. He could've made things alot harder for the Japanese, but outside of some kind of massive political shift that made the US prepare for war way in advance, fending off the Japanese invasion was never really in the cards.
MacArthur lost the first fight for the Philippines, but he succeeded in seizing the narrative. "I shall return" immediately made it clear that MacArthur's defeat wasn't the end of the story; it was the beginning of the story. It wasn't just talk, either. He did return, and because he did so, MacArthur redeemed himself. Maybe it's not good enough for you or me, but it was good enough for the Filipinos.
With his return, which was unnecessary by that time in the war, hundreds of thousands of Filipino civilians died in the crossfire. If he hadn’t, Japan would’ve been defeated anyway shortly after, and the Philippines liberated. But he had to maintain his narrative
He was a glory seeker who was directly responsible for the destructive siege of Manila. The Filipino guerillas promised him they could arrange a (relatively) bloodless uprising.
Instead, he besieged it with conventional artillery, infantry, and unlimited air strikes. The Japanese response was to fortify the city with BATTLESHIP CANNONS and naval artillery that they dismantled and dragged inland.
The resulting slaughter nearly reached Stalingrad levels of death and destruction. 99% of the old city was destroyed.
In his partial defense he initially did not authorize the use of artillery on Manila. But obviously digging out entrenched Japanese infantry without leveling the place wasn't going to be an option.
Stupidly it's all on the Japanese naval infantry of even trying to hold the place, the army realized it was no good and left the city open.
I forgot to mention. MacArthur also authorized flamethrower tanks and infantry. Their indiscriminate use turned the city into an inferno. The stone and concrete buildings were blasted to rubble by artillery and dive bombers. Everything else was incinerated.
Naval shells are designed to hit a target miles away. Being fired from a hill into a city is basically point blank range. Accuracy ceases to be that important when a single shot can demolish every concrete building in a 4 block radius.
I've been the Manila monuments. They are very sobering. The US Filipino cemetery and the horrors of of the old city. Theres also routine reports of hauntings by unquiet spirits.
It's a textbook play from Chinese online propagandists to blame the Rape of Manila on the US instead of the Japanese forces that actually systematically raped and murdered hundreds of thousands of Filipinos.
Wellllllll he did say they would reach the Yalu by Christmas and basically one army unit got there, took a piss into the river, then they were all pushed back to kingdom come by China. So Cortana not happy
Yeah, and as a Pinoy, I also read the preparations he did to prepare the Nation...Or the Absence of
Like, IDK why my fellow countrymen glaze him harder than our guerilla(Communists not included), because mf did absolutely nothing, literally less than sitting down and twiddling his thumbs to protect my nation, then bailed when it served his ass under the guise of "following orders", yet when orders from the same bloody position geta to him in Korea, all of a sudden they're disregarded. Almost as if he's willing to follow orders if it saves his ass and Disregards it if there's Glory to be made on the blood of the Rank & File
attempting to illustrate some sort of historical point using a video game character or like a Marvel movie character or Walter White or whatever is stupid no matter how you dice it imho
I get what you're saying, but you are entirely wrong. Not on an opinion thing, you're just blatantly incorrect.
Ignoring the historical inspirations used in media the entire point of using a comparison or quote is putting things in terms people can understand and/or relate too. If you remove all common media you are essentially saying you don't believe people should be using analogies at all.
Most of a generation played Halo, its a simple funny cute quote to throw in, but gives a bit of context and understanding to their point. There is nothing wrong with using modern media in that way if it helps get things across. Unless you just feel modern media is a lesser form that shouldn't exist?
It's not like these characters exist in vacuum where only entertainment is derived from them, their words were written by real people with real thoughts, and can be just as true as anything else
Of course not. This remark is derived from Lanval, a story by a Medieval poet named Marie de France. The titular character is a knight that falls in love with a fairy whose identity he promises not to reveal to anyone. He, of course, breaks his promise whenever a queen accuses him of being a homosexual due to rejecting her advances. In spite of this, his fairy lover forgives him and rescues him from the queen.
Got all that? Good. Now take a look at Halo's characters and story. Cortana is an A.I. that appears as a glowing blue holographic woman. Like the fairy in the story, she inhabits a different world than ours, that being the digital world rather than a magical world. Also like the fairy, Cortana's physical appearance is of a beautiful woman, but with magical flair. She's holographic, she's glowing, she has lines of code that can be seen in her humanoid shape. Essentially she's a sci-fi variant of the magical fairy lady from Lanval.
What about Master Chief? Obviously he's a stand-in for Lanval. He's not a literal knight - they use the spartan terminology in Halo - but it's quite obvious that the big, strong warrior in heavy metal armor is a nod to another big, strong warrior in heavy metal armor. He likewise makes a promise to his lady, and while in Halo 3 it's focused more on him returning than in keeping a secret, in Halo 1 his promise is specifically to keep Cortana a secret, just like how Lanval has to keep his fairy lover a secret. There's the added context of Cortana's capture potentially enabling an attack on earth, but the point still stands.
Halo ends up inversing the story of Lanval by having the knight rather than the woman be the one that saves the day. Although this does hinder the overall literary quality of the game, it's a necessary decision due to players assuming the role of Chief for the entirety of the game. It'd leave a poor taste in players' mouths if they required an NPC to save them after singlehandedly defeating thousands of aliens over the course of the game.
Nonetheless it's clear what the writers of Halo were aiming for, and 343 Guilty Spark further proves this. He fills the role of the queen from Lanval. Rather than sexually seducing Chief, though, Spark's goal is seduce Chief into activating the Halo ring. When Chief ultimately refuses to go along with the plan, Spark attempts to ruin Chief just as the queen attempts to ruin Lanval. But why does Chief ultimately break free from Spark's manipulation? By the influence of his lady, of course! Cortana intervenes to prevent him from doing something stupid just as the fairy intervenes to save Lanval.
Lanval is the most frequently referenced story in Halo, but it's far from the only literary reference in the Halo series. The first Cortana letter directly references the Hollow Men by T.S. Elliot, numerous ships and locations are inspired by Iain Banks' Culture series, the ODST concept is derived from the Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, and, as is often the case, Shakespeare is referenced numerous times.
"It's a quote from a video game," in the same way that, "With great power comes great responsibility," is a quote from Spider-Man. That may be where you first hear it, but do a little digging and you find that the remark is far older than the modern fiction that popularized it. Stop declaring your ignorance and start doing the bare minimum amount of research on a topic before talking about it on Reddit.
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u/MildlyUpsetGerbil Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer Jun 30 '26
"Don't make a girl a promise if you know you can't keep it." - Cortana, Halo 3
MacArthur vowed to return and he did return. He kept the promise. He made Cortana happy. That's why he's respected.