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I'd like to provide an assessment of Douglas MacArthur as a general which may correct a few misconceptions. First off, he was a general officer on active duty from 1918 to 1937 and then again from 1941 to 1951. During that time he commanded an infantry brigade and a division during the First World War where he received two Purple Hearts and two Distinguished Service Crosses and seven Silver Stars for gallantry in action. After the war he was appointed Superintendent of the United States Military Academy where he was responsible for modernization of the Academy’s curriculum. Between 1922 and 1930 he commanded a brigade and a division in the Philippines where he put down a mutiny by Philippine Scouts protesting discrimination over pay and commanded the Philippine Department, was President of the U.S. Olympic Committee in 1928 and commanded two Corps areas in the United States before his appointment to the post of Chief of Staff.As Chief of Staff he instituted the reorganization of the Army division from the square model with two brigades of four regiments of World War I to the more maneuverable three regiment triangular model that fought the Second World War and in Korea and which is still the basis of the three brigade divisions of today.. As chief of Staff he adopted the M-1 Garand semi-automatic rifle as the Army’s standard rifle which served through World War II and the Korean War. He instituted the program of mechanization in the Army by his establishment of the 7th Cavalry Brigade (Mechanized). And recognizing the importance of air power he also set the foundation for the Army Air Corps as a combatant branch co-equal with the other combat arms and its eventual independence as a separate service through his activation of Air Force General Headquarters.As Chief of Staff in the depths of the depression he managed to prevent cuts to the Army’s budget that would have seen severe cuts in the Army’s officer personnel strength, the very officers who trained and led the armies that fought the Second World War. He also preserved the size of the West Point Corps of Cadets. In addition, he was responsible for overseeing the the Army’s management of the Civilian Conservation Corps which included the establishment and building of CCC camps, the provision of medical care, and the paying and feeding of the CCC men.. At this point most critics will point to his supposed role in the suppression of the Bonus Army Marchers. Unfortunately most of what people think they know regarding his role is wrong. Although troops were called out they were called out at the orders of the President and Secretary of war because the Washington D.C. police lost control of the situation when it tried to remove Bonus Marchers from Federal property in the Capital.Contrary to popular belief MacArthur did not command the troops used during the Bonus March, General Perry Miles did. General Miles wrote about this in his book “Fallen Leaves: Memories of an Old Soldier” where he explains that MacArthur was on site and in uniform because he felt it was important for him to be there to draw any public criticism of the Army’s actions onto himself rather than allowing it to be directed toward subordinate officers. Also it should be remembered that the only Bonus Marchers killed during the incident were two men killed by the Washington D.C. police not by the Army.In 1935 after five years as Chief of staff he stepped down to take the position as Military Adviser to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines. After two years he retired from active duty in 1937, but remained Military Adviser until recalled to active duty in July 1941 to command American and Filipino military forces in the Philippines. Placed in a situation where he was faced with reversing the previous twenty years of U.S. Government policies of disarmament in the Pacific which left American possessions in the Pacific, like Wake and Guam besides the Philippines unfortified.Only in the summer of 1941 did the War Department approve the sending of the weapons and equipment and training personnel to the Philippines that would have made the Philippine Commonwealth Army effective, unfortunately the schedule for sending equipment would not have been completed until April of 1942. MacArthur had to wait until after his recall to active duty in the late summer of 1941 did the Government in Washington authorize the release of funds for the building of defense installations and the calling up of the Filipino troops to active service in service of the United States. However most Filipino troops were only called up some three weeks before war was declared so consequently received no training. Besides lack of training and equipment the Filipino troops lacked experienced leaders and suffered language problems that inhibited communications between officers and men.After war was declared, most people will say he screwed up by losing his air force on the first day, that it was caught on the ground, which is only partially true. In fact of the 35 B-17 bombers in the Philippines, half were on Luzon and half were on Mindanao and escaped destruction. Of the 107 P-40 fighters in the Philippines three squadrons of these fighters were actually in the air when the Japanese attacked and some 54 aircraft survived the attack on 8 December. Attrition and lack of spare parts and replacement aircraft and a lack of dispersal fields helped to reduce the air force in the Philippines.The decision to retreat to Bataan and fall back on the prewar plan for the defense of Manila Bay was dictated by the weakness of the Philippine Army. The failure to remove sufficient supplies to Bataan was a failure of staff officers and the commander (although it is a truism of military life that a commander can't do everything and that's why he's provided a staff and a chief of staff to oversee the staff). Whether the attempt to defend the island of Luzon at the beaches was wise or not it was a decision agreed to by both the political and military authorities in Washington, the men who were MacArthur's superiors so the responsibility can't be laid at his feet alone. Besides as a U.S. possession, the United States had both a political and moral obligation to the Philippines and had to be seen as making an active defense of the Islands. Failure to do so would have had a bad political effect in Asia. However, the fate of the Philippines had been sealed by decisions made twenty years before the war and these decisions were only reinforced by the Philippine Independence Act in 1935 which reduced the military's enthusiasm for spending its scarce dollars on Philippine defense. But the attack on Pearl Harbor guaranteed defeat in the Philippines because with the inability of the navy to bring in reinforcements and supplies, the garrison was doomed to eventual surrender which it did after five months defense. Now we come to the charge that MacArthur abandoned his troops in the Philippines. The fact is he was obeying a presidential order to evacuate. As an Army officer he was legally obligated to obey the President's orders as did others in the Islands including the Navy's commander Admiral Rockwell who also was evacuated and who wasn't charged with abandoning naval personnel or nurses who weren't charged with abandoning their patients. Because the Philippines were lost on his watch MacArthur gets the blame although he shares that responsibility with a lot of people in Washington.At this time I would refer readers to the U.S. Army's Official History, the Fall of the Philippines by Louis Morton http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-P-PI/ .Moving on to Australia he organized the attacks that isolated the Japanese fortress at Rabaul in New Britain with its 100,000 man garrison as well as the attacks along the north coast of New Guinea with landings at Aitape, Hollandia, the Admiralty Islands (that captured Manus Island, which became a major forward base of both the American and British navies). The attacks along the north coast of New Guinea led to the Philippines which again being a possession of the United States politics dictated had to be seen by the people of Asia as being liberated by American forces. Failure to do so would have caused the United States tremendous political problems in postwar Asia, something that MacArthur could foresee, understand and wished the United States to avoid. beside the reoccupation of the Philippines in addition to liberating 17 million U.S. Nationals, destroyed a Japanese army of 450,000 men and cut off Japan from the resources of Southeast Asia, brought the bulk of the Japanese navy out where it was destroyed and provided a staging area for future operations. It should be noted that of the twenty-two (22) Army divisions (out of 90 raised) deployed in the Pacific twenty-one (21) in addition to two Air Forces, the Fifth and the Thirteenth and the Seventh Fleet served under MacArthur’s command, only the six Marine divisions and the 98th Infantry Division did not.Just about finished, in Korea MacArthur made three decisions that directly contributed to the preservation of the Republic of Korea, the decision to send ground troops from Japan to Korea in June 1950, the decision to defend the Pusan perimeter in August 1950 and the decision to launch the Inchon landing in September 1950. The decision to split the X Corps from the Eighth Army was a major mistake as was the miss-reading of Chinese intentions but he wasn't alone in this as both the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency both miss-read Chinese intentions. His decision to cross the 38th parallel was authorized by the President and a UN Security Council Resolution.Finally, as to his firing by President Truman. The reason for his firing was over policy differences in Korea rather than insubordination or disobeying presidential orders as many people think. Both the Secretary of Defense George Marshall and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Omar Bradley both have said that MacArthur had never committed insubordination or disobeyed any orders from the JCS. Had MacArthur been charged with either insubordination or disobeying orders he could have demanded a court martial which given the circumstances he would have won.As to the relationship between MacArthur and Eisenhower, the two generals had different styles and there may have been some resentment that is natural from a senior whose subordinate has surpassed him, but Eisenhower as president did have MacArthur visit him in the White House where the two had a cordial and friendly meeting as the photographs of the meeting attest. I should also add in rebuttal to an assertion in another post that Ridgway despised him, that this characterization is very far off the mark. Ridgway who had served under MacArthur at the Military Academy in the 1920’s and had worked with MacArthur on Korean War issues as the Army General Staff’s point man and was brought in as the replacement for Walton Walker as commander of the Eighth Army when he was killed in December 1950 at MacArthur’s request four months before MacArthur’s own relief. Eisenhower as well as Ridgway shared the same opinion of MacArthur, that he was a man of towering intelligence, which was the common opinion in the small community of regular army generals. The MacArthur No One KnewThe problems found in the Eighth Army as regards state of training and doctrine were indicative and reflective of the state of training in the Army as a whole in 1950 as a result of the cuts in the defense budget by the Truman Administration and the transition from a peacetime occupation Army to one that found itself in combat.Note: One bogus criticism is the objection that he ran for president without resigning his commission, however he wasn’t the first general to do so. Offhand I can think of Winfield Scott Hancock who ran for president in 1880 while serving as the Army’s Commander of the Division of the Atlantic. Winfield Scott ran for president three times while on active duty, 1852, 1848, and 1840. And of course Grant ran for president while still on active duty in 1868.As to whether he was an incompetent general the answer is clearly no, a man doesn’t become Chief of Staff when he’s incompetent. Was he a terrible general, all generals have bad days and suffer defeats and sometimes those defeats are beyond anything the general could have done to prevent it. Did he have some personality traits that were less than attractive, yes as my experience with generals has taught me there are a lot of generals with less than attractive personality traits, kind of goes with the job I think.I have noticed that here on Quora the most severe critics of MacArthur and his performance seem to be those who have no experience in the military or as an officer. Here’s something for all those who like to criticize MacArthur for evacuating from the Philippines. General der Panzertruppe Hans Valentine Hube, commander of the XIV Panzer Corps at Stalingrad was ordered to evacuate Stalingrad after its encirclement leaving behind a force of three mechanized divisions, 3rd Motorized, 60th Motorized and 16th Panzer all of which surrendered to the Soviets. General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of Army Group Africa was evacuated from North Africa leaving behind a force of more than 275,000 men which later surrendered to the Allies. Both Hube and Rommel were evacuated from their commands leaving large numbers of troops behind to surrender to the enemy, in one case more than three times the number troops on Bataan, on the orders of their superior and head of state. Funny thing I never see any criticism of these two officers for doing essentially the same thing MacArthur did. Maybe someone can take a moment and explain the difference, why do Hube and Rommel get a pass.That’s my assessment.