Douglas MacArthur was born in Little Rock, Arkansas on January 26, 1880 to famous military figure Arthur MacArthur. In 1903 he graduated first in his class to a class 93 men at West Point Military Academy. In 1904 he was sent to the Philippines as a first lieutenant where he joined with his father.  Soon after he would become an aide-de-camp to President Teddy Roosevelt.

 In WWI MacArthur commanded the 42nd Division on the Western Front where he was decorated 13 times and cited 7 for bravery. In November of 1918 he became the youngest divisional commander in France. In 1932 after teaching at West Point and going back to the Philippines, MacArthur controversially used tanks to stop a petition on the Bonus Army in Washington. And after communications stopped with the Japanese in June 1941 Roosevelt recalled MacArthur from retirement to mobilize the Philippine Army. 

The day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor over half of MacArthur's air force was destroyed in the Philippines. In 1942 after the U.S. was pushed back from the Bataan peninsula MacArthur was sent to Australia until American forces were re-organized and MacArthur was appointed Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area. MacArthur now developed his island hopping tactics that brought him to control all of New Guinea by the spring of 1944 and was also given permission to begin taking back the Philippines. His last amphibious operation was at Okinawa where he successfully took the island in a bloody battle. 

 In 1950 MacArthur was commander of the United Nations when the Korean War broke out. Soon however after making statements indicating his disagreements with the United States Government he was removed from the United Nations in April 1951. After leaving the Army he took a job as a chairman of the board of the Remington Rand Corporation until his death at Water Reed Hospital, Washington on April 5th 1964.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmacarthur.htm

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