Prof. Boerner's Explorations

by Gerald Boerner

 

I just received my latest issue of LensWork, a photographic magazine that is now only available by subscription, and started to read the editorial. As usual, Brooks Jensen touched upon a very timely topic: what is the future of photographic prints, especially those from the “wet” darkroom. In this day of digital imaging’s ascendency, can the regular paper prints be maintained as an alternative to digital displays with their multimedia elements? I thought it hit on some very relevant topics. I am reproducing it here for your benefit, since it will not be available to the general public.

Please visit his web site (linked above) and, if you are a serious photographer, consider subscribing. It is interesting that he publishes a paper issue and has an extended issue on DVD using Adobe Acrobat. He is in both worlds and uses the digital for some very nice extensions to what can be published on paper.  GLB

     

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
— Dorothea Lange

“Photography to me is catching a moment which is passing, and which is true.”
— Jacques-Henri Lartigue

“Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment – this very moment – to stay.”
— Sam Abell

“Photography started as a means of getting reference material for my paintings of nature subjects.”
— Nigel Dennis

“Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.”
— Ansel Adams

“Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man.”
— Edward Steichen

“So when I became interested in photography and further being inspired by the work that I saw of Ansel and others, it was a natural extension to go back to these places that I knew as a kid and explore them with my camera.”
— John Sexton

“Photography suits the temper of this age – of active bodies and minds. It is a perfect medium for one whose mind is teeming with ideas, imagery, for a prolific worker who would be slowed down by painting or sculpting, for one who sees quickly and acts decisively, accurately.”
— Edward Weston

     

Note:
This posting is intended for the educational use of photographers and photography students and complies with the “educational fair use” provisions of copyright law. For readers who might wish to reuse some of these images should check out their compliance with copyright limitations that might apply to that use.

GLB

    

Paper As Medium (Editorial by Brooks Jensen)

Dateline: LensWork, No. 87, Mar-Apr, 2010

I’m sure the buggy whip makers were pissed. As a bit of a buggy whip maker myself, I can relate — at least as far as my roles as a publisher and fine art print maker are concerned. My entire life has been involved with the photograph on paper, either as a reproduction or as an original print. So, I suppose it’s understandable that I have some concern about the future of images on paper.

To complicate matters, I’m also a pragmatist. you’d have to be purposefully blind to not be aware of the technological march of non-paper-based photography. It may have started with the computer monitor, although even the humble television has given us non-paper-based images for decades. But look now at the latest hardware innovations — the Amazon Kindle, the netbook, and the just-announced Apple iPad. All of these employ technologies that can present photography without paper.

And then, amplifying the threat is the accumulated “training” that we are all subtly receiving as we see more and more images on webpages, PDFs, iPhones, and other forms of digital distribution. The more we see, the more we get used to seeing images this way, the more it becomes accepted, then normal. There is an undeniable momentum that, although perhaps not yet dominant, is building. I understand it, but sure do hope it isn’t a race to complete and total dominance.

There is yet another component that is putting pressure on paper as the medium of choice for photographs. As I’ve observed escalating paper prices for publishing LensWork and the environmental pressure on both paper manufacturers and printer, I can’t help but foresee a time in which paper costs will escalate beyond the tipping point. We could find ourselves — both as photographers and as a society — irrevocably pused into paperless photography. We are starting to see it in text-only publishing in the form of the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader. Novels are less expensive to produce and can be instantly beamed into your e-reader hardware without cutting down a single tree. This has to be seductive for publishers and consumers alike. I can see a time when paper books will fall the way of 8-track tapes and LP records. Without embarrassment, I will weep on that sad day.

Intuitively, I know that such sentimentality cannot prevent the tide. As a pragmatist, perhaps the best thing to do is to try to understand our attachments to paper and our reflexive resistance to the digital image. As a publisher, I have a foot in both camps with LensWork and LensWork Extended. We strategically parallel-publish specifically so we can learn the advantages and disadvantages of each; so we can compare the experience of both producing and consuming fine art photography created as original folios on paper, reproduced with state-of-the-art offset printing in LensWork, and presented in this new media in LensWork Extended as pixels on a computer screen. We’ve learned that each medium has its strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, we’ve seen firsthand how each medium imparts its own context to the artwork.

Paper is tactile; digital media are searchable. Paper is interface-free; digital media use neat gadgets that offer more powerful interface possibilities. Paper is simple; digital media are experientially rich. Paper will still be able to be viewed 100 years from now; digital media can be seen and distributed everywhere in the here and now. You don’t “curl up with a good e-reader.” You don’t take fifty books, twelve magazines, and a dozen blogs with you on a plane — in you pocket. You own a book where it resides on the shelf for as long as you want. You can purchase, download, and begin reading an e-book moments after you decide you want to — without leaving you recliner chair.

Is you is, or is you ain’t? Tomato, tomatto. The digital genie os out of the bottle and it ain’t going back in there. So, what can we paper-lovers do?

I’m led to conclude that it is the artifact nature of photographers on paper that appeals to me the most. The paper is physical, tactile, real — in a way that electronic beams in RGB monitors seem unable to reproduce. I want photography to be real and the sensual part of my brain craves a photographic medium I can touch. Long live the photograph on paper!

Then again, I know that the power of an image is in its intellectual content, too — not just its molecules. I have been moved deeply by images I’ve never seen other than on-screen via my computer monitor. With those images, it is their intellectual content alone that is so satisfying. Welcome to the world, digital images!

In short, I am bifurcated. One and zeros, I suppose, is an apt analogy — all of which leads me to conclude that this truly is one of the best of times for us photographers. As publishers, we can provide both media. As a photographer, I can use both paper and pixels. For our generation at least, we have a foot in each camp — like posing on the equator astride the line of demarcation. Perhaps we can have our cake and consume it, too. Nice.

I am comforted by another thought: I suppose if history teaches us anything, it’s that once a technology exists it rarely disappears completely. When hand-written illuminated manuscripts on sheepskin vellum were replaced by Gutenberg movable type printed on paper, the art form of calligraphy did not entirely disappear. We still see hand-calligraphed artwork today. And it should also be noted that now the only people who practice hand-lettering are people who love hand-lettering. Their reverence for it gives it life. The same can be said for cowboys, totem carvers, fly fisherman, knitters, potters, and platinum/palladium printers. None of these “outmoded” technologies are necessary in light of today’s technological advancements, but they are fun, pleasurable, and rewarding. They are practiced with enthusiasm by passionate and caring people who nurture these long-outdated crafts.

It’s possible that this is the future for photographs on paper, too. There is a contingent of photographers who still produce gum bichromate prints, Woodburytypes, tintypes, etc.

I suspect photographs on paper will diminish as the years go by. It has to. But, I fear not, for there will always be an option to make image on paper if we so desire. If so, I’ll be the guy in the back corner of the shop, with the inky fingers and the irrepressible smile, surrounded, hopefully, by stacks of paper and piles of prints. I was born and matured in the age of paper photography and it will always be with me, no doubt.

If I’m lucky, however, I’ll also be found occasionally staring at a wonderful image beamed into my eyeballs from some beautiful display using some yet-to-be-invented technology which allows me some sort of rich experience that paper alone cnnot provide. Like the horseman with a car in the garage, like the vaudevillian performing on television, like the novelist publishing a blog, I hope to find myself equally comfortable in both worlds, appreciating the unique values and experiences inherent in each of the divergent media available to all us photographers.

/signed/ Brooks Jensen

Some Additional Thoughts

I, too, have had the experience of running a printing operation and getting printer’s ink underneath my fingernails. I started out in the late 1960s using a film SLR and developing the film myself. Over the years, I have used a variety of digital cameras and web cams, developed and maintained websites, and used social media sites. I have presented papers at conferences, written articles for magazines, and now maintain this blog. More recently, I have been completing a program in photography at my local community college; most of that program required the use of a “wet” darkroom. I have grown to appreciate the qualities of both film and digital darkroom techniques, including non-traditional printing processes in the “wet” darkroom and Lightroom and Photoshop in the digital darkroom. But what does this have to do with the above editorial?

I just want to express my appreciation to Brooks Jensen for his delineation of the problem in such an articulate manner. I would agree with most of his points and encourage all photographers to consider carefully what he has said.

Photography has changed and will continue to change. It was only twenty years ago that I had one of my students, a yearbook advisor at a local high school, start asking me if digital cameras were as good as film cameras yet. Invariably, I had to respond “Not yet…”

Well, today we have professional dSLR cameras every bit as powerful, if not more powerful as 35mm cameras. Are they as good as medium format film cameras? Yes, of course, if you have the money for the digital backs. But, in the final analysis, it says something when we look at the software available as plug-ins for Photoshop to make your digital image look like different types of film images!

Perhaps we have come full circle and should embrace the technologies that work for our particular photographic needs.  GLB

    

References

Brooks Jensen, “Paper As Medium", LensWork, No. 87, Mar-Apr 2010.

Web Site: LensWork…
http://www.lenswork.com

Brainy Quote: Photography Quotes…
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/photography_6.html

by Gerald Boerner

  

When I was in Junior High School, I remember reading a truely challenging book for one of my required book reports. I am referring to The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton, a classicist and educator. This book really hit me at the core as I saw the wisdom and visions of antiquity come into focus in my own life.

Hamilton, one of three sisters, was educated both in Germany (Leibnitz and Munich) and in New England (Bryn Mawr). She was later the Headmistress at Bryn Mawr. She has written a number of books on the ancient thought of the Greeks and Romans as well as examining their mythology.

After reading this brief profile, I hope that you are motivated to go to your library or Amazon.com (or other bookstores) and get a copy of one or more of these books; please be ready for a thought-provoking and wonderful experience.  GLB

    

“Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed.”
— Edith Hamilton

“Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth, and that which enables him to die for the truth.”
— Edith Hamilton

“A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people, as no historical reconstruction can.”
— Edith Hamilton

“Great literature, past or present, is the expression of great knowledge of the human heart; great art is the expression of a solution of the conflict between the demands of the world without and that within.”
— Edith Hamilton

“There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist, except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.”
— Edith Hamilton

“It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought — that is to be educated.”
— Edith Hamilton

“He was, first and last, the born fighter, to whom the consciousness of being matched against a great adversary suffices, and who can dispense with success. Life for him was an adventure, perilous indeed, but men are not made for safe havens. The fullness of life is in the hazards of life. And, at the worst, there is that in us which can turn defeat into victory.”
— Edith Hamilton

“Through Plato, Aristotle came to believe in God; but Plato never attempted to prove His reality. Aristotle had to do so. Plato contemplated Him; Aristotle produced arguments to demonstrate Him. Plato never defined Him; but Aristotle thought God through logically, and concluded with entire satisfaction to himself that He was the Unmoved Mover.”
— Edith Hamilton

  

Edith Hamilton: Bringing the Ancient World to Us

Edith Hamilton (1867 – 1963) was an American educator and author who was “recognized as the greatest woman Classicist”. She was sixty-two years old when The Greek Way, her first book, was published in 1930. It was instantly successful, and is the earliest expression of her belief in “the calm lucidity of the Greek mind” and “that the great thinkers of Athens were unsurpassed in their mastery of truth and enlightenment”.

In 1957, when the Book-of-the-Month Club selected The Greek Way (1930) as a featured book, it enhanced her efforts at directing the American mind towards Ancient Greece, despite it having been published twenty-seven years earlier. Moreover, by then, she already had published other books, among them The Roman Way (1932), Mythology (1942), and The Echo of Greece (1957); to date, in at the high school- and university-level, Mythology remains the premier introductory text about its subject. The New York Times has described her as the Classical Scholar who “brought into clear and brilliant focus the Golden Age of Greek life and thought … with Homeric power and simplicity in her style of writing”.

Childhood

Edith Hamilton was born in Dresden, Germany, to Gertrude Pond Hamilton and Montgomery Hamilton, a scholarly man of leisure; she also had two sisters, Alice and Margaret. Describing her Fort Wayne, Indiana, childhood, she said, “My father was well-to-do, but he wasn’t interested in making money; he was interested in making people use their minds”; thus, her father guided her towards the Classics, and, when she was seven years old, he began teaching her Latin, then French, German, and Greek.

In the early 1880s, she attended Miss Porter’s Finishing School for Young Ladies in Farmington, Connecticut, afterwards attending Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania; upon earning her B.A. and M.A. degrees, she took the Grand Tour of Europe, to allow the schooling to become an education.

Studying in Germany

In 1895 Edith and her sister Alice traveled to Germany to study humanities and classics at the University of Munich, recognized as a center in classical studies. At the time, most North American women chose to register as auditors and Edith and Alice were among the first women to audit classes. Their adventures in Germany have been well preserved and publicized in Alice’s autobiography.

Leipzig

According to education historian Sandra Singer, "The sisters’ first destination was the University of Leipzig. Edith had just graduated in classics from Bryn Mawr and was recipient of a European fellowship, while her sister Alice had recently completed her medical degree at the University of Michigan (1893)." When they arrived in Leipzig, they found a fair number of foreign women studying at the university. They were told that they could attend lectures but would not be able to participate in discussions. Alice had come to Germany to continue her studies in pathology. Edith, however, had come to Germany to study classics, and attended the lectures.

According to Alice, Edith was extremely disappointed with the lectures she attended. The lectures were thorough, but lost sight of the beauty of literature by focusing on obscure grammatical points. "Instead of the grandeur and beauty of Aeschylus and Sophocles, it seemed that the important thing was their use of the second aorist," she said.

Even of old the Christian world, so bitterly antagonistic to any ideas not specifically contained in their creeds and dogmas, made an exception in Socrates’ case. They recognized his likeness to Christ. He was the example that a soul could be Christlike, not through grace, but by nature. Erasmus said: "Holy Socrates, pray for us." To know him is a help to knowing Christ, and it is not hard to know him. We can see him quite clearly. Plato, who drew his portrait, could not, of course, keep himself out of it, any more than Christ’s recorders could; but at least magic did not dog Plato’s footsteps, as it did everyone’s footsteps when the Gospels were written. In the fourth century B.C. Greeks had no leaning to marvels. Also in the centuries that followed no one founded a church on Socrates and built up around him a theology and hung creeds and ceremonials upon him. To see what he was, we do not have to brush anything away, except a bit of Plato. We can use him as a stepping stone to Christ, a first aid in realizing what Christ was.

Munich

When the sisters discovered that women were still not allowed to earn a doctoral degree at Leipzig, they decided to try their luck at the University of Munich. As it turned out, notes Sandra Singer, "Munich was hardly much of an improvement over Leipzig for Edith. At first it was unclear whether Edith would be able to audit lectures at all . . . [but] she was finally able to attend lectures, because there was tension within the classics department between the Protestants and the Catholics." The Protestants supported Edith and she was allowed to attend classes, albeit under trying conditions. According to Singer, "She had been told that a little alcove would be built in the lecture hall where she could sit behind a green curtain."

But as Alice writes in her autobiography, when Edith arrived, "she was forced instead to sit on a chair up on the platform beside the lecturer, facing the audience, so that nobody would be contaminated by contact with her." She remembered Edith saying, "The head of the University used to stare at me, then shake his head and say sadly to a colleague, ‘There now, you see what’s happened? We’re right in the midst of the woman question.’ "

Career

Educator

Edith intended nonetheless to remain in Munich and earn a doctoral degree, but her plans changed. She was persuaded to return to the United States to take over as head of the recently opened Bryn Mawr Preparatory School for Girls in Baltimore. While she never completed her doctoral degree, she did become an "inspiring and respected head of the school for twenty six years."

Classical author

"I came to the Greeks early," Hamilton told an interviewer when she was 91, "and I found answers in them. Greece’s great men let all their acts turn on the immortality of the soul. We don’t really act as if we believed in the soul’s immortality and that’s why we are where we are today."

Upon retiring, she moved to New York City and wrote and published various articles about Greek drama. Although she was long recognized as the greatest woman classicist, she was 62 when she published her first book, The Greek Way, in 1930. For 50 years before that her "love affair with Greece had smoldered without literary outlet."

The Greeks were the classicists of antiquity, and they are still today the preeminent classicists. What marked all they did, the classic stamp, is a direct simplicity in expressing the significance of actual life. It was there the Greek artists and poets found what they wanted. The unfamiliar and the extraordinary were on the whole repellent to them, and they detested every form of exaggeration. Their desire was to express truthfully what lay at hand, which they saw as beautiful and full of meaning. But that was not the Roman way. When not directly under Greek guidance, the Roman did not perceive beauty in every-day matters, or indeed care to do so. Beauty was unimportant to him. Life in his eyes was a very serious and a very arduous business, and he had no time for what he would have thought of as a mere decoration of it.

Her approach to mythology was entirely through the literature of the classics, for she had not traveled to Greece and was not an archaeologist. The Greek Way drew informative comparisons between life in ancient Greece and current Greek life. The Roman Way (1932) provided similar contrasts between daily life in ancient Rome and the current life. Other works published over the next three decades led to her traveling to Greece in 1957 at the age of ninety.

But although her books were successful, she "nevertheless saw that it was hopeless to persuade Americans to be Greeks. In The Greek Way she conceded that life had become far too complex since the age of Pericles to recapture the simple directness of Greek life. . . the calm lucidity of the Greek mind, which convinced the great thinkers of Athens of their mastery of truth and enlightenment."

Edith Hamilton’s correspondence and papers are at Princeton University. She is the subject of a memoir by Reid, Edith Hamilton: An Intimate Portrait.

Personal life

Her sister, Alice, went on to become an integral part of Hull House, in Chicago, which offered food, shelter, and education, as a charity on the part of wealthy donors and scholars who volunteered their time. She later became a noted "pioneer in industrial medicine and a professor at Northwestern University and Harvard Medical School, where in 1919 she became Harvard’s first woman professor.

Her younger sister, Margaret, also studied in Munich for one summer in 1899 with a close college and family friend, Clara Landsberg. Landsberg was from Rochester, New York, where her father was a Reform rabbi. After graduating from Bryn Mawr, Landsberg also became a part of Hull House and shared a room with Alice. She eventually left Hull House to teach Latin at the Bryn Mawr while Edith was headmistress. Alice considered Landsberg part of the Hamilton family: "I could not think of a life in which Clara did not have a great part, she has become part of my life almost as if she were one of us." Margaret later taught English at Bryn Mawr and took over as head of the school when Edith retired.

Recognition

In 1950 she received the honorary degrees of Doctor of Letters from the University of Rochester and the University of Pennsylvania. She was also a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

She considered the high point of her life to be a ceremony in Greece when she stood in the theater of Herodes Atticus and King Paul of Greece awarded her the Golden Cross of the Order of Benefaction, making her an honorary citizen of Athens. Nodding to the applause of cabinet ministers, diplomats and Athenian intellectuals, "she walked to the microphone and in a firm voice cried, ‘I am an Athenian citizen! I am an Athenian citizen! This is the proudest moment in all my life.’"

     

References:

Edith Hamilton. (1930) The Greek Way. W. W. Norton & Company.

Edith Hamilton. (1932) The Roman Way. W. W. Norton & Company.

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Edith Hamilton… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Hamilton

WikiQuote: Edith Hamilton…
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edith_Hamilton

Web Sites and Blogs:

OASIS: Edith Hamilton Papers…
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/deepLink?_collection=oasis&uniqueId=sch00032

by Gerald Boerner

  

One of the larger than life figures associated with World War II in the Pacific Theater was General Douglas MacArthur. He had fought in World War I in France, had been the head of the Military Academy at West Point, and was in-charge of our military forces in the Philippines during the inter-war period. He grew to love the country and identified strongly with it.

After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese next set their sights on the Philippines. MacArthur sought to rally his men to resist the overwhelming force thrown against him. When it appeared that there was no way to successfully resist that force, he was ordered to withdraw to Australia. He considered resigning his commission to remain in his beloved Philippines, but finally acceded to that order. Before leaving, he uttered the famous phrase: “I will return.” Three years later he made good on his promise after a long battle through the Pacific islands!  GLB

    

“I will return.”
— Gen. Douglas MacArthur

“Americans never quit.”
— Gen. Douglas MacArthur

“A better world shall emerge based on faith and understanding.”
— Gen. Douglas MacArthur

“Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.”
— Gen. Douglas MacArthur

“A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.”
— Gen. Douglas MacArthur

“Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.”
— Gen. Douglas MacArthur

“And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the sight to see that duty.”
— Gen. Douglas MacArthur

“And, of course, in the Philippines there were so many thousands of Americans that were captured by the Japanese and held and who were rescued by Filipino Americans, or Filipinos I should say, and by U.S. troops near the close of the war.”
— Dana Rohrabacher

General Douglas MacArthur: “I shall return”

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (January 26, 1880 – April 5, 1964) was an American general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He was a highly decorated soldier of the war, receiving the Medal of Honor for his early service in the Philippines. Arthur MacArthur, Jr. and Douglas MacArthur were the first father and son to each be awarded the medal. He was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army and the only one to become a field marshal in the Philippine Army.

The son of Arthur MacArthur, Jr., an Army officer who was awarded the Medal of Honor for the American Civil War, Douglas MacArthur was raised as a military brat in the American Old West. He attended the West Texas Military Academy, where he was valedictorian, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he was First Captain and graduated top of the class of 1904. During the U.S. occupation of Veracruz he conducted a daring reconnaissance mission for which he was nominated for the Medal of Honor. In 1917 he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd (“Rainbow”) Division. In the fighting on the Western Front during World War I he rose to the rank of brigadier general, was again nominated for the Medal of Honor, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice and the Silver Star seven times for gallantry.

After the war, he was appointed Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he attempted to carry through a series of reforms. Posted to the Philippines, he dealt with a mutiny that had broken out amongst the Philippine Scouts. In 1925 he became the Army’s youngest major general. He served on the court martial of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell and was president of the United States Olympic Committee during the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. In 1930 he became Chief of Staff of the United States Army. As such, he was involved with the expulsion of the Bonus Army protesters fro Washington, D.C. in 1932, and the establishment and organization of the Civilian Conservation Corps. He retired from the U.S. Army in 1937 to become Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines.

MacArthur was recalled to active duty in 1941 as commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East. A series of disasters followed, starting with the destruction of his air force December 8, 1941 and the invasion of the Philippines by the Japanese. MacArthur’s forces were soon compelled to withdraw to Bataan, where they held out until May 1942. In March 1942, MacArthur, his family and his staff left Corregidor in for PT boats and escaped to Australia, where MacArthur became Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area. For his defense of the Philippines, MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor. After more than two years of fighting he fulfilled a promise to return to the Philippines. He officially accepted Japan’s surrender on September 2, 1945, and oversaw the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. He led the United Nations Command in the Korean War from 1950 to 1951. On April 11, 1951, MacArthur was removed from command by President Harry S. Truman for disagreeing with Truman’s policy on the Korean War.

Philippines Campaign (1941–42)

Preparations

26th Cavalry (Philippine Scouts)
moving into Pozorrubio past an
M3 Stuart tank.

On July 26, 1941 Roosevelt federalized the Philippine Army and recalled MacArthur to active duty in the U.S. Army as a major general and named him commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). MacArthur was promoted to lieutenant general the following day. On December 20, MacArthur became a four star general yet again. At the same time, Sutherland was promoted to major general and Colonels Akin, Marshall, and Casey to brigadier general. On July 31, 1941 the Philippine Department had 22,000 troops assigned, 12,000 of whom were Philippine Scouts. The main component was the Philippine Division, under the command of Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright. Between July and December 1941 the garrison received 8,500 reinforcements. These included the 192nd and 194th Tank Battalions, each equipped with 54 M3 light tanksm and the 200th Coastal Artillery Regiment (AA), equipped with 12 3-inch and 24 37mm guns. After years of parsimony, much equipment was shipped. It included 125,000 steel helmets, 500,000 C-rations and enough 55-gallon drums to hold 1,000,000 US gallons (3,800,000 l) of gasoline. By November, a backlog of 1,100,000 shipping tons of equipment intended for the Philippines had accumulated in U.S. ports and depots awaiting vessels.

In July 1941, the air force in the Philippines was largely equipped with obsolete P-26 and P-35 fighters and B-10 and B-18 bombers. This changed with the arrival of the 19th Bombardment Group with 35 B-17 bombers. The Philippines also received 107 new P-40E fighters. Along with the new aircraft, the Commander of U.S. Army Air Forces, General Henry H. Arnold moved to replace the air commander, Brigadier General Henry B. Clagett, “a heavy-drinking old timer who suffered from high blood pressure, hardening arteries, and tertiary malaria.” In September MacArthur was asked to select a new air commander and chose Major General Lewis H. Brereton. On November 16, Brereton activated Far East Air Force (FEAF) with three subordinate commands, V Bomber Command under Colonel Eugene L. Eubank, V Interceptor Command under Clagett, and Far East Air Service Command under Colonel Lawrence S. Churchill. Colonel Harold H. George served initially as chief of logistics, but by December 8 was chief of staff for V Interceptor Command. MacArthur was allocated over $2 million for airfield development in August and another $7 million in October. Work on Del Monte Airfield was rushed to get it ready to receive B-17 bombers by the beginning of December. In addition, $190,000 was allocated for the construction of a aircraft warning system but the unit intended to man it had only made it as far as San Francisco by December, and there were only two operational radar sets.

Disaster at Clark Field

General Sutherland found out about the attack on Pearl Harbor from commercial broadcasts at 0330 local time on December 8, 1941 and informed MacArthur. General Brereton arrived at MacArthur’s headquarters at 0500 seeking permission to use the B-17s at Clark Field in a daylight raid on Formosa. MacArthur had ordered all the B-17s to be moved to Del Monte but only half had been sent, and that only at Sutherland’s insistence, as another 35 B-17s were expected to arrive shortly and Del Monte could not accommodate that many. Brereton was told to make preparations but to await MacArthur’s orders. At 0800, the heavy bombers were ordered aloft to patrol without bombs to avoid being caught on the ground. Brereton renewed his request at 1000 and Sutherland authorized a photographic reconnaissance mission over Formosa. After the war, Brereton claimed that he received a phone call from Sutherland authorizing a bombing raid on Formosa, and scheduled it for late afternoon. MacArthur and Sutherland disputed Brereton’s account. By 1130 the bombers were back on the field, being armed with 100-pound (45 kg) and 300-pound (140 kg) bombs. At 1145 they were caught on the ground by a Japanese air raid that struck Clark and the nearby fighter base at Iba Field. The 200th Coast Artillery discovered that its 3-inch ammunition, all manufactured before 1932, contained a high percentage of duds. Most of the P-35s and P-40s got into the air but found themselves outclassed by the Japanese A6M Zeros, seven of which were shot down. The B-17s were destroyed on the ground. In all, the Fair East Air Force lost 18 B-17s, 53 P-40s, 3 P-35s and more than 25 other aircraft. Substantial damage was done to the bases, and casualties totaled 80 killed and 150 wounded.

Corregidor

MacArthur (center) with his Chief of Staff, Major General Richard K. Sutherland,
in the Headquarters tunnel
on Corregidor, Philippines,
1 March 1942.

Prewar defense plans assumed the Japanese could not be prevented from landing on Luzon and called for U.S. and Filipino forces to abandon Manila and retreat with their supplies to the Bataan peninsula. MacArthur decided to slow the Japanese advance with an initial defense against the Japanese landings. In the event, the Japanese landed at Lingayen Gulf on December 21, and advanced rapidly. MacArthur’s confidence in the ability of his Filipino troops was reconsidered, and he ordered a retreat to Bataan. Manila was declared an open city and on December 25 MacArthur moved his headquarters to the island fortress of Corregidor. A series of air raids destroyed all the exposed structures on the island and USAFFE headquarters moved into the Malinta Tunnel. Later most of the headquarters USAFFE moved to Bataan, leaving only the nucleus with MacArthur. On January 1, 1942 MacArthur was offered and accepted a payment of $500,000 ($7.4 million in current value) from President Quezon of the Philippines as payment for his pre-war service. Besides MacArthur, staff members of MacArthur also received payments: $75,000 to Sutherland, $45,000 to Col. Marshall, and $20,000 to Huff. The troops on Bataan knew that they had been written off but continued to fight. Some blamed the MacArthur for their predicament. A song sung to the tune of the The Battle Hymn of the Republic called him “Dugout Doug.”

Escape to Australia

In February 1942, as Japanese forces tightened their grip on the Philippines, MacArthur was ordered by President Roosevelt to relocate to Australia. MacArthur discussed the idea with his staff that he resign his commission and fight on as a private soldier in the Philippine resistance but Sutherland talked out of it. On the night of March 12, 1942, MacArthur, with Jean, Arthur, and a select group that included Sutherland, Willoughby, Diller, Akin, George, Casey and Marshall, left Corregidor in four PT boats. MacArthur, his family and Sutherland traveled in PT 41, commanded by Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley. The others followed in PT 34, PT 35 and PT 32. MacArthur and his party reached Del Monte on March 14. The commander of U.S. Army Forces in Australia, Lieutenant General George Brett, sent four B-17s to pick them up. Two turned back with engine trouble and one crashed just short of its goal. One made it but was not fit to carry passengers and returned before MacArthur and his party arrived. A message to Chief of Staff George C. Marshall at the War Department released three new U.S. Navy B-17s for the mission. Two of them arrived, and brought the entire group to Australia.

MacArthur arrived at Batchelor Airfield in the Northern Territory on March 17, about 60 miles (97 km) south of Darwin, before flying to Alice Springs, where he took the Ghan through the Australian outback to Adelaide. His famous speech, in which he said, “I came out of Bataan and I shall return”, was first made at Terowie, a small railway township in South Australia on March 20. Upon his arrival in Adelaide, MacArthur abbreviated this to the now-famous, “I came through and I shall return” that made headlines. Washington asked MacArthur to amend his promise to, “We shall return”. He ignored the request. MacArthur turned command over to Wainwright. Bataan eventually surrendered on April 9, and Wainwright surrendered on Corregidor on May 6.

For his leadership in the defense of the Philippines, General Marshall decided to award MacArthur the Medal of Honor, the decoration for which he had twice previously been nominated. It was admitted that MacArthur had not actually performed acts of valor in battle on Bataan but the 1927 award to Charles Lindbergh set a precedent. Legislation had already been introduced in Congress by Representatives J. Parnell Thomas and James E. Van Zandt to give MacArthur the award but Marshall felt it would more proper for it to come from the President and the War Department. The April 1, 1942 citation, written by Marshall, read:

For conspicuous leadership in preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest, for gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against invading Japanese forces, and for the heroic conduct of defensive and offensive operations on the Bataan Peninsula. He mobilized, trained, and led an army which has received world acclaim for its gallant defense against a tremendous superiority of enemy forces in men and arms. His utter disregard of personal danger under heavy fire and aerial bombardment, his calm judgment in each crisis, inspired his troops, galvanized the spirit of resistance of the Filipino people, and confirmed the faith of the American people in their Armed Forces.

MacArthur chose to accept the medal on the basis that “this award was intended not so much for me personally as it is a recognition of the indomitable courage of the gallant army which it was my honor to command.” Arthur and Douglas MacArthur became the first father and son to be awarded the Medal of Honor. They remained the only pair until 2001 when Theodore Roosevelt was awarded one posthumously for his service during the Spanish American War, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. having received one posthumously for his service during World War II.

Philippines Campaign (1944–45)

Leyte

Conference in Hawaii, September 1944.
Left to right: General MacArthur,
President Roosevelt, Admiral Leahy,
Admiral Nimitz.

In July 1944, President Roosevelt summoned MacArthur to meet with him in Hawaii. Also present were the local commanders, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas; Admiral William Halsey, Jr., the commander of the Third Fleet; and Lieutenant General Robert C. Richardson, Jr., the commander of U.S. Army forces in the theater. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were not present, except for Admiral Leahy. It was Roosevelt’s first overseas trip without them. Roosevelt announced that the conference had been called “to determine the phase of action against Japan.” Nimitz and MacArthur agreed that the next step should be to advance on the southern and central Philippines. They disagreed over whether the subsequent objective should be Formosa or Luzon, as MacArthur advocated. MacArthur emphasized the moral and political issues involved in a decision to liberate or bypass Luzon. He also spoke briefly of his plan to use the Australian Army to liberate Indonesia. The conference concluded amicably. Although the issue was not settled, both Roosevelt and Leahy were convinced of the soundness of MacArthur’s plan.

In September, Halsey’s carriers made a series of air strikes on the central and southern Philippines. Opposition was feeble and Halsey decided that Leyte was “wide open” and possibly undefended. Halsey recommended that projected operations be skipped in favor of an assault on Leyte. George Marshall radioed MacArthur for his opinion of such a drastic change of plans. MacArthur was unavailable, as he was aboard USS Nashville en route for the landing on Morotai and travelling under radio silence, so the decision fell on Sutherland. Sutherland knew full well that Halsey was terribly wrong. He also knew what MacArthur’s response would be. George Marshall was dining in Quebec City with Mackenzie King and the other Joint Chiefs when he received Sutherland’s affirmative reply. Within minutes they sent new orders to Nimitz and MacArthur.

“I have returned” — General MacArthur returns to the Philippines.

On October 20, 1944, troops of Krueger’s Sixth Army landed on Leyte. The assault troops soon secured most of their first day objectives. MacArthur watched from the Nashville. That afternoon he boarded the ship’s motor whaleboat for Red Beach. When he arrived off the beach, the advance had not progressed far; snipers were still active and the area was under sporadic mortar fire. The whaleboat grounded in knee-deep water. MacArthur requested a landing craft but the beachmaster was too busy to grant his request, so MacArthur waded ashore. As he got ready to make his prepared speech, it started to rain. He said:

People of the Philippines: I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil — soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples. We have come dedicated and committed to the task of destroying every vestige of enemy control over your daily lives, and of restoring upon a foundation of indestructible strength, the liberties of your people.

General Douglas MacArthur (center), accompanied by
Lieutenant Generals George C. Kenney and Richard K.
Sutherland and Major General Verne D. Mudge
(Commanding General, First Cavalry Division), inspecting
the beachhead on Leyte Island, 20 October 1944.
Note the crowd of onlookers.

Since Leyte was out of range of Kenney’s land based aircraft, MacArthur was entirely dependent on carrier-based aircraft for air cover. Japanese air activity soon increased, with raids on Tacloban, where MacArthur decided to establish his headquarters, and on the fleet offshore. MacArthur enjoyed staying on Nashville‘s bridge during air raids, although several bombs landed close by, and the two nearby cruisers were hit, USS Honolulu by a torpedo and HMAS Australia by a kamikaze. Over the next few days, the Imperial Japanese Navy staged a major counterattack in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese carriers lured Halsey’s Third Fleet away, while their battleships and cruisers converged on Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet. Kinkaid dealt with the southern prong of the attack in the Battle of Surigao Strait, but due to “a series of fatal misunderstandings”, Halsey left the San Bernardino Strait unguarded, resulting in the Battle off Samar. Had the Japanese battleships entered Leyte Gulf, their guns could have destroyed the American transports and the supplies on the beaches, and isolated the troops ashore. Only heroic efforts by Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague’s escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts, and a premature decision to retire by Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, averted a disaster, which MacArthur attributed to command being divided between himself and Nimitz.

Nor did the campaign ashore proceed smoothly. The timing of the assault so late in the year forced the combat troops, the pilots, and the supporting logistical units to contend with heavy monsoonal rains. During the first six weeks on Leyte, there were three typhoons, and 35 inches (890 mm) of rain fell. This disrupted the program for airbase construction. Japanese aircraft made continual raids on Tacloban, destroying 27 aircraft in a single raid. MacArthur was forced to ask Nimitz to recall the carriers to support the Sixth Army. He also got Nimitz to lend some US Marine Corps night fighters to help defend Tacloban. The carrier aircraft proved to be no substitute for the continual cover provided by land-based aircraft, and the lack of air cover permitted the Japanese Army to pour fresh troops into Leyte. The adverse weather and valiant Japanese resistance slowed the American advance ashore. In December, MacArthur landed the 77th Infantry Division at Ormoc City, shutting the “back door” to Leyte. By the end of December, Krueger’s headquarters estimated that 5,000 Japanese remained on Leyte, and on December 26 MacArthur issued a communiqué announcing that “the campaign can now be regarded as closed except for minor mopping up.” However, Eichelberger’s Eighth Army would kill more than 27,000 Japanese on Leyte between then and the end of the campaign May 1945. On December 16, 1944, MacArthur was promoted to the new 5 star rank of General of the Army. MacArthur had a Filipino silversmith make the rank badges from American, Australian, Dutch and Filipino coins.

Luzon

He consolidated his hold on the archipelago after heavy fighting in the Battle of Luzon and Battle of Manila. MacArthur made full use of amphibious and combined operations, while utilizing paratroop, motorized infantry, and even indigenous guerrilla forces for special operations and to multiply his force advantage. With the reconquest of the islands, MacArthur moved his headquarters to Manila, where he announced his plan for the invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall), to commence November 1, 1945. The invasion was preempted by Japan’s capitulation.

Off Leyte, October 1944 Left to right:
Lieutenant General George Kenney,
Lieutenant General Richard K. Sutherland,
President Sergio Osmeña,
General Douglas MacArthur

In 1945, MacArthur gave his Gold Castles engineers’ insignia to his chief engineer, Jack Sverdrup. This insignia continues to be worn by the Army’s Chief of Engineers as a tradition.

On September 2, MacArthur accepted the formal Japanese surrender aboard Missouri, thus ending World War II.

 

Other Events on this Day

• In 1816…
  The U.S. Supreme Court affirms its right to review the decisions of state courts.
• In 1922…
  The USS Langley, converted from the collier USS Jupiter, is commissioned as the first U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.
• In 1942…
  In Australia, General Douglas MacArthur pledges to fight his way back to the Japanese controlled Philippines, declaring “I shall return”.
• In 2003…
  One day after an air attack, a coalition of troops comprised mainly of U.S. and British forces invades Iraq, quickly overwhelming Saddam Hussein’s army.

Dates and events based on:

William J. Bennett and John Cribb, (2008) The American Patriot’s Almanac Daily Readings on America. (Kindle Edition)

Background information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Douglas MacArthur… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_McArthur

Brainy Quote: Douglas MacArthur Quotes… 
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/douglas_macarthur.html