STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
On this Memorial Day, we remember an American soldier who suffered defeat. He's linked in history with an American known for victory. Jonathan Horn wrote a book about both of them, including the American known for glory.
JONATHAN HORN: Douglas MacArthur is perhaps one of the most famous generals in American history. And I think what he's most famous for are those three words he said when he was ordered to leave the Philippines in 1942 by President Roosevelt - I shall return.
INSKEEP: MacArthur was considered the greatest American soldier. At the start of World War II, he commanded U.S. forces in the Philippines, which were trapped by a Japanese attack. MacArthur was told to flee so Japan would not enjoy a propaganda victory by capturing him.
HORN: But very little is known about the general who took command after Douglas MacArthur left. His name was General Jonathan Wainwright, and he also made a vow. And his vow was to stay with his men and share their fate, even when it meant becoming the highest-ranking American prisoner of World War II.
INSKEEP: Years later, MacArthur did return with forces to the Philippines. But the heart of Jonathan Horn's book, "The Fate Of The Generals," is the general he left behind with American troops who couldn't escape in 1942. Wainwright, like MacArthur, had come from a military family and embraced his duty to stay.
HORN: American and Filipino troops have retreated to a peninsula called Bataan, where they are basically facing starvation and siege. Very quickly, they have to go down to half rations and then eventually to quarter rations, which is about 1,000 calories a day. That's not enough to live healthily in bed all day, to say nothing of trying to fight in foxholes. And there's another island off the tip of Bataan called Corregidor where the Americans have their headquarters in a tunnel. And this is where the Americans will make their last stand, and Bataan will surrender on April 9, 1942. This is the largest surrender of American forces in history, nearly 80,000. In fact, the Japanese would bring Wainwright to a radio studio in Manila, where they force him to make a broadcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JONATHAN WAINWRIGHT: Yesterday, I tendered to Lieutenant General Homma, the commander in chief of the Imperial Japanese forces in the Philippines, the surrender of the four harbor defense forts of Manila Bay.
INSKEEP: How did Americans back home respond in 1942? They're losing this war to the Japanese. Things are going very badly. And suddenly, there's one of their own generals who's being made to step up to the microphone. He's on the radio and surrendering.
HORN: Well, that's a great question because Wainwright is very worried about what Americans back home will think of this decision that he made. In truth, he becomes a hero. Americans understand the difficult decision he made. They know he fought to the very last chance he had. There were literally Japanese tanks pulling up to the entrance of the American headquarters and ready to proceed inside and carry out this massacre, so there really was no choice. And in fact, George Marshall back in Washington will make the proposal to give a Medal of Honor to Wainwright shortly after the surrender of the Philippines. And it would've gone forward except one man said he would strongly speak out against it, and that man was Douglas MacArthur.
INSKEEP: What?
HORN: Who had just received his own Medal of Honor.
INSKEEP: For leaving?
HORN: Yes. General MacArthur was given a Medal of Honor when he reached Australia. And this is perhaps the most unusual Medal of Honor in American history. It was given to General MacArthur to offset Japanese propaganda about the captain deserting the sinking ship. General Marshall and President Roosevelt think about this, and they wonder how they can offset these charges that MacArthur has abandoned his forces in the Philippines. And what they come up with is to give MacArthur the one medal he's never received, the Medal of Honor.
INSKEEP: And then MacArthur said make sure not to give that medal to the guy that I left behind?
HORN: That is exactly what happens, and we have MacArthur's letter vetoing a Medal of Honor for General Wainwright. He says, if it proceeds, he will be forced to release unsavory details about General Wainwright. And I think the implication here is that General Wainwright is an alcoholic.
INSKEEP: Why did MacArthur care so much about denying an honor to the guy that he left behind?
HORN: MacArthur really was outraged that General Wainwright had made the decision to surrender the full Philippines. He seemed not to be able to process that Wainwright had done this because the Japanese were otherwise going to carry out a massacre in the American headquarters of 12,000 or 13,000 lives. But there was something larger. I think for MacArthur, the Medal of Honor always conjured the image of his father, who had received the Medal of Honor during the Civil War for charging up a ridge with the flag in his hand. And the thought of the medal going to someone who ordered the flag to be lowered at the sickening hour of surrender really struck MacArthur that he couldn't let that happen. And, you know, I think this was a great injustice because what Wainwright did was every bit as heroic as anyone carrying the flag up a ridge. He stayed to see it lowered at the sickening hour of surrender when no one else wanted that job.
INSKEEP: What was Wainwright's captivity like?
HORN: Well, so the Japanese had Wainwright as a prisoner of war, and they moved him from the Philippines to Taiwan and eventually all the way to Manchuria, where he faces -49 degrees. He is tortured. He is beaten. The Japanese engage in what Wainwright will describe as systematic starvation. And in June 1945, you can see in Wainwright's diary his health is breaking down. He thinks the war might last for another two years, he's totally cut off from information from the outside world and he thinks he's not going to make it. And he writes this very moving entry in his diary where he says, I fought for life in the Philippines, and I'm going to fight for life with everything I have now. And I think that gives you a sense of what kind of man General Wainwright was.
INSKEEP: When you think about his character and his personality, few of us, hopefully, will ever be in that situation that he was in, but are there lessons that you draw that you find yourself wanting to apply in your own life or wishing other people would?
HORN: One of the lessons I drew from General Wainwright is the importance of keeping your word and honor. And anyone can see it on the first page of his diary that he starts on April 2, 1942, when he says no other course of action would be honorable but to stay with my men and share their fate. That's a real leader.
INSKEEP: Jonathan Horn is the author of "The Fate Of The Generals: MacArthur, Wainwright, And The Epic Battle For The Philippines." Thanks so much.
HORN: Thanks so much for having me.
INSKEEP: After World War II, President Harry S. Truman gave Jonathan Wainwright the Medal of Honor he'd been denied during his captivity. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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