American cannon fodder

I have always had an interest the World War 2 in the Pacific given that my father and a couple of my uncles were involved in it. Among the numerous things I read about was US general Douglas MacArthur when he became allied commander in the southwest Pacific. As the Australian militia of the 39th and 53rd battalions and other units fought a desperate retreat along the Kokoda Track in the face of a numerically superior Japanese force, MacArthur complained that the Australians were “not fighting” and most appallingly, were not suffering ‘enough casualties’¹.

This was par for the course for MacArthur. He was a vain, aloof, pompous commander who showed no concern for the troops under his command. He tended to surround himself with yes-men. His vanity was demonstrated by his declining to wear a regulation cap, with his having extra gold embroidery, and the cap’s supporting wiring removed. On 22 February 1942, President Roosevelt reluctantly ordered MacArthur to abandon his hard-pressed army in the Philippines and assume the office of Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area (SWPA) with headquarters in Australia. Roosevelt believed that General MacArthur had personally compromised the defence of the Philippines through serious errors of military judgment, but MacArthur had promoted an image of himself in the United States as a hero and brilliant general, and Roosevelt came under enormous public pressure to save MacArthur and give him a new command. MacArthur ordered his starving and desperate troops to fight on to the end, and gave them false hope of survival with a cruel lie that substantial military relief would soon arrive from the United States. While he fled to Australia, his army went into Japanese captivity, from which only about half would survive^2,3.

As the Australians fought their desperate retreat through the jungles of New Guinea, General Douglas MacArthur sat in his comfortable office unaware of the terrain the Australians were fighting in, and also being unaware that the Japanese far outnumbered the Australians. After the disastrous collapse in the Philippines, MacArthur needed some sort of victory to salve his ego. To protect his own prestige, he scapegoated the soldiers on the ground rather than admitting the campaign was difficult. There were also systemic intelligence failures at his headquarters. MacArthur’s staff continually underestimated the strength of the Japanese forces, leading him to believe the Australians were retreating from a much smaller, inferior enemy. In reality, the Australians were facing elite, combat-hardened Japanese veterans of the Malaya and Philippine campaigns.

Furthermore, MacArthur had absolutely no comprehension of the conditions in New Guinea. Commanding from his comfortable headquarters initially in Melbourne and later in Brisbane, he was detached from the realities of jungle warfare. He expected conventional flanking manoeuvres and rapid advances, ignoring the fact that the Kokoda Track was a precipitous, muddy, disease-ridden footpath winding through the Owen Stanley Mountains. The terrain was so severe that moving supplies and evacuating the wounded relied solely on native Papuan carriers and pack animals¹.

Now, moving forward almost 90 years, the USS Abraham Lincoln, an enormous Nimitz class aircraft carrier has been at sea for about nine months without a break, and the crew of some 5,000 are starting to fray around the edges, with a severe mental health crisis leading to several sailors having to be restrained from seemingly committing suicide by throwing themselves overboard. When asked by a reporter if this deployment had gone on for too long, Trump replied “No, no, no, not nearly long enough.” Hegseth, the Secretary of Defence maintained that reports from the ship and from family of crewmembers have “completely misrepresented” the conditions and morale. However, it does seem that food has been a problem, with some sailors reportedly losing weight from lack of it⁴.

Perhaps more to the point is that one sailor said: “The main reason this deployment is so worse [sic] is because we were not supposed to come out here and fight a war. At first when we learned that we would be doing combat operations it was intended to be a 2 week thing. But unfortunately that became a 7 month thing… They told us it was to help Iranian protesters, then they told us we are out here to denuclearise Iran, now it’s to support a blockade. The purpose of even doing this is inconsistent …This is a big let down with consistent extensions that affects our loved ones who have their lives on hold until we return”⁴.

There are also rumours that when a spokesman for the head of Central Command came to speak to the crew, he was met with a chorus of boos and had water bottles thrown at him. This is believed by some to have precipitated something of a mutiny, in which several sailors died. This has not been confirmed. Indeed, it has been denied by Central Command.

That is what happens when you have narcissists at any level, giving orders to troops. The troops are simply cannon fodder to serve the ego of the person giving the orders.

Sources

1. https://www.quora.com/Why-was-MacArthur-so-critical-of-the-Australian-troops-under-his-command-in-1942-43
2. https://www.battleforaustralia.org/battaust/MacArthurinAustralia.html
3. https://samilitaryhistory.org/vol042fw.html
4. https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/cnns-pamela-brown-delivers-gripping-account-of-conditions-morale-onboard-the-uss-abraham-lincoln/