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Forrest McDonald

William Manchester is a literary craftsman of the first rank. Let me tell you just how good he is. Though I was in the U.S. Navy during the War and was imbued with all the prejudices against “Dugout Doug” MacArthur which attended that condition; though Manchester’s version of the Japanese conquest of the Philippines leaves me believing MacArthur’s conduct there was more culpable than I had thought; though MacArthur’s strategy and tactics in the Pacific were largely derivative, having been worked out first by the Navy and the Marine Corps; though American naval and air superiority were such after Midway that we could have won with Gregory Peck in command; still Manchester has managed to convince me, or almost convince me, that Mac-Arthur may have been the greatest general of World War II.

FM

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Forrest McDonald

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Forrest McDonald

William Manchester is a literary craftsman of the first rank. Let me tell you just how good he is. Though I was in the U.S. Navy during the War and was imbued with all the prejudices against “Dugout Doug” MacArthur which attended that condition; though Manchester’s version of the Japanese conquest of the Philippines leaves me believing MacArthur’s conduct there was more culpable than I had thought; though MacArthur’s strategy and tactics in the Pacific were largely derivative, having been worked out first by the Navy and the Marine Corps; though American naval and air superiority were such after Midway that we could have won with Gregory Peck in command; still Manchester has managed to convince me, or almost convince me, that Mac-Arthur may have been the greatest general of World War II.