His bestselling book, the debtor those about to die, september hope, and deadly sky. John is curator professor of us military history at Missouri University of science and technology. He recently finished a 1year visiting professorship at the Naval Academy in annapolis and served as guest commentator in a History Channel documentary on dday. Johns latest book, fire and fortitude the u. S. Army in the pacific war, 19411943, is the first installment of a 2part history of the u. S. Army during world war ii. Fire and fortitude the u. S. Army in the pacific war, 19411943 covers the tragedies and triumphs of the u. S. Army soldiers from pearl harbor to the battles in the macon islands. Based on Extensive Research from government archives and academic collections, fire and fortitude the u. S. Army in the pacific war, 19411943 is a riveting narrative with a historians profound insights. Help me welcome our featured author, st. Louis hometown boy, john mcmanus. You need that. You do. Thank you, appreciate it. I want to thank my publicist for making this possible, and brent howard who came up with that title fire and fortitude the u. S. Army in the pacific war, 19411943. I would like to thank all of you for making time in your busy schedule tonight. And and it comes together tonight. The question of where i did grow up. And it is partially because, the remarkable institution. For the world of books and learning and writing so much. What i would like to do is bring it to life for you. Lets revise the review of world war ii somewhat, give you a sense how this war shaped our world today. When you check this map you can see the war taking place over a huge vast expanse of geography. One third of the worlds surface, massive amounts of ocean, continent, so vast that there was no way, one theater commander could hope to command it all, from the geographic point of view but because army and navy leaders can never agree on who it would be. It was partially a compromise and the sheer scale inherent in fighting that environment. I also want to address our kind of popular perception the Us Marine Corps fought the entire ground war in the pacific. The army took the vast majority of the fighting and dying in the Pacific Theater and all of us, no shame if you believe that, the army didnt have much role in the pacific because that is the Popular American memory and i have seen this from very knowledgeable people about world war ii, had an encounter with a tour guide who said at the beginning of the war army and marine corps leaders sat down and decided the army will fight in the pacific. Even those who studied the pacific, one of them sat down with me and said the army was in the pacific. That is what we are up against so what i hoped to do is not at all in any shape or form denigrate the marine corps, quite the contrary. The marine corps is not a big service. There has been incredible fighting, not designed for the vast scale of this kind of war. The focus on the army in world war ii was not designed to minimize the contribution of the marine corps but to show, and you see this in the book, and how to Work Together, sometimes they did well to gather, learning lessons whether they want to admit it or not they have more in common than otherwise. Why the obscurity for the army . Several reasons. The Germany First policy in world war ii naturally oriented the american thinking to europe and the priority resource went to europe and the priority of posterity has gone to europe. I wouldnt necessarily argue that. The maritime nature of the pto. Look at all that ocean. Certainly the navy has a massive role in that war. The domination of Douglas Macarthur as the lead figure in the pacific war sucking the oxygen out of the room for everyone else, colleagues or otherwise in the army and also on the flipside that might indicate someone of his status was in the pacific, perhaps there were some major army assets and that is true. The unbalanced press coverage of the time. If you are a war correspondent at the time youre probably going to your because a lot more infrastructure to support your communications. It is a bigger war, more press support, easier to get your story back where it needs to go than in some stranded remote Pacific Islands of history has followed that to some extent. The troubling brutality and racial 70 of the fighting itself which isnt always pleasant to look back and remember when we think of world war ii as a supposed goodwill. I think that is an oxymoron but that is our popular memory of the war. The humiliating nature of the early defeats in which japan cleaned the allies clocks is not a particularly fun thing to think about either and finally another factor is the exotic alien locales. Places that were important at the time but quite forgettable to americans before and after the war, places like guadalcanal, new guinea, wherever it would be. Think about subsequent years, world war ii tourism, think about this. You are discussing with your husband or wife the world war ii battlefield tour you want to do and saying should we go to the jungles or guadalcanal or new guinea or should we go to normandy . That is a tough one. It will be hard to sort that one out. That is easy to figure out. In truth, 1. 8 million american soldiers served in pacific asia during world war ii, that doesnt include the army air force, which the air force was part of the army in world war ii. Im just including ground soldiers, that was the thirdlargest army this country has ever sent overseas to fight a war behind only the world war ii european theater army, the army carried out by far the most amphibious landings. The marine corps carried out 15 amphibious invasions. The armys eighth army alone in spring of 1945 in the philippines over a 5 week period carried out 35, just that one unit alone. The marine corps mobilized at full strength with 6 divisions, large. The army was almost four times as large in combat units and im not even mentioning all the support it had. It gives you a little bit of a broader perspective to think about that a minute. Maybe im speaking up for these poor guys, the guys in the average Pacific Theater, g. I. Who did not have the fortune or sense of posterity to fight on a famous european battlefield like normandy or the battle of the bulge or something and receive those accolades but they fought just as hard and in a much tougher environment in my view and i think there war gives us a lot of legacies and a lot of things to learn from so we have established there had been this huge historical gap which attracted me to this story in the first place. In world war ii studies for all these years there are some topics that have been done to death, the dropping of the atomic bomb for instance, the sort of ultra side of the war, the code breaking, weve seen a lot of great work done but i wouldnt say it is over with but a lot has been done. This was a little more of a virgin wilderness. The thing i found his massive amounts of great material, sweet spot for historian, a story that has not been told adequately, loads of treatments to tell it. One of the things i found was a great deal of japanese stuff. Japanese soldiers because Japanese Armed forces did not anticipate any of them would be captured because this was for been in the japanese army. Japanese soldiers took diaries, they were not trained to clam up in that regard as americans were and so when they were killed there diaries could be captured and so thousands of those diaries were captured, translated by allied translators and many of them buried deep in the archives. A pretty remarkable story to be found so the japanese perspective so the book as jessica indicated stretches from pearl harbor through the invasion of megan in 1943, certainly a combat chronicle but way more than that, a human epic dealing with all of this thing, and fabius warfare, sexuality, race, combat, leadership, incredible, vast, human epic, to see the army even all from the in word provincial force to a massive, complex military force capable of carrying out incredible complicated modern operations. You see some themes arise, themes that give meaning to the story and things to learn from all these years later. Example these average of the fighting. I indicated that a moment ago. What it foretells is all of subsequent american wars from korea through the 21st century against opponents who largely recognize no rules of war americans would have understood under the Geneva Convention and in turn the americans themselves from the pacific war onward through today struggle with their own sense of morality, whether they can hold up to the standard of turnabout against their enemies. That is definitely a harbinger that you see. With a few small exceptions like grenada and canada and mogadishu every subsequent american war has been fought on the asian continent. The pacific war is your harbinger of that. Most american wars have been fought and decided on the grounds, though air and sea power is dramatically important but the actual fighting had to take place on the ground and most of the dying to the tune of 90 of our death since world war ii. The pacific war sets that tone and most of the fighting and dying has been done by enemy soldiers. The other thing is american soldiers in the Pacific Theater in world war ii carried out cultural understanding and present commission in places like burma, china, the philippines, islands of the South Pacific, that you can equate to the special forces mission of a later generation that continues to the 21st century today. You are seeing that in the Pacific Theater, youre seeing a little of it in the european theater with oss missions and all that but not the same as the pacific and not as great a cultural gulf. The importance of interservice coordination, when you get anywhere without the navy in the pacific, europe, nothing. Anyone gets on a ship and goes somewhere. Youve got to coordinate with the navy and vice versa much less the marine corps. Dealing with allies, some very close to the americans culturally, whatever else you would be amazed how contentious relations are in world war ii. Cultural gap, in the nationalist chinese, the National Chinese we is so reminiscent, in the south vietnamese vietnam war. And idealistic force the usa cannot hope to control. With antiimperialist nationalist movements, and vietnam. As you can imagine theres a lot of battles and personality subjects we could discuss in depth to get a full appreciation that you have to buy the book and read it. That is always my necessary us agenda. And the most representative stories, and by extension the armys experience in the war. Lets that with the elephant in the room. A man whose ego on a good day might have fit on the grand canyon possibly. Not a good day. In the 60s, a son of a general, very prominent general, macarthurs father was a civil war hero who had gotten a medal of honor, and the turnofthecentury, 19th, and 20th and that began a long love affair, in the philippines and its people. Many tours of duty in the philippines, loved the place. A brigade commander, what is interesting about macarthur, insight into the psyche, he viewed himself as an outsider. There are always people plotting against him in washington or had other agendas that didnt jibe with him, they were sabotaging him and this and that and the other thing but if you step back more aggressively, it is the ultimate army insight. The son of a general who is able to pull some strings for douglas and his mother whose nickname was pinky would write letters to everyone from general pershing on down to promote douglass career and Great Success in doing that. Douglas was the younger of two brothers. His older brother was in the navy and had a prominent career that was going, died in 1921 of appendicitis of all things. A curable thing. Douglass mother absorbed that blow and not long before that her husband had been speaking at a veterans event and collapsed and died. To her, douglas and his life and career meant everything and douglass career went very well. He become the youngest superintendent of west point, the young army chief of staff at age 50, something his father hadnt done so the sense of mission in doing that, you see this lifelong tendency that the rules dont apply to me. He always had that element about him so he is chief of staff in the early to mid 30s, not a really happy experience for him, conflicted with Roosevelt Administration over readiness. Nobody wants to spend on military stuff. He ends up not coming back for another term and a return to the philippines at the invitation of an old friend, president who was beginning to stand up and newly independent philippines government. Congress passed an act saying we will give the philippines its independence in 1946. They will have armed forces and all that. That is where macarthur comes in in the second half of the 1930s going to the philippines to create the Filipino Armed forces out of whole cloth. He comes a field marshal in the Philippines Armed forces, kind of a homicidal. He took someone with him who was acquainted curated who will come to prominence later, dwight eisenhower, might have heard of him. I worked with him, already worked with him when douglass chief of staff, eisenhower goes to the philippines for 3 years and was done with macarthur after that so the foibles he dealt with. Macarthur was developing a tough situation, putting together any kind of military force because of the diffusion of islands. The philippines are made of 7000 islands, and archipelago no one could control, different traditions and all this stuff. You might have a National Guard oriented your it with 35 guys, 6 or 7 languages represented. How did people communicate and Work Together . No weapons, no money, very frustrating kind of thing. Was there an american emissary force . Yes, regular forces, engineers Coastal Artillery types and the philippines scouts and local guys who serve in the army, highly prized to get into the u. S. Army, incredible soldiers. You have on the eve of world war ii a military force unique in American History, a colonial force like the british model, 20 to 25 american and the rest is local guys, armed, trained, equipped and run by americans. He is recalled to active duty on the eve of the war, a 3 star rank and eventually 4star rank to command this force in the philippines. He has to decide how to defend the philippines if the japanese ever come . The War Department has been thinking about this for a long time, i will boil down for you the whole long army doctrine, all these boring things. War plan orange says there is no way to defend the whole archipelago or island, the main largest island where manila is over here, we just cant do that. Was we are going to do is retreat to the peninsula which is excellent defensible ground. A lot of ridges, a lot of mountains, you can stymie the japanese and what we will do is our fleet will have blue water, open ocean engagement with the Imperial Japanese navy, defeat them and get through to us and reinforce us and we will deal with pushing them out. We are not going to defend the whole coast and defend everything and deal with them later in that sense. To look at that he says no way. We can defend everything. We will defend the coastline and stretch out to an army along the coast and stop the japanese at the water. Though he led val arrest leanne disingenuously i believe seldom in American History has a commander so badly mismanaged the campaign and been perceived by his countrymen of the time into many historians since as a great battle captain, perhaps even a genius. His position is extremely difficult but his errors, mainly this one, discarding war plan orange made things worse. He loses the bulk of his air force within 12 to 16 hours of pearl harbor knowing hostilities commenced. There is a series of complex web that happens, a series of miscommunications that i wont bore you with. He is the guy in charge. The japanese get the drop on them, destroys these aircraft on the ground and what that means is they are going to control the air around the philippines and wans people where they want regardless where they are deployed and that is what happened. Later in december we land in two places, the northern and southern part to set up and it is about their, and move toward manila from both directions. Macarthur comes to realize every war plan orange had something to recommend it because his army melted away. You are a Philippine Army soldier, barely armed, barely trained, up against the better armed and equipped force, you are not outnumbered. That is a myth propagated by macarthurs headquarters and adherence since. You are not outnumbered but dont control the air and sea and that is important. To macarthurs credit he doesnt just cling to the bad plan, he says lets go back to war plan orange and get our people out of where they are and get them to but an and hope for the best. That makes sense but manila is declared an open city and the japanese take that by the end of the year. The army gets there partially because it is fighting january made it, there is a tremendous consequence on the logistical side. Go to the change in plan and other supplies for word. Consequences cant get to where it needs to be. Appropriate ja warehouses and japanese parcels in manila. You have terrible consequences that eventuate from this. You are in a dicey situation. Macarthurs quartermaster estimated the following situation in the first week of january. 50 days of canned meat or fish, 30 days of flour and canned beans and tomatoes 20 days of writing and that is it. For an army of 80 plus to almost 100,000 not to mention civilians were their too. Can you turn to local food resources . Not really. The army was slaughtering 30 to 40 animals per day, mainly local caribou which is tough meat, not enjoyable to try to eat for 30 to 40 animals per day which meant 6 ounces of meat per day. What about fishing . Japanese air attacks put a end to fishing. What that meant for you as one of macarthurs soldiers is your down to half rations and quarter rations. You are hungry and probab