And served as a guest commentator i and a History Channel documentary on dday. The latest book by air and fortitude is the first installment of a twopart history o of the u. S. Army durig world war ii. Fire and fortitude, the tragedy and triumphs of the soldiers from pearl harbor to the battles and the islands. Based on Extensive Research from government archives and academic collections, fire and fortitude is a riveting narrative with a masterful historian profound insight. Please help me welcome our future author st. Louis hometown boy, john mcmanus. [applause] thank you, jessica, i appreciate it. The whole Library Staff and i would like to thank my publicist for helping make this possible and my executive editor who came up with that title by air and fortitude, so i have to give him credit. I would like to thank all of you for making time in your schedule to come out here tonight and listened to what i think is an incredible and compelling story. One that ive been working on for the better part of a decade or so of the research and writing, so its quite exciting for me to see this come together tonight. Of course the venue is perfect because i love the county library. I grew up here of course an open question whether i ever really did grow up. [laughter] naomi might indicate otherwise, but indeed i did, and decided its partially because of the influence of this remarkable institution, a place where i came to love books and in a world of books and writing so much. Tonight, but id like to do is maybe bring this to life for you a little bit, maybe revise somewhat and give you a thing of how this shakes the world today. When you check out this map, you can see it taking place over this huge expensive geography. One third of the worlds surface, massive amounts of goshen, confident, islands so vast there was no way that one theater commander could hope to command at all from the geographic plaintiff view, but also because the army and navy leaders could never agree to that one commander would be. It was partially a compromise. You take a glance and you can get a sense of the scale and problems inherent i also want to address our popular perception that the marine corps fault the entire war in the pacific and that the navy did pretty much everything else. The army did the vast majority of the fighting in the Pacific Theater and yet, all of us there is no shame in it if you believe athat as you walk through the door tonight they didnt have much of a role in the pacific because that tends to be the possible american memory. They recently made this statement they sat down and decided they would fight in europe. Others might have conversations with come even though this to be the pacific. One said i didnt even know the army was in the pacific. So, that is kind of what we are up against. What i hope to do is not at all to denigrate the marine corps, quite the contrary. Its not a very big service. It was mobilized in the six divisions which is the largest it has ever been. And Incredible Fighting but it wasnt designed to handle the vast scale of this kind of bir birth. I want to focus it isnt designed to diminish or minimize the marine corps contribution in fact, quite the contrary and you see this in the book fighting shoulder to shoulder having to figure out how to Work Together to. Learning lessons from the band whether they want to admit it or otherwise. Why the obscurity there are several reasons. The priority of the resource went to europe and then the priority of prosperity have gone to europe and i wouldnt necessarily argue that. The Pacific Theater of operations again glance at the map and look at all that. Certainly they have a nature role in that war and i wouldnt dispute that. The domination of Douglas Macarthur as the lead figure sucking the oxygen out of the room for pretty much everybody else, colleagues or otherwise but also on the flipside of that might give an indication if someone of his status within the pacific perhaps there were some major assets and that is true. The unbalanced press coverage at the time, think about it if you are a war correspondent at the time, you will probably go to the europe because its a bigger war and there is more process support a. Another factor the racial savagery isnt always pleasant to look back on and remember when we think of world war ii as a supposed that good war. I think o of it as an oxymoron t that is our popular memory of the war. The humiliating nature of the early defeat in which japan gleamed the allies clocks isnt particularly fun to think about and another factor i think is the exotic alien love how come the places that were important at the time but were quite forgettable to americans before and after the war, places like guadalcanal, new guinea, where every would be. If you think that the subsequent years discussing with her husband or wif wife a wife the d to her that you want to do and saying should we go to the jungles this year or guadalcanal or new guinea, that is a tough one. Its going to be hard to sort that out, so thats pretty easy to figure out. 1. 8 million american soldiers served in the pacific and that doesnt include the Army Air Force which of course is part of the army and just including the ground soldiers. That was a Third Largest army in this country hathis country hast overseas to fight a war behind the theater army in world war i. A big. Of 15 in the spring of 1945 in the philippines over a fiveweek period. Out of 35. Just that one unit alone. The marine corps mobilized at full strength for six divisions of large and the army was almost four as large in the combat units. Its a broader perspective to think about that a minute so maybe i am speaking up for the these. They didnt have the good fortune in the sense of prosperity to fight on the battlefield with normandy and received those glades but they fought just as hard. Theres a lot of legacies and things to learn from, so weve established this in the first place after all these years the atomic bomb for instance the sort of ultra code breaking and all that have seen a lot of great work done but i wouldnt say it is over with, but a lot has been done and the thing i found that there was massive amounts of material for a story that hasnt been sold out quickly and then loads of great material to tell it. One of the things i found is a great deal of japanese stuff. Japanese soldiers, because they didnt anticipate any of them would ever be captured because this was of course forbidden in the japanese army. Japanese soldiers kept diaries. They were not trained to clam up the way that they were an in for when they were killed, they could be captured and so thousands of them were captured, translated by the translators and deep in the archives pretty remarkable stories to be found. So the book, as jessica indicated, strikes through the end of 1943 and its certainly a combat comical but its more than that. It is this feeling with all of the foibles of this thing, combat leadership, incredible did you see the army default from this provincial force things that give meaning to the story and give us things to learn from all these years later. Example, i indicated this a moment ago, but it foretells its pretty much all of subsequent American Force the way they will be fought from korea for the 21st century against opponents who largely recognized as americans would have understood them under the geneva convention, and then in turn from the pacific war and onward through today are then struggling with their own morality and whether they can hold up to the stand and have two turnabout against their enemies. That is a harbinger that you see with a few exceptions like grenada, panama, mogadishu. Every war has been fought somewhere on the continent. The pacific war is sort of the harbinger of death. Most of the american war have been fought and decided on the ground but the actual fighting has tended to take place on the ground and to the tune of 90 of our deaths since world war ii. Most of that has been done by army soldiers. The other thing american soldiers in the Pacific Theater, world war ii, carried out for a cultural understanding and missions in places like burma and china and the philippines and the islands of the South Pacific that you can equate the special forceaspecial forces mie later generation that continues to the 21st century today. You are already seeing that in the Pacific Theater and the european theater with permissions and all that. But its not quite the same as in the pacific and in cultural goals. You see the vital importance of the coordination. Think about it from the Army Commander point of view are you going anywhere without the need in the pacific, zero. Everybody has to get on the ship and go some where. Youve got to coordinate and vice versa. Much less, the marine corps as well. Dealing with allies, some of whom of course are very close to the americans culturally and whatever else he may be amazed how contentious the horror in world war ii and incredibly denis at times. Much less the Greater Cultural gap in understanding inheritance trying to work with the nationalist chinese that is just so reminiscent of what the americans are going to experience a generation later dealing with the south vietnamese in the vietnam war. So it unleashes all of these kind of ten jens, powerful nationalistic idealistic ethnic forces they couldnt hope to control. The nationalist movements in the war in places like china, malaysia and indonesia, and of course vietnam. As you can imagine, theres a lot of battles and issues and personalities object a objects d discuss in depth to get a full appreciation of that you have to buy the book and read it all, so thats always my various agenda. We could open up the page number one but that would be pretty dull. These baby come they the feel of the fire and fortitude and i hope by extension the experience in the pacific war. Lets start with the Great Elephant in the room can b, thes were mentioned Douglas Macarthur a man whose ego on a good day might have it in the grand canyon and possibly. By world war ii, hed really been around the block. He was in his 60s. He was a west point class son of a general, very prominent, but his father was a civil war hero who had a medal of honor for valor and deserved it for his service in the civil war he ascended the Lieutenant General and commanded forces in the philippines that began a love affair between the family and the philippines and its people. And the douglas inherited about and had many pores of duty. He came to prominence during world war i as a Brigade Commander earned many medals for valor and whats interesting about macarthur and this is interesting in its psyche he viewed himself as an outsider, people plotting against him in washington or who had other agendas that doesnt jive with his. They were sabotaging hemp. But if you step back from this more objectively, it is the ultimate army insider. The son of a general who was able to pull some strings for his, for douglas, and his mother would write letters to everyone from general pershing on down to promote career with greater success. Douglas was the younger of two brothers. His older brother was actually in the navy and had a very prominent courier and then died in 1921 of appendicitis of all things. Not long before that, her husband had been speaking at a veterans event and collapsed and died. So, really to her the life and career meant everything. He becomes the young army chief of staff at 50 something, something his father had done. But you always see this lifelong tendency like those rules dont quite apply to me. He will always have that kind of element about him so chief of staff in the early to mid50s and not a really happy experience for him because of the force of readiness, nobody wants to spend on a literary stuff and so you end up not coming back for another term and return to developinreturned to r the invitation of the president who was beginning to stand up for Philippine Government and what happened when Congress Passed the act of saying we are going to get the independence in 1946. So they have an assembly and then armed force armed forces at so thats where macarthur comes in the second half going to the philippines to create the Filipino Armed forces. He becomes a field marshal, really kind of a hollow title. He took someone with him who was quite obscure and will come to prominence later, dwight eisenhower, you may have heard of him. He worked with him when douglas was chief of staff and eisenhower then goes to the philippines for about three years. Mcarthur and his defense was such lousy funding into Serious Problems tryinproblems trying tr any kind of military force because of the diffusion of islands its made up of at least 7,000. No one could control the different languages and traditions into this stuff so you might have a National Guard unit with 30 or 35 guys and six or seven languages represented. How do people communicate and Work Together there is no weapon or money for it. Very frustrating. Was there an American Military force of things, yes, a lot of engineerengineers and coastal td also the philippine scouts highly prized to get into the u. S. Army. So, you have the british model and its about 20 to 25 and the rest they are armed, trained and equipped and run by the americans. So, he is recalled to active duty on the eve of the war and is giving threestar rank and then eventually force for to come into force in the philippines and they thought about this a long time and come up with the war plan which will boil down because it is possible Army Doctrine thing, but the bottom line is it says theres no way because the japanese proximity is no way we can defend and then the island where manella is over here. We just cant do that. So what we are going to do when and if the japanese d to invade, we are going to be treate retree peninsula which is excellent defensible ground, a lot of religious and mountains you can stymie the japanese and then they will fly to the major bluewater open engagement and of able get through so we are not going to try to defend the whole post and everything. Mcarthur looks at that and says no way. We are going to defend and strengthen out weve go thoughtl along the coast and we are going to stop the japanese right near the water line. Though he left both i believe seldom in history as the commander so badly mismanaged the campaign and then is perceived at the countrymen of the time in many sense as a great battle captain perhaps even a genius. His position is difficult with r this error is mainly this one made things worse. He loses his book on the ground with 16 hours of pearl harbor knowing that the hostility commenced. There is a whole series that happens there with miscommunications and so on and so forth that i will not bore you with, but the bottom line is he is the one in charge. They destroy at least half the aircraft on the ground and what that means if they are not going to control the air around the philippines which means the controversy which means they can land people wherever they want to regardless of where you have your troops deployed. And that is precisely what happened. So, later in december they landed in two places in the northern part and southern parts they set up the airfield to protect their ships and they have a main landing a the main e golf, which is right about there. Then moves down towards manella from both directions and by about christmas time, macarthur comes to realize maybe it had something to recommend because the army just melted away. You are a Philippine Army soldier. You are up against a better trained armed force. You are not outnumbered. That is propagated by the headquarters. In fact be outnumbered by factors of 21 during this campaign so you are not outnumbered you just dont control the air and see. To his credit he doesnt just jt claimed that a plan he says lets just go back and get our people out of wherever they are and then we will hope for the best. They declare this an open city and the japanese are going to take thagood thatway the end of. They get there partially because it is going pretty well considering the circumstances and considering the chaos but also because they dont have enough people and the ability to destroy them. They just dont have that. By early january, the army has made it, but there is a tremendous consequence for what has happened. Theyve been scattered all over because of the changes so you have the other supplies forward and wherever you were disposed here instead of waiting out the consequence you cant get it to where it needs to be. 10 Million Pounds were stored at the central part. Macarthur refuses to give orders to move it. They said please dont do that im worried the population will panic. He wont even let his men appropriate to japanese warehouses and food parcels and packages in the warehouses and manella. So you have terrible consequences that eventuall that from disk and by the time you are in the first week of january, you are at a really dicey situation. They estimated the following situations i like the first week of january. We have 30 days of ration, 50 days of canned meat or fish, 20 days left of canned milk, 30 days of flower, tomatoes and 20 days of rice and thats it. For an army of about 8 80 plus o almost 100,000, not to mention a civilians who were there. And turned to local food resources, not really they were slaughtering 30 to 40 per day. Mainly those which by the testimony of the veterans who were part of this its very tough, not enjoyable to try to eat without 30 to 40 per day which meant 6 ounces per day program. They put an end to phishing and used all of the local population. What that meant for you if you are down to half and then quarter by february or so. You are me and probably diseased at that point. The japanese are in much better shape if that is about the only good. They are not in good shape either. They are too ambitious to try to launch behind the allied line and there were disasters. Already you see the ten chin in this war for fighting rather than surrendering. So, they are fighting really hard an