Why was Douglas MacArthur considered such a phenomenal commander?

by Gadajs

I was listening to a podcast about the war in the pacific and the narrator would talk about MacArthur as if he was already some sort of military genius that was a household name before the onset of WW2. His defense of the Philippines doesn't strike me (the very definition of an armchair critic lol) as particularly brilliant. The success of the pacific campaign always seemed more down to the Admirals and the Navy than anything MacArthur did. Please forgive my ignorance, I am not American, just a fan of history.

So basically, apart from being born into a very distinguished military family, and coming top at west point, what was so special about MacArthur? What were his greatest triumphs, and why was he so famous?

To add to my answer that u/RiceEatingSavage linked, MacArthur was a shameless self promoter, whom Roosevelt lumped in with Huey Long. Roosevelt and the Army also set him up for success with an array of extremely talented subordinates.

That said, I want to expand on my answer from before: no one could have successfully defended the Phillipines. Yes, MacArthur was corrupt, his battle plan was crap (but also politically motivated), but he knew beforehand that he was going to lose. The Philippine Army was a shambles, the equipment was terrible, and they had barely any air defense and little armor.

On the eve of World War II, MacArthur was visited in his Manila headquarters in the Philippines by journalist Clare Boothe Luce, who wanted to profile him for Life magazine. Luce asked MacArthur his theory of offensive warfare. “Did you ever hear the baseball expression, ‘hit ‘em where they ain’t?’ That’s my formula,” he jauntily explained. “But when she then asked him for his formula for defensive warfare, he hesitated,” Perry relates, “before finally answering. ‘Defeat.’ ”

The plan was always to turtle up in Corregidor and pray the Navy could come save them.

About your point about the Navy doing more, the island hopping campaign doesn't work without the Army and Marines doing the god-awful work of actually clearing out island by island, especially the later ones with ridiculous defenses. For all his faults, MacArthur handled intelligence well, stuck to his guns on the campaign objectives (thereby preserving the lives of many soldiers), and handled his end of the air war quite well. He essentially had his own propaganda machine the entire time, working in the US, Australia, and later the Philippines, so he made sure that everyone knew that he was successful. He was also very capable as military governor of Japan, where he, again, was able to keep himself in the news and on the radio. IIRC, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II by Gerhard Weinberg and The Most Dangerous Man in America by Mark Perry go into more detail of his PR, but I don't have them handy for more.

So if anyone tells you he's a military genius, know that sometimes MacArthur spent almost as much time and energy to get that person to believe it as he did actually doing his job.