Episode 310
Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines
Sun, 2018-Mar-11 00:31 UTC
Length - 2:58
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Sunday, 11 March 2018 is Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines.
General Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines began on 11 March 1942, during World War II, when the general and members of his family and staff left Corregidor Island and his forces, surrounded by the Japanese, traveled in PT boats through stormy seas patrolled by Japanese warships, and reached Mindanao two days later. From itthere, MacArthur and his party flew to Australia in a pair of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, ultimately arriving in Melbourne by train on 21 March. In Australia, he made his famous speech in which he declared, "I came through and I shall return".
MacArthur was a well-known and experienced officer with a distinguished record in World War I, who had retired from the United States Army in 1937 and had become a defense advisor to the Philippine government. He was recalled to active duty with the United States Army in July 1941, a few months before the outbreak of the Pacific War between the United States and the Empire of Japan, to become commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE), uniting the Philippine and United States Armies under one command.
By March 1942, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines had compelled MacArthur to withdraw his forces on Luzon to Bataan, while his headquarters and his family moved to Corregidor. The doomed defense of Bataan captured the imagination of the American public. At a time when the news from all fronts was uniformly bad, MacArthur became a living symbol of Allied resistance to the Japanese.
Fearing that Corregidor would soon fall, and MacArthur would be taken prisoner, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to go to Australia. A submarine was made available, but MacArthur elected to break through the Japanese blockade in PT boats under the command of Lieutenant (junior grade) John D. Bulkeley. The staff MacArthur brought with him became known as the "Bataan Gang". They would become the nucleus of his General Headquarters (GHQ) Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA).
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:31 UTC on Sunday, 11 March 2018.
For the full current version of the article, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur%27s_escape_from_the_Philippines.
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