AMERICAN HEROES James Zobel, chief archivist of MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, factors on the iconic pipe, peaked cap and Ray-Ban that outlined Gen. Douglas MacArthur; the tombstone of Pvt. Harold Moon Jr. in his house state of NewMexico. Moon was killed in a suicide assault by Japanese troopers as US forces led by MacArthur superior in Leyte to liberate the Philippines 80 years in the past on Sunday. —Pictures by Danny Petilla
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NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, United States — Among the many bits of memorabilia contained in the museum honoring Gen. Douglas MacArthur right here is the notorious April 11, 1951, letter of termination from President Harry Truman, successfully ending the final’s navy profession.
Positioned inconspicuously on the wall on the second flooring of the MacArthur Memorial, this doc is proof that the imperious MacArthur fought along with his superiors from President Franklin Roosevelt to Truman, at the same time as America waged wars in opposition to Japan and in Korea from 1941 to 1952.
READ: SPECIAL REPORT: Stealing MacArthur’s thunder
On Oct. 2, this reporter flew sofa on United Airways Flight 3716 from Newark Worldwide Airport in New Jersey to Norfolk Worldwide Airport in Virginia.
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Because the Boeing 737 descended from patchy clouds into Norfolk, I might see the energy of America’s naval energy sprawled on the mighty Chesapeake Bay.historic
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However I’m not right here in Norfolk—house of the world’s largest naval base—to ogle at hulking plane carriers and submarines.
4-hour firefight
I’m right here in quest of solutions concerning the legend of an American soldier whose loss of life and martyrdom in my Philippine hometown in 1944 helped defeat the Japanese invaders towards the top of World Conflict II.
James Zobel, the museum’s chief archivist, was pleased to satisfy a customer from the small city in Leyte the place MacArthur and hundreds of his troops splashed ashore 80 years in the past this Sunday.
“We’re glad to have you ever right here,” Zobel mentioned as he confirmed me a glass-covered field that contained three iconic gadgets that outlined MacArthur: his outsized corn cub pipe, the modified crush cap and, after all, the Bausch & Lomb Ray-Ban Aviator.
Eighty years in the past, after the information of MacArthur’s return to the Philippines had unfold world wide, the fierce battle between a 23-year-old American soldier named Pvt. Harold Moon Jr. and a horde of Japanese enemy combatants had but to unfold.
What occurred subsequent would sear the minds of those that witnessed it.
Crack troops from the sixteenth Japanese Imperial Military underneath Lt. Gen. Shiro Makino stored tossing grenades into his foxhole. Moon would decide them up and hurl them again to the enemy, killing them in droves.
“C’mon you yellow sons of bitches! C’mon and struggle,” Moon taunted the attackers, killing an English-speaking Japanese officer along with his Thompson submachine gun.
In an intense four-hour firefight worthy of a Netflix film, Personal Moon engaged actually within the struggle of his life on Oct. 21, 1944, earlier than falling to a bayonet cost by a Japanese suicide platoon.
Two days later, MacArthur stood in entrance of the huge columns of the American-built Leyte Capitol. He didn’t talk about Personal Moon. As an alternative, he praised Ruperto Kangleon, the chief of the Filipino guerrillas in Leyte.
However in toasting Kangleon’s management, MacArthur didn’t say a phrase concerning the hundreds of Filipinos that lay useless in close by Dulag city, all tragic victims of the Individuals’ huge carpet bombing two days earlier than he and his troops arrived in Leyte.
Nonetheless, the troops have been stressed. They have been shocked and awed at Moon’s unimaginable gallantry. The locals got here out of hiding from the hills and the woods to embrace Moon’s heroics. Information of Moon’s epic kills had unfold like wildfire.
Together with his forces depleted and his nation burning and in ruins from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki days earlier, Basic Makino killed himself in Leyte on Aug. 10, 1945, somewhat than give up to the Individuals.
Upstaging MacArthur
“Homeric incredibility,” was the outline utilized by fight reporter Richard Krebs, who traveled with Moon’s battalion in Leyte.
Utilizing his nom de guerre, Jan Valtin, Krebs evaded the navy sensors and wrote the definitive story of the twenty fourth Infantry Division’s operations in Leyte in his 1945 e book, “Youngsters of Yesterday.”
I requested the amiable Zobel if he knew of something in MacArthur’s huge archives that will add to the legend of Personal Moon. Zobel mentioned he didn’t.
However he knew Maj. Gen. Aubrey Newman, commander of the thirty fourth Infantry Regiment, twenty fourth Infantry Division. It was Newman, then a colonel, who made the fateful determination to drag Moon—a perennial troublemaker—out of the stockade and ship him to struggle within the entrance traces.
Personal Moon, the troublemaker and “screw-up of Firm G,” had upstaged the larger-than-life persona of the egotist MacArthur.
“The title of Personal Harold Moon, that actually unforgettable soldier, is remembered time and again, with respect and admiration,” Newman wrote in 1974 as he reminisced about his decisive suggestion to offer Personal Moon America’s highest navy award.
Personal Moon would get his second of glory posthumously when Truman introduced the Medal of Honor to his household on Nov. 15, 1945, making him the primary soldier from New Mexico to get that distinction.
However the rebellious Moon additionally shared a standard trait along with his commander, MacArthur. They each defied their superiors.
Regardless of being on reverse poles of the navy hierarchy, each males obtained America’s highest navy award.
Satirically, MacArthur obtained his on March 25, 1942, whereas in Australia throughout the darkish days of the Pacific Conflict, whereas Filipino and American troopers have been dying by the hundreds.
It could not be shocking that on Sunday’s eightieth commemoration of the A-Day Touchdown in my hometown of Palo, Leyte, officers would say phrases of reward about MacArthur.
Honored in Japan
Organizers have chosen the theme “Yesterday’s Heroes, Right this moment’s Inspiration for the New Technology.”
However would these officers say one phrase about Personal Moon’s heroism?
New Mexico navy historian John Taylor wrote that Moon was even honored within the land of his enemies.
“A theater in Okayama, Japan, was renamed in his honor,” Taylor mentioned in his 2023 e book “A Legacy of Heroism.”
Maj. Gen. James Lester, commander of the twenty fourth Infantry Division, named the Harold H. Moon Theater to honor the soldier’s valor in “virtually single-handedly breaking apart a Japanese counterattack on the newly gained beachhead at Leyte.”
Dying from liver most cancers and a failing kidney in March 1964, MacArthur struggled to put in writing the e book “Reminiscences”—the one one he wrote himself—to mirror on his legacy and influence in historical past.
“It’s my hope that it’s going to show of some curiosity to the rising era, who might study {that a} nation and authorities akin to ours is price combating for, and dying for, if want be,” wrote MacArthur.
On April 5, 1964, MacArthur died at age 84.
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Personal Moon died residing by MacArthur’s mantra. And it was a wonderful loss of life. —contributed
