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Show PORTRAIT OF A HERO: "Nothing has stood longer unless it be MacArthur, the hills and the devil." Believe it or not, that's an old Scotch proverb! . . . The Mac-Arthurs Mac-Arthurs are the oldest known Scotch clan. According to legend, the first MacArthur, Smervie Mohr, was the. son of King Arthur of the Round Table. (MacArthur means "son of Arthur") . . . Gen'l Douglas Mac-Arthur Mac-Arthur proves once again that the Scots have what it takes. Previous yankee doodle heroes of Scotch origin ori-gin include John Paul Jones, Andrew An-drew Jackson, Jeb Stuart and Ulysses S. Grant. (Scotch and soldier, sol-dier, pun my soul!) MacArthur is like this: When he commanded the Rainbow Division in France during World War I, his superior officer told him one day that he wanted the Cote de Chatillon (a strongly fortified German key position) taken by six o'clock the following follow-ing evening. MacArthur's answer an-swer was: "We will take the Cote de Chatillon by six o'clock tomorrow or report a casualty list of 6,000 dead. That will include in-clude me." When MacArthur went over the top with his troops in France, the only head-covering he ever wore was his everyday service cap, disdaining dis-daining the safer steel helmet required re-quired by regulations. Called down once by his immediate commander. General Menoher, for taking that risk, MacArthur's reply was: . "I can't be bothered with changing my hat when I'm busy!" Shortly after the first American troops arrived in France under Mac-Arthur, Mac-Arthur, the French, who didn't think muci of the Yanks as scrappers, figured fig-ured they'd put on a show and give MacArthur an idea of what real soldiers sol-diers were like. Placing MacArthur in a spot where he could safely watch the Frenchies do their big stuff, they staged a surprise raid on the Germans Ger-mans across the line. Machine guns started to bark, shrapnel burst, and men were dropping all over the place. MacArthur, armed only with a riding whip, jumped into the battle. bat-tle. When it was over, MacArthur walked over to the wide-eyed Frenchies, leading by the ear a German Ger-man officer whom he had captured with nothing but a whip! The bitter irony is that when MacArthur was Chief of Staff, he made a mob of enemies and was branded a warmonger because be-cause he pleaded for preparedness! prepared-ness! The campaign to smear MacArthur hit a peak half a dozen years ago when he retired, re-tired, with Pres. Roosevelt's approval, ap-proval, to take on the job of building the Philippines' defenses. de-fenses. His enemies screamed that Manuel Quezon was paying him a salary of $18,000 a year to help him establish a military dictatorship. MacArthur's withering with-ering reply was: "I wouldn't sell my sword." Back in the early thirties, when he was Chief of Staff, MacArthur prophetically warned that the coming com-ing war would be a mechanized affair af-fair and repeatedly begged congress for a giant air force and a motorized motor-ized army. Instead of opening their minds to let in some fresh air, the Rip Van Winkles quipped that the reason MacArthur was anxious to motorize the army was because of his well known dislike for riding a horse! . . - Later, when he was busily training his little native army in the Philippines, many Americans there referred to him sneeringly as "the Napoleon of Luzon." (They didn't know it, but they weren't kidding!) kid-ding!) . . . Unlike the second-guess-ers now beating the drum for the hero they' once belittled, Pres. Roosevelt was a MacArthur fan away back. When MacArthur retired re-tired as Chief of Staff for what seemed like military oblivion in the Philippines, Mr. Roosevelt told his aides: "I must always find a way to keep MacArthur close to me. If there is ever another A.E.F., he's the man to take it over!" Newspaper men eat out of MacArthur's hand, and no wonder! won-der! When he was Commander of the Philippine Department and news of his divorce from his first wife reached Manila, the local newspaper men rushed to his headquarters and asked if he j objected to their printing the story, adding they would suppress sup-press it if he wished. "No," was the reply. "Put it on the front page if you want to!" Euy Defense Bonds MacArthur is one man who wa.sn't caught napping by the Japs. On December 6 the day before the Pearl Harbor attack he called the reporters in to his Manila headquarters headquar-ters and told them: "Boys, it's here!" . . . When news of a successful suc-cessful raid on the Japs reached Washington, an army officer remarked: re-marked: "MacArthur is always in the thick of 'the battle!" . . . "You mean," corrected a Rainbow Divi-I Divi-I sion veteran, "the thick of the battle bat-tle is always where MacArthur is!" |