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Abstract: In the Korean War, MacArthur and Ridgway successively served as commanders-in-chief of the "United Nations Army", which of these two is more powerful? What was the reason for PRESIDENT Harry Truman to replace MacArthur with Ridgway?
During the Korean War, MacArthur and Ridgway successively served as commanders-in-chief of the "United Nations Army", who is more powerful? What was the reason for PRESIDENT Harry Truman to replace MacArthur with Ridgway?
Let's take a look at the experiences of these two people, Douglas MacArthur, born in 1880 into a military family, admitted to the West Point Military Academy in 1899, and graduated with a distinction of 98.43 in 1903, which was not only the first place that year, but also set a record for the highest graduation score of The West Point Military Academy.
He served as chief of staff of the 42nd Infantry Division during World War I, and in June 1919, he became president of the West Point Military Academy, becoming the youngest principal in the history of the West Point Military Academy. In 1928, he was transferred to the commander of the U.S. Forces in the Philippines. In November 1930, he was promoted to the highest military position in the U.S. Army, Chief of Staff (the United States does not have an Army Commander-in-Chief), becoming the youngest Chief of Staff in the history of the U.S. Army. In 1935, after the end of his term as Chief of Staff of the Army, he went to the Philippines to serve as a military adviser to President Quezon and earned the rank of Marshal of the Philippines. In 1937, he retired from the U.S. Army and subsequently became commander-in-chief of the Philippine Army, forming the Philippine Army.
In December 1941, after the outbreak of the Pacific War, he was drafted back into the U.S. Army as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Far East Army. Before the fall of the Philippines, he was transferred back to Australia by President Roosevelt and was commissioned to form the Southwest Pacific Theater. In January 1943, he became commander-in-chief of the Allied Southwest Pacific Theater.
In World War II, MacArthur, as one of the commanders of the two theaters in the Pacific Theater, made great contributions to the defeat of Japan, especially inventing the "island-hopping tactic", selectively capturing islands that were of great significance to the advance of the US military, while blocking or monitoring other islands with sea and air forces, thus greatly accelerating the course of the war. In December 1944, he was promoted to five-star general in the Army.
On September 2, 1945, he presided over the signing ceremony of Japan's surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri and was the first to sign the Japanese surrender instrument as a representative of the Allied Powers. Subsequently, he served as supreme commander of the Allied forces in Japan, responsible for the military occupation and reconstruction of Japan.
In June 1950, the Korean War broke out, and MacArthur became commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army.
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Compared with MacArthur, Ridgway's qualifications were much worse.
Matthew Ridgway was born in 1895 in Fort Monroe, Virginia. In 1917, he graduated from The Military Academy at West Point, fourteen years later than MacArthur, which can be said to be a generation behind. After graduating from The United States Military Academy at West Point, he served as an instructor at the West Point Military Academy and the Fort Benning Infantry School, serving in China, Nicaragua, Panama, Bolivia, the Philippines, Brazil and the United States, and later attended the Command and Staff School and the Army Military Academy.
After the United States entered World War II, it was transferred to the 82nd Infantry Division in 1942 and reorganized the division into an airborne division. During World War II, he commanded the 83rd Airborne Division to participate in the Sicily Landings, normandy landings, Market-Gardens, Ardennes and Ruhr. In September 1944, he was promoted to commander of the 18th Airborne Army. After the war, he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Theater and representative of the Supreme Allied Commander-in-Chief to the Military Staff Committee of the United Nations Security Council. In 1948, he became commander of the United States Forces in the Caribbean. In 1949, he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army.
When MacArthur had already hung up the general's star, Ridgway was the captain. In World War II, MacArthur was commander-in-chief of the theater, a five-star general; and Ridgway was only a military commander, a three-star lieutenant general.
In Korea, MacArthur reached the peak of his prestige by planning, organizing, and directing the Inchon landings, and macArthur was an expert in amphibious landings, commanding eleven large-scale landings in the Pacific War alone. However, a month after the Inchon landing, it was immediately punched in the face, and the Wonsan landing planned and commanded by MacArthur was blocked by a large number of mines laid by the KPA, until the South Korean troops advancing on the shore occupied Wonsan, and the landing force was blocked by mines on the sea outside The Port of Wonsan!
As for whether China would send troops, as well as the intention of the volunteer army to fight after entering The DPRK, MacArthur's judgment was all wrong, so that he was defeated in the first and second battles.
Ridgway and MacArthur also had a brief intersection in Korea, and in November 1950 Ridgway succeeded Walker, who had been killed in a car accident during a retreat, as commander of the 8th Army and became a direct subordinate of MacArthur. For Ridgway, MacArthur's evaluation is still very high. But this period did not last long, and in April 1951, MacArthur was swept to the end, and the commander-in-chief of the "United Nations Army" was taken over by Ridgway.
In the Korean War, MacArthur's highlight was the Inchon landings, and there was nothing else to praise. Ridgway is different, he has just arrived in Korea as the commander of the 8th Army, it is the time when the volunteer army launched the third campaign, in the face of the tide of offensive volunteers, the U.S. army and the Roksmen army because of the failure of the first two battles, morale has fallen to the freezing point, even if Ridgway personally in the middle of the road can not prevent the rout like an avalanche. However, Ridgway immediately judged the situation on the battlefield very soberly and decisively ordered the abandonment of Seoul.
The new official took office with three fires, and was able to abandon the capital Seoul when he first took office, and Ridgway's arrogance and open-mindedness were indeed extraordinary. Peng Dehuai did not feel happy in the face of Seoul, which the US military voluntarily abandoned, but instead came out of his heart a little chill! If you have a master move, you will know if there is a shot!
After Ridgway took over as the commander-in-chief of the "United Nations Army", he immediately analyzed the experience of the first three battles of the volunteer army, and came to the conclusion that the logistics of the volunteer army could not keep up and could only rely on the front-line soldiers to carry it, so it could only be a "prayer offensive", and then in view of this shortcoming of the volunteer army, a "magnetic tactic" was formulated -- the volunteer army launched an offensive, and the US army took the initiative to retreat, but the daily retreat distance did not exceed the limit of the volunteer army's one-night march on foot for 35 kilometers. After retreating for seven consecutive days until the volunteers ran out of food and ammunition, they immediately launched a counterattack. This new tactic did make the volunteers quite passive for a while.
In the fifth campaign, Ridgway went further on the basis of "magnetic tactics", organizing a multi-service mixed task force composed of armored troops, mechanized infantry, artillery and engineers during the counterattack, and under the cover of the air force, quickly interspersed the rear of the volunteer army, seized the main points, disrupted the order of the retreat of the volunteer army, and coordinated with the all-round counterattack of the main force. This move was quite vicious, and the volunteers suffered a lot of losses in five battles.
It can be seen that in the Korean War, Ridgway was obviously smarter than MacArthur in military command.
Yes, Ridgway's military prowess in North Korea was already superior to MacArthur's. MacArthur, originally as a senior general in the US army, the military level is still there, although the "island jumping" tactic during World War II was not what he came up with, but as a theater commander, he can quickly find and adopt from the suggestions of his subordinates, this choice and judgment is also an excellent military quality.
In the Korean War, MacArthur's brightest moment was the success of the Inchon landing, the US military is a highly dependent on its own powerful national strength, civilization is prosperous, science and technology are developed, rich and efficient, at the same time the people are still very martial, the people are strong and strong, the military produced in this social state is very well organized and trained, as the commander of such an army, as long as there is Chinese capital, it can be assisted by staff officers to hang the armies of almost all countries on this planet.
So the real problem of the US military will only be on its own, taking the Inchon landing, many people think that the KPA has deployed only a small number of garrison troops in Inchon, which is a big mistake, in fact, even if the KPA leaves an army, what can it do? The U.S. army didn't care how many defenders there were, they didn't care how much trouble the hydrological conditions in Inchon would cause for the troops to land. Regarding the hydrological tidal conditions in Incheon, if you are interested, you can study it yourself. So to a large extent, MacArthur decided to conduct a landing operation in Inchon, not so much a choice of military ability as a bet on his own character, but in the end MacArthur won the gamble of the century, on the day of the landing, Incheon, regardless of the sea conditions, tides and weather, was very favorable to the landing. The US military successfully landed at Inchon, cut off the waist of the Korean Peninsula, and the situation that was originally surrounded by the KPA in a corner of Busan was overturned in an instant!
At this time, MacArthur was the most beautiful boy in the world! But from this point on, MacArthur began to deal with reporters all day long, busy with show hype, and never again had a judgment above the passing line in strategy, whether politically or militarily. In the past, because of political needs, we officially declared the Korean War that the United States wanted to use Japan as a base and Korea as a springboard to invade our country, but now we basically do not mention it, and tacitly accept that the United States did not have the intention of directly invading us at that time. In fact, at that time, the goal of the "United Nations Army" was only to restore South Korea, and even the decision to cross the 38th Line was the result of MacArthur using the fait accompli to kidnap the will and the will of the people, and he did not do so for the first time, during World War II, he snatched the dominance of the strategic offensive in the Pacific Theater that the United States had already decided to take advantage of from Nimitz.
After the war, through this way to undermine the pre-European and post-Asia policy that the United States has determined, snatching resources from Marshall's hands, and MacArthur is very snobbish, these things can obviously be put on the table to operate, and then privately through the network of relations to promote the passage, he does not, he does not get to the table, directly use personal relations, let people open the back door for themselves, this behavior has long caused the American elite to resent and vigilance, but he uses the overwhelming advantage of the US military, how to fight, in the United States such a society that respects the victors without criticism, There has been no accusation, and there are countless brainless people at the bottom who are confused by this old handsome guy.
However, once the US army crossed the 38th line, MacArthur's good fortune was over, and he was confronted by the big slap of General Peng! Like the people's army in the early days, it was still drunk on the joy of victory a day earlier, and it was beaten up in a night, and the farts and urine flowed in the direction of Busan, and even General Walker, commander of the 8th Army, ended up in a car accident in this chaotic retreat.
And MacArthur did not have any way to solve the problem worth mentioning, of course, in front of the reporters he continued to hold a corn cob pipe, the performance of chaotic clouds flying across the sky is still calm, and later on the Internet when the war prediction is mentioned, can not take out dry goods to give you a nuclear war of the mouth cannon keyboard man, MacArthur in front of the reporter, proposed his way to save the failure, indifferently drew a line on the Chinese side of the map, claiming that he will arrange a no-man's land opened with nuclear weapons on the Chinese side of the Yalu River... The result did not scare us, but frightened our European allies! It has aroused a wave of doubt and opposition from allies to the United States.
At this point, the time had finally come for the American elite to kick him aside, and MacArthur, of course, would be dying and struggling, using his network as usual, only this time to have no effect, so he had to go back to his hometown and slowly wither away.
Therefore, the reason why Truman let Ridgway succeed MacArthur was not to value Ridgway's outstanding military ability, because at this time, Ridgway's "magnetic tactics" and task forces had not yet been introduced. The key reason was that MacArthur blatantly violated the established policy of the United States not to extend the war to China, clamored for bombing of northeast China and Shanghai, and went to war with China in an all-round way, and even threatened to use nuclear weapons. In addition, MacArthur has always been quite arrogant and rude to Truman, without a little respect and awe for the president, especially when the Wake Island meeting, it is completely out of sight of the president, and has long let Truman nest a belly fire, this time finally caught the opportunity to announce a personal vendetta, but also grandiose!
Ridgway is a traditional soldier who does not ask about politics, will not cause trouble, does not go out of the demon, will only conscientiously complete the tasks assigned by the superiors, quickly summed up the fate of the volunteer army's "prayer offensive", targeted the adoption of "magnetic tactics", and finally with the help of the US military's rich and powerful, "more steel and more artillery" advantages, to carry the volunteer army's offensive, re-in the three-eighth line into a stalemate, it is difficult to say how high Ridgway's military ability is, at least in his hands, the US army did not appear in the second and third battles such a big rout, The same American army, which was originally in the hands of MacArthur, was forced to retreat from the Yalu River to the 38th Line!
MacArthur, Ridgway, who has the stronger military ability, the answer should be very clear.
(The picture of this article is from the network)