Redemption: MacArthur and the Campaign for the Philippines

Redemption is a sweeping new history of the largest and costliest campaign waged by US armed forces during the Pacific War. Peter Mansoor surveys the course of the Philippines campaign, from the Japanese invasion and the Filipino guerrilla operations which contested occupation to the US Army’s return to Leyte and the subsequent battles of liberation. Central to the book is a re-evaluation of the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur, one of the most controversial military commanders in US history. At times brilliant, courageous, and politically astute, MacArthur was also egotistical, publicity hungry, often ignorant of conditions at the front, and self-certain to a fault. In their return to the Philippines, MacArthur and his forces liberated millions of Filipinos and severed a critical Japanese resource lifeline. But he also achieved something much rarer - redemption on the same ground and against the same enemy that defeated him earlier in the war.