American Essence

Turnabout: The Hero Who Thought Himself a Failure

In this installment of “When Character Counted,” a general saved American and Filipino troops from massacre at great cost to himself.
Turnabout: The Hero Who Thought Himself a Failure
On Sept. 12, 1945, Gen. Jonathan W. Wainwright stands at the podium during the exhibition of Japanese surrender ending World War II. Public Domain
Jeff Minick
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ABC’s Wide World of Sports used to open their show with the phrase “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” Gen. Jonathan Wainwright (1883–1953) experienced these emotions in reverse order during World War II.
Around midnight on May 6, 1942, Wainwright surrendered his battered and weary troops on Corregidor, an island in Manila Bay, to triumphant Japanese forces. The Japanese then took him to a radio station to broadcast the surrender to all troops under his command. The fall of the Philippines to the Japanese constituted the single largest surrender—some 80,000 troops—in American military history. That radio broadcast can be heard on YouTube.
Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.