Charles Andrew Willoughby (8 March 1892 – 25 October 1972) was a major general in the U.S. Army who was General of the Army Douglas MacArthur's chief of military intelligence during World War II and the Korean War.
An immigrant from Germany who graduated from Gettysburg College in 1913, Willoughby was commissioned in the infantry in August 1916 under the name Adolph Charles Weidenbach. He served in France in World War I in the American Expeditionary Force with the 1st Infantry Division and the United States Army Air Service as an instructor at the American Aviation School at Issoudon. In May 1918 he was transferred to Washington, D.C., where he helped organise the United States' first airmail delivery service, and changed his name to Charles Andrew Willoughby.
After the war, Willoughby returned to the infantry as a company and battalion commander in the 24th Infantry, one of the two U.S. Army's two African-American regiments, and the Puerto-Rican 65th Infantry. Fluent in English, Spanish, German and French (and later Japanese), he then became a military attaché, and served at the American legations in Caracas, Venezuela, Bogotá, Colombia, and Quito, Ecuador.
During and after World War II Willoughby was the assistant chief of staff for intelligence (G-2) on MacArthur's United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) staff during the 1941–1942 Philippines campaign, during which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for valor. He accompanied Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines in PT boats in March 1942, and served as G-2 with General Headquarters (GHQ) Southwest Pacific Area in Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines. In August 1945, he met the Japanese surrender delegation headed by Lieutenant General Torashirō Kawabe to negotiate the details of the Occupation of Japan.
Willoughby continued to serve MacArthur as G-2 at GHQ of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and the Far East Command (FECOM). Willoughby's contribution during the Korean War is subject to significant controversy, due to the failure to anticipate the outbreak of the war and the Chinese intervention in it. After MacArthur was recalled in April 1951, he chose to retire from the Army in September. He was the editor of the Foreign Intelligence Digest until 1961, and published a book on MacArthur's campaigns in the Pacific.
Early life and education
Willoughby claimed to have been born on 8 March 1892, in Heidelberg, Germany, as Adolph Karl Weidenbach, the son of Baron T. Tscheppe-Weidenbach and wife Emma Willoughby Tscheppe-Weidenbach of Baltimore, Maryland. This was disputed by Frank Kluckhohn of The Reporter (New York Journal) in 1952, and there remains uncertainty as to both his birth name and lineage. (whose name was spelt with only one "p") did not have the title of "Freiherr" and did not receive letters patent from Kaiser Wilhelm II granting him the use of the surname "von Tschepe und Weidenbach" until 1913. He had five children, but none of them were Adolph Karl Weidenbach or born in 1892. The German news magazine Der Spiegel found an 8 March 1892 entry in the Heidelberg registry recording the birth of Adolf August Weidenbach, with ropemaker August Weidenbach as father and Emma, née Langhäuser.
He emigrated from Germany to the U.S. in 1910, and on 10 October 1910 he enlisted in the United States Army, where he served with Company K of the 5th Infantry, initially as a private, later rising to the rank of sergeant. He was honorably discharged from the army on 9 October 1913. He then entered Gettysburg College as a senior in 1913 based on his attestations of three years of attendance at the University of Heidelberg and the Sorbonne in Paris before he emigrated to the United States. It is disputed whether he actually did attend either European university, as he would have had to do so at an unusually young age. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1914, and became a language teacher at the Howe School, a private girls' school in Howe, Indiana, and Racine College in Racine, Wisconsin. He began studying for a Master of Arts degree at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.
World War I
After graduation from Gettysburg College, he was commissioned a major in the Officers' Volunteer Reserve Corps of the U.S. Army in May 1914. He spent three months teaching German and military studies at various prep-schools in the United States. In August 1916, under the name Adolph Charles Weidenbach, he vacated his position in the reserve to accept a Regular Army commission as a second lieutenant in the infantry on 27 November 1916, was promoted to first lieutenant on the same day. He was assigned to the 35th Infantry, at Nogales, Arizona, which patrolled the Mexican border during the Mexican Expedition.
He was promoted to captain on 30 June 1917, serving initially with the 16th Infantry Regiment, part of the 1st Infantry Division, at Fort Bliss, Texas, and served in France with the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). In 1918, he transferred to the United States Army Air Service, and was trained as a pilot by the French military, flying SPAD and Nieuport fighters. He then became an instructor at the American Aviation School at Issoudon, where he served as adjutant to Major Carl Spaatz. In May 1918 he was transferred to the Aviation Section in the War Department in Washington, D.C., where he helped the Postmaster General, Albert S. Burleson, organise the United States' first airmail delivery service, from Washington, D.C., to Garden City, New York. He changed his name to Charles Andrew Willoughby, a loose translation of Weidenbach, the German for "willow brook".
Between the wars After the war ended, Willoughby did not remain in the Air Service, but returned to the infantry, and commanded demonstration machine gun units at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. In October 1919 he joined the 24th Infantry (one of the U.S. Army's two African-American regiments), as a company and battalion commander, stationed at Columbus, New Mexico. He was then sent to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he served as a company and battalion commander in the Puerto-Rican 65th Infantry from February 1921 to May 1923. While serving in Puerto Rico he married Juana Manuela Rodríguez in May 1923. They had a daughter, Olga Antonia (Toni), who was born on 25 December 1925. It was her second marriage, and he also acquired two stepchildren, a daughter and a son.
This was followed by temporary duty with the Military Intelligence Division at the War Department to prepare Willoughby for his next assignment, as a military attaché. His talent for languages made him a good choice for this role; he was fluent in English, Spanish, German, French, and later, Japanese. Over the next five years he served at the American legations in Caracas, Venezuela, Bogotá, Colombia, and Quito, Ecuador. He received awards from the governments of Venezuela and Ecuador, and the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus from Benito Mussolini's Italian government for his assistance to Italian airlines in South America. Willoughby was an admirer of Mussolini, writing that "Historical judgment, freed from the emotional haze of the moment, will credit Mussolini with wiping out a memory of defeat by re-establishing the traditional military supremacy of the white race". While serving as an attaché, he wrote an article, "A Great Patriotic Shrine, the House of Bolivar", that was published in the Bulletin of the Pan-American Union.
Writing about the Rif War in 1926, Willoughby ventured the opinion that: Willoughby returned to the United States in May 1927, where he was stationed at Fort D. A. Russell in Wyoming. He was promoted to major on 6 March 1928. In September he attended the Advanced Course at the Infantry School at Fort Benning. He graduated in June 1920, but remained at Fort Benning, where he wrote a history of the Infantry School. In August 1929 he entered the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He graduated in June 1931, but remained as an instructor. He taught courses on military history and military intelligence, and edited the Command and General Staff School Quarterly. In 1931, he published a 68-page monograph on The Economic and Military Participation of the United States in the World War, 1917–1918.
Willoughby was also the editor of the Review of Current Military Literature (which became Quarterly Review of Military Literature in September 1932, and is today the Military Review), from July 1932 to May 1934. Although not the first editor of the journal, he was the first whose name appeared on the masthead. He then attended the Army War College in Washington, D.C. After graduation in July 1936, he returned to the Infantry School at Fort Benning as an instructor, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 1 June 1938. He wrote a text book for the course at Leavenworth, Maneuver in War, which was published in 1939. In February 1940, he briefly served in New York City with the War Department's Military Dictionary Project, which published a series of foreign language dictionaries for military use.
World War II and the occupation of Japan Philippines campaign In June 1940, Willoughby became the Assistant Chief of Staff (G-4), the staff officer responsible for military logistics, at the headquarters of the Philippine Department, based in Manila. As such, he oversaw work on the roads, depots and ports on Corregidor and Bataan that would be crucial to the defense of the Philippines. After the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) was formed under General Douglas MacArthur on 26 July 1941, Willoughby became its Assistant Chief of Staff (G-2), the staff officer responsible for military intelligence, at USAFFE headquarters. He was promoted to colonel on 14 October 1941, and his appointment as G-2 became official on 12 November 1941. Fluent in Spanish, he frequented the Spanish Club in Manila, and became good friends with Andrés Soriano, a wealthy industrialist, who would later serve on MacArthur's staff.
In Maneuver in War, Willoughby had written:
This proved an accurate forecast: in response to American, British and Dutch economic sanctions, Japan attacked the Philippines on 8 December. In his appreciation sent to the War Department on 13 December, Willoughby predicted that the Japanese would soon land in Lingayen Gulf and advance on Manila. USAFFE staff moved to Corregidor on 24 December. On a personal reconnaissance mission on Bataan, Willoughby involved in an action with a company of the Philippine Constabulary for which he was awarded the Silver Star. His citation read:
Willoughby met Clare Boothe Luce when she arrived in the Philippines to profile MacArthur, they began affair. Luce would later describe Willoughby as "the one man that I could have run away with".
Southwest Pacific Area Willoughby was one of the key staff officers who accompanied Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines in PT boats in March 1942. On 19 April 1942 MacArthur announced the staff of his General Headquarters (GHQ), Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), with Willoughby as his G-2. Willoughby was promoted to brigadier general on 20 June 1942. Two important Allied intelligence organizations were created that reported to Willoughby: the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), which translated captured documents and interrogated prisoners of war (POWs); the Allied Geographical Section (AGS), which prepared maps and terrain studies and handbooks. ATIS also gathered and published evidence of Japanese war crimes. By 11 May 1944 reports of beheadings, cannibalism and other atrocities had become so voluminous that Willoughby recommended that the Judge Advocate General of USAFFE develop procedures for crimes trials. Documents sometimes pertained to Japanese activities outside SWPA, and ATIS published a research report of Japanese biological warfare in July 1944.