MacArthur’s need for speed: Why Fuller was fired at Biak

Abstract The US campaign for Biak in 1944 was one of the most challenging, albeit little known, operations of the Pacific war. Major General Horace Fuller’s HURRICANE Task Force faced a tenacious enemy determined to hold the island’s three airfields at all costs. Grossly underestimating the number of Japanese defenders on Biak, MacArthur and Kreuger allocated Fuller only two regimental combat teams for the initial invasion in May 1944. Once ashore, the US troops encountered a shift in Japanese tactics from defending at the water’s edge to using inland fukkaku, honeycombed underground defensive positions that masked Japanese troops and artillery. When the task force failed to deliver the airfields as quickly as desired by General Douglas MacArthur, Lieutenant General Walter Krueger relieved Fuller as task force commander and replaced him with Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger. This article contends that Krueger did not have good cause to relieve Fuller; rather, he simply did so to placate MacArthur, who, for a multitude of reasons, pressured Krueger for a fast victory. I assess flaws in the planning and execution of the operation, MacArthur’s motives, and personality dynamics between MacArthur and Krueger to support my conclusion that Fuller was ultimately a victim of MacArthur’s impatience.