Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

Another Signal Corps crew was preparing a radio broadcast unit and mounting up a transmitter. MacArthur and Osmeña sat together on a fallen palm log. On a tree nearby, the American and Filipino commonwealth flags fluttered side by side. The crew let them know the broadcast team was ready. After a short delay, MacArthur took up a handheld microphone. A soft rain began falling as he spoke. The broadcast was carried live in the United States, an extraordinary feat at the time; it was also broadcast throughout the Philippines via the mobile transmitter, although it seems that very few Filipinos heard that initial broadcast. As was his usual practice, MacArthur employed the first-person singular pronoun to refer to the forces under his command. “People of the Philippines,” he declared: “I have returned! By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.” He instructed the Filipino people to rise up and strike the enemy, and “Rally to me!”13