Jonathan M. Wainwright (general)

Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV (August 23, 1883 – September 2, 1953) was an American army general and the Commander of Allied forces in the Philippines at the time Japan surrendered to the United States, during World War II.

• There is no freer man alive than a captain of cavalry in command of his own troop.
  • Reported in Duane Schultz, Hero of Bataan (1981), p. 434

General Wainwright's Story: The Account of Four Years of Humiliating Defeat, Surrender and Captivity by General Jonathan M. Wainright, Who Paid the Price of his Country's Unpreparedness. Edited by Robert Cosidine. Westport: Greenwood Press Publishers.

• To the American and Filipino officers and soldiers who gave their lives in the defense of the Philippines
  • Dedication

• I scraped the last of the rice from my mess kit and looked out across the little clearing. My aides, Major Johnny Pugh and Captain Tom Dooley, were walking up to the battered trailer that served as my headquarters on Bataan. "About time to go, General," Johnny said. "General Sutherland said the boat would be at Mariveles at noon." I got up, put on my tin lid, and got a leg up on our jeep. We bumped down the pretense of a road to the piers of the little village that sits on the southern tip of the peninsula. My orderly, Sergeant Hubert Carroll, kept one weather-beaten eye on the air above our jeep all the way to Mariveles. But this day- March 10, 1942- there was no strafing. At least not for us.
  • p. 1

• Distinguished himself by intrepid and determined leadership against greatly superior enemy forces. At the repeated risk of life above and beyond the call of duty in his position, he frequented the firing line of his troops where his presence provided the example and incentive that helped make the gallant efforts of these men possible. The final stand on beleaguered Corregidor, for which he was in an important measure personally responsible, commanded the admiration of the nation's allies. It reflected the high morale of American arms in the face of overwhelming odds. His courage and resolution were a vitally needed inspiration to the then sorely pressed freedom-loving peoples of the world.
  • Citation for the Medal of Honor awarded to Wainwright, presented by President Harry S. Truman on 10 September 1945, at the White House, Washington, D.C.[1]