Which general promised the Philippines, “I shall return”?

In March 1942, as Japanese forces overran the Philippines, President Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur to escape to Australia. On arrival, MacArthur told reporters, “I came through and I shall return.”

He kept his word. On October 20, 1944, MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte and announced, “People of the Philippines, I have returned.” The photograph of him striding through the surf became iconic.

MacArthur later accepted Japan’s surrender aboard the USS Missouri and led the occupation of Japan. In his 1951 farewell address to Congress, he quoted an old barracks ballad: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”