Re: Gen. MacArthur's 8-45 limousine

Posted by su8overdrive On 2012/7/29 19:23:04

Is there NO END to this General MacArthur
nonsense?

Some of us recall the article about "General MacArthur's Packard Clipper" in Special Interest Autos back in the late '70s. SIA, to their credit, soon printed a retraction, apology for swallowing that malarkey.

However, time passes, and we again have some avaricious Sun Belter, dressed in comic opera War II uniform, passing off a Packard Clipper painted olive drab, with a machine gun mount bolted to the dash, requisite sunglasses and corncob pipe resting on the back seat.

Please. Here and now, might we have a moratorium on this hohum? No more General MacArthur, or celeb cars in general,
without hard, vetted proof.

And really, who cares even if it was MacArthur's? Harry Truman fired him. My pappy served in the infantry, island-hopping toward Japan, recalled MacArthur being carried on the shoulders of a pair of MPs into shallow water, where they gingerly put him down. MacArthur, like a Hollywood pro, cued the newsreel boys, who filmed him wading heroically the remaining few yards to the beach.

"Old soldiers never die...they just fade away..." What a maudlin phony. Nixon must've taken lessons.

On the Phillipines, MacArthur used a '42 Cadillac 75 limo owned by a sugar cane plantation owner.

If you have to have a former general's car, find one owned or used by Omar Bradley or George Marshall. They were class acts, widely respected by combat troops.

What would be nice is to see pictures of the 1946 or '47 Custom Clipper 2106 sedan Harry and Bess Truman used to go shopping in Washington. I've heard they were accompanied by only one unmarked car with a couple Secret Service agents, tho' perhaps a lone black and white city police car kept them in view. Those were the days. Heard as recently as the early '80s, Margaret Thatcher, hardly the most popular prime minister, often ate lunch in a public restuarant accompanied by only one unarmed bobby, but i'll leave the veracity of that to one of our Sceptered Isle Packardites.

"There's a such and such on EBay. The seller says it was owned by so-and-so."

C'mon.