From Whiskey to War and Back Again

When Japanese forces invaded the Philippines in early 1942, General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of U.S. Army forces in the Far East, was ordered to leave. He escaped to Australia but famously vowed to return. By the time he fulfilled his pledge two and a half years later, the Japanese were prepared to defend the Philippines to the death. They dug in on the island of Leyte, prepared for a fight that would decide the fate of the Japanese Empire. At the center of MacArthur's dramatic return in October 1944 was Captain Julian Proctor Van Winkle Jr., a 30-year-old tank commander from a well-known Kentucky whiskey family.