Interview with Dr. Roger Olaf Egeberg: General Douglas MacArthur’s Personal Physician and Aide-De-Camp

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This General Douglas MacArthur’s popular image is that of a strong but aloof supreme commander. But was he really that hard to know? ‘Not as an officer, not as a commander…,’ said Robert M. White II, president of the MacArthur Memorial Foundation. ‘He was what he was, as a soldier–tall, handsome, sure, keen, articulate, with awesome presence.

‘As a man,’ White continued, ‘he kept to himself; he was withdrawn somehow, at arm’s length, even remote. All of which adds up to being… shy. I hesitate to use the word, but that is the way he seemed.’

To Roger Olaf Egeberg, M.D., MacArthur was anything but remote. From 1943 through ‘45, with the exception of MacArthur’s wife, Jean, perhaps no other person was as close to MacArthur as ‘Doc’ Egeberg. MacArthur would sit and talk for hours to Egeberg on a variety of subjects. As a deep trust developed between the two men, Egeberg became his confidant.

After many years, Egeberg has finally written a book about his personal experiences with General MacArthur. Titled The General, MacArthur and the Man He Called ‘Doc,’ it gives an intimate account of what it was like to be close to one of the giants in American military history. At the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., Egeberg discussed his years as General MacArthur’s personal physician and aide-de-camp.

WWII: How were you chosen to be MacArthur’s physician?

Egeberg: I had been in Milne Bay, New Guinea, for about a year. I had been the doctor of the command and was responsible for about 8,000 men. My duties included malaria control, sanitation and evacuation. When I first arrived, people asked me what I had done bad to have been sent there. I loved it there! I had the opportunity to do important things for thousands of people. Malaria was our great enemy. However, for some reason, whenever I wrote about the malaria problem they would send me instructions on how to prevent venereal disease. I finally received an order that stated, ‘You will reply by endorsement hereon.’ So, I endorsed it. I was fed up. You must realize there were very few women in Milne Bay. There was no physical contact between the men and the local populace. So I replied: ‘In Milne Bay the venereal disease situation is well in hand. The only females here are 500 sheep sent to us by the Australians for eating purposes…. Then I wrote a nasty poem about ‘painful sores’ and ‘bleeding scabs.’ I still have a copy of that letter. Well…that letter did the trick. It went up to Colonel Blank, the main doctor in New Guinea. He telegraphed my commanding officer, Colonel Burns, and said to arrest Dr. Egeberg and hold him for court-martial for being obscene in channels. This was the third time that someone had suggested I should be court-martialed. My commanding officer, kept saying, ‘What have you done now, Roger?’ So I told him. He said that the letter might have gotten through to MacArthur.

WWII: And you thought you were in real trouble.

Egeberg: When I was transferred to Brisbane I got a call from General George Rice, the highest ranking medical officer in the southwest Pacific. He told me that General MacArthur needed a personal physician, and I had been selected as a nominee. I said no! I thought he was the cause of all our troubles in Milne Bay with the malaria. Rice told me to go back to my barracks and calm down and talk to some of my fellow doctors and return in the morning to speak with him. After talking with a few friends, I sold myself on the idea that this could be a very interesting job. The next morning I apologized to Rice and said I would be honored to be considered. Later, I found out that I was the only one being considered.

WWII: The letter maybe?

Egeberg: Exactly. Years later, the clerk in MacArthur’s office told me what had happened when my letter arrived. One day he saw it on MacArthur’s desk and the next day he saw it on Sutherland’s desk (Lt. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, MacArthur’s chief of staff). One day he heard them talking, and MacArthur said, ‘I think we ought to have somebody like that in our headquarters.’ That’s how it happened.

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