General Jonathan M. Wainwright IV Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

General Wainwright defended Bataan and Corregidor against heavy attack until he was forced to surrender on May 6, 1942. Wainwright was a Prisoner of War until he was rescued by the Russians in Manchuria in August 1945. On September 2, 1945, he stood next to General MacArthur on the USS Missouri to witness the Japanese surrender. General Wainwright was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. West Point graduate Jonathan Wainwright (1883-1953) first went to the Philippines, where his father had died suppressing an insurrection, in 1908. As a Captain with the 82nd Infantry Division in World War I, he participated in the American offensives in France in 1918, which compelled Germany's surrender. Back in the Philippines in World War II, he skillfully deployed outnumbered U.S. and Filipino troops to delay invading Japanese forces and buy time to prepare the Bataan Peninsula for a last stand in the islands. After General MacArthur was ordered back to Australia in March 1942, Wainwright took charge of the heroic American defense, "the battling bastards of Bataan," and a final stand on the island fortress of Corregidor. Out of ammunition and supplies, Wainwright surrendered the U.S. forces on May 6, 1942. Freed from a Japanese prison camp near war's end, he attended the Japanese surrender on the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, September 2, 1945. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor (and his fourth star) in 1945.