In May 1918 he was transferred to Washington, D.C., where he helped organise the United States' first airmail delivery service, and changed his name to Charles Andrew Willoughby.

Fluent in English, Spanish, German and French (and later Japanese), he then became a military attaché, and served at the American legations in Caracas, Venezuela, Bogota, Colombia and Quito, Ecuador.

In August 1945, he met the Japanese surrender delegation headed by Lieutenant General Torashirō Kawabe to negotiate the details of the Occupation of Japan.

[1] He emigrated from Germany to the U.S. in 1910, and on 10 October 1910 he enlisted in the United States Army, where he served with Company K of the 5th Infantry, initially as a private, later rising to the rank of sergeant.

[2][3] He then entered Gettysburg College as a senior in 1913 based on his attestations of three years of attendance at the University of Heidelberg and the Sorbonne in Paris before he emigrated to the United States.

In 1918, he transferred to the United States Army Air Service, and was trained as a pilot by the French military,[5] flying SPAD and Nieuport fighters.

[13] While serving as an attaché, he wrote an article, "A Great Patriotic Shrine, the House of Bolivar", that was published in the Bulletin of the Pan-American Union.

Writing about the Rif War in 1926, Willoughby ventured the opinion that:With the spread of democratic doctrines, half-civilized people have promptly taken advantage of the magic formula of self-determination and flaunt it with great effect.

[19] He then attended the Army War College in Washington, D.C. After graduation in July 1936, he returned to the Infantry School at Fort Benning as an instructor,[3] and was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 1 June 1938.

Sanctions, however, are fraught with unpleasant consequences; they are not an easy half-way house between neutrality and war; it is hardly likely that the Japanese army and navy would bow to economic pressure and accept defeat without a struggle; it is far more probable that they would strike out for Netherlands-India, French Indo-China, the Philippines, Malaysia—any place within naval range which would provide oil, tin, rubber and iron.

[24] This proved an accurate forecast: in response to American, British and Dutch economic sanctions,[25] Japan attacked the Philippines on 8 December.

[28] On a personal reconnaissance mission on Bataan, Willoughby involved in an action with a company of the Philippine Constabulary for which he was awarded the Silver Star.

By 11 May 1944 reports of beheadings, cannibalism and other atrocities had become so voluminous that Willoughby recommended that the Judge Advocate General of USAFFE develop procedures for crimes trials.

[37] MacArthur did not permit the Office of Strategic Services to operate in SWPA, as he already had a similar organization in the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB), and preferred to keep forces in the theatre under his own command.

The Central Bureau sent a daily dump of Japanese radio traffic translated into English to Akin, who decided what should be shown to MacArthur.

He citation read: The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Brigadier General Charles Andrew Willoughby (ASN: O-4615), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy, in action against enemy forces in New Guinea, during the Papuan Campaign, 23 July 1942, to 8 January 1943.

As Chief of Intelligence, United States Army Forces in the Far East, General Willoughby displayed extraordinary courage, marked efficiency and precise execution of operations during the Papuan Campaign.

[43] An appreciation by Willoughby led to the substantial Japanese forces at Hansa Bay being bypassed in favor of landing at Aitape and Hollandia.

[44] Undercounting of Japanese forces, based on Ultra intelligence, continued to occur, due to a failure to locate large numbers of small logistical units.

"[46] Willoughby, who was promoted to major general on 17 March 1945,[16] habitually conducted himself as a European aristocrat, clicking his heels and bowing when introduced to someone, and kissing women's hands.

[1] At Nichols Field near Manila on 16 August 1945, Willoughby met the Japanese surrender delegation headed by Lieutenant General Torashirō Kawabe to negotiate the details of the Occupation of Japan.

[51] Willoughby married Marie Antionette de Becker, who had been held as an internee in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp during the war.

[56] Willoughby alleged that an American, Agnes Smedley, was a member of Richard Sorge's Soviet spy ring that operated in China and Japan before and during the war.

[61] Arisue recruited some 200 former Japanese Army officers, including Masanobu Tsuji and Takushiro Hattori, to assist American historian Gordon Prange with his work on the history of the campaigns in the Southwest Pacific.

He hatched a plot to assassinate then-prime minister Shigeru Yoshida and replace him with Ichirō Hatoyama, who was much more hawkish and eager to re-militarize Japan.

[57][67] In 1947, he arranged for two scientists from Fort Detrick, Maryland, Edwin Hill and Joseph Victor, to interview Shirō Ishii about biological warfare information gathered by Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation in China.

[69] Several sources insist that Willoughby intentionally distorted, if not out and out suppressed, intelligence estimates that showed the Chinese were massing at the Yalu River.

[73] The Chinese were aware of American use of these sources, and tried to neutralize them with countermeasures such as camouflage, troop movements by night over mountain roads, and radio silence.

"[79] Willoughby's "vitriolic, paranoid, and frequently fantastic" notes included antisemitic insults towards Beate Sirota Gordon, who helped write the Constitution of Japan.

Willoughby began writing a book about the work of the G-2 section during World War II, but his publisher, McGraw-Hill, wanted a biography of MacArthur, as it was felt that this would sell well.