First World War Later that year, the National Guard was federalized and Sutherland served on the Mexican border during the
Pancho Villa Expedition. The future general soon accepted a National Guard commission as a
second lieutenant in the
field artillery in August 1916. In December 1916, he transferred to the
Regular Army with a commission as a
first lieutenant in the
Infantry branch. Sutherland was promoted to
captain in 1917.
Between the wars Returning to the United States, Sutherland married Josephine Whiteside in 1920. They had one child, a daughter named Natalie. In 1937, Sutherland went to
Tientsin, China, in command of a
battalion of the
15th Infantry; however, he was not promoted to
major until March 1938, when he was assigned to the
Office of the Military Advisor to the
Commonwealth Government (Philippines),
Manila, under
General Douglas MacArthur with the "local rank" of
lieutenant colonel. Sutherland was promoted to the rank in July of that year. Sutherland soon eased his superior,
Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower out of his position and became MacArthur's chief of staff. Sutherland attracted antagonism from subordinate American and
Australian officers because of perceptions that he was high-handed and overprotective of MacArthur. Sutherland was often given the role of "hatchet man". Bad news invariably came through Sutherland rather than from MacArthur himself. According to some sources he contributed to a rift between MacArthur and the first SWPA air forces commander,
Lieutenant General George Brett.
Major General George Kenney, Brett's successor, became so frustrated with Sutherland in one meeting, that Kenney drew a dot on a plain page of paper and said: "the dot represents what you know about air operations, the entire rest of the paper what I know." Sutherland had been taught to fly in 1940 by
US Army Air Corps instructors at the Philippine Army Training Center and had been awarded a civil pilot's license by the Civil Aeronautics Association. Flying then became one of his favourite recreational activities. Throughout the war, he flew often as a co-pilot with General MacArthur's personal pilot, Weldon "Dusty" Rhoades. In March 1943 he asked to be formally recognised as a "service pilot", a form of pilot restricted to non-combat duties. His request was turned down by the Commanding General of the
U.S. Army Air Forces,
General Henry H. Arnold on the grounds that he was over the age limit and not performing flying duties. However, Sutherland secured an official pilot's rating under Philippine Army regulations in 1945. In 1943 Sutherland and Kenney took part in an effort to promote General MacArthur's candidacy for the Presidency, working with Senator
Arthur H. Vandenberg of
Michigan to get the War Department to rescind the order that prevented MacArthur from seeking or accepting political office. , Commanding General, 11th Airborne Division, (left); Lieutenant General Richard K. Sutherland (3rd from right); Douglas MacArthur (2nd From right); General
Robert L. Eichelberger (right). Aircraft in the background is a Douglas C-54. It was Sutherland who represented MacArthur before the
Joint Chiefs of Staff on this and other occasions. Sutherland opened, read, and frequently answered all communications with MacArthur, including those addressed to him personally or "eyes only". Some decisions often attributed to MacArthur were actually taken by Sutherland. For example, the decision to bypass Mindanao and move on directly to Leyte was taken by Sutherland on MacArthur's behalf, while MacArthur was traveling under radio silence. Sutherland's conduct in Washington enraged
Army Chief of Staff General Marshall. He prepared a letter that he never sent to MacArthur saying Sutherland was
"totally lacking in the facility of dealing with others.... He antagonized almost every official in the War Department with whom he came in contact and made our dealings with the Navy exceptionally difficult. Unfortunately he appears utterly unaware of the effects of his methods, but to put it bluntly, his attitude in almost every case seems to have been that he knew it all and nobody else knew much of anything." When GHQ began planning to move forward to New Guinea, Sutherland requested personnel from the
Women's Army Corps to replace civilian employees of GHQ who, by agreement between MacArthur and the
Prime Minister of Australia,
John Curtin, could not be sent outside Australia. Sutherland further asked for direct commissions for Clark, Mowat and Stevenson. This exploited a loophole whereby enlistments in the Women's Army Corps were restricted to American citizens, but officer commissions were not. Major General Miller G. White, the U. S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, and Colonel
Oveta Culp Hobby, the commanding officer of the Women's Army Corps, were strongly opposed; but they were overruled by Deputy Chief of Staff
Joseph T. McNarney, on his being informed that the commissions were personally desired by MacArthur as essential to the operation of his headquarters and the prosecution of the war. Clark was commissioned as a captain, while the other two women, as well as General Eisenhower's driver,
Kay Summersby, were commissioned as
first lieutenants. Although her rank was more a reflection of Sutherland's status rather than her own, Clark became an assistant to the headquarters commandant, with duties commensurate with her rank, and moved with Advance GHQ to
Hollandia. However, her presence there, in contravention of MacArthur's agreement with Curtin, brought down the displeasure of MacArthur, who ordered her to be returned to Australia, first from Hollandia, and later from the Philippines. That Sutherland defied MacArthur on this matter caused a rift between the two. ==Later life and death==