Supreme Commander Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Order of the Sacred Treasure. As a member of the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia in 1919–20, Eichelberger had been awarded these medals for helping the Japanese fight the Bolsheviks. Imagine what the Japanese would think if he were to wear these medals on his army uniform now!
    MacArthur knew the Japanese were playing possum. They had been ordered to lay down their arms, and every report from his commanders on the ground had confirmed this. Even Eichelberger said so. But he knew Eichelberger well enough to know that Eichelberger slept with one eye open. Especially when it came to the Japanese. Eichelberger understood the Japanese militarists better than anyone in America: He had served with them for two and a half years in Siberia and had not come home brimming with affection. Quite the contrary; after watching the Japanese surprise everyone by bringing in 125,000 men instead of 12,000, Eichelberger had warned his superiors in Washington, his two Japanese medals notwithstanding: “The Japanese High Command . . . managed to achieve for itself a record of complete perfidy, of the blackest and most heinous double-dealing.”
    Can’t get more blunt than that.
    MacArthur reflected on the report he had received from Col. Charles Tench, his aide who had led the fleet of planes that landed on August 26 to prepare the Atsugi airstrip for MacArthur’s arrival on August 30. One of the people greeting Tench was a Russian: “I am Commander Anatoliy Rodionov, Naval Attaché of the Soviet Union in Japan. Welcome.” What the heck were the Russians doing here? Outrageous, these Russians, having declared war only one day after the bombing of Nagasaki, already trying to grab a piece of the victor’s spoils. MacArthur never liked them anyway. Now he loathed them. Then to top it all off, they had handed Tench a letter from Jacob Malik, Russian ambassador to Japan, to be delivered to MacArthur, asking for passes to the surrender ceremonies. What nerve!
    MacArthur had tossed the letter aside. Many people back in Washington may have been pleased that the Russians were joining the war against Japan; MacArthur was not one of them. The Russians weren’t needed, they were just crashing the victory party.
    MacArthur had good reason to abhor the Russians. Ostensible allies in the war against Germany, they had almost cost MacArthur his life. In October 1944, a senior official in the Russian Foreign Ministry had tipped off the Japanese ambassador in Moscow that the American forces were getting ready to attack in the Philippines. Four days later a top Japanese general and the country’s legendary hero, Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, arrived in Manila. Every bit as arrogant and self-confident as MacArthur, Yamashita electrified everyone by declaring that he was going to teach MacArthur a lesson and dictate surrender terms in the Philippines.
    In due course MacArthur would have the immense pleasure of dealing with the butcher Yamashita, but he would never forgive the Russians for having put this general against him, thus causing many needless American deaths.
    MacArthur was not a man who, once he made a decision or developed a plan, was racked with self-doubts or what-ifs. He had to be pleased with himself that day, having just received a cable from Secretary of War Stimson calling him the “principal architect” of the Pacific victory and citing him for “brilliant planning” and an “enterprise [that] has grown in scope and boldness.” Boldness , he liked that word. His plan to land in Japan and take it over was a daring one: to hit his first area of occupation with sizable forces and pour men in rapidly behind the first troops. The Japanese would have no room for surprise maneuvers. In keeping with his tactics of what the New York Times would soon tout as his “fool-proof”occupation, he would establish a beachhead and seal off Tokyo and annex the great port of Yokohama,