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Japan Forward
a day ago
- General
- Japan Forward
Launch of the Postwar Occupation: General Eichelberger's Diary
On this 80th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War, I introduce the third in a series from Lieutenant General Robert L Eichelberger's diary. In his own words, Eichelberger takes us from the day Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration to the surrender ceremony, two and a half weeks later. In that time, he launched the Allied Powers' postwar occupation of the country. In the final installment, I introduce Eichelberger's account of his arrival at Atsugi Aerodrome on August 28. The latter story is well known. However, this may be the first time to quote directly from the diaries of the man in charge of the forward element and forces of the Occupation of Japan. Last of three parts Follow the series, General Eichelberger's Diary …The entire command group arose early and after arriving at Kadena strip at 0615 took off at 0700 for Atsugi airstrip. After one of the smoothest air trips I have ever had, we flew in over the Japanese coast and landed at Atsugi at 1200 where we were met at the plane by General [Joseph May] Swing. It immediately developed that two things would be critical. The transportation situation was particularly bad and although the Japanese had provided more than the number of vehicles requested none of them were in good working order. GHQ [General Headquarters of the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers, or SCAP] true to form and promptly grabbed off all the desirable pieces of equipment leaving very little for the latecomers. Whatever GHQ did not grab, FEAF did! I learned at once that the arrangements for the reception of General MacArthur were to say the least incomplete. Communication had not been maintained…and when I inspected the area where General MacArthur's plane was to land, I found practically nothing had been done there. This inspection was made in the company of General Swing who then took over upon my orders and prepared to receive SCAP. When SCAP arrived at 1500 the 11th Airborne band and an honor guard were drawn up, as were a small regiment of correspondents, and photographers, among whom Domei [official news media of the Empire of Japan] representatives were prominent. General MacArthur arrived at 1500 to the minute followed three minutes later by General [George C] Kenney and six minutes later by General [Carl] Spaatz. The latter two received a minimum of attention which may or may not have been accidental… General MacArthur's first statement as he walked out of the plane was, "How are you, Bob?" He then greeted [my Chief of Staff, Brigadier General] Clovis [E Byers] and General Swing and made a brief statement to the press in which he professed satisfaction at the attitude shown by the Japanese in adhering to the agreement. He stated he felt that there would be no unpleasant incident to mar the established truce. He and I then entered the sedan and drove to Yokohama preceded and followed by four truckloads of General Swing's infantry. A quick tour around the city was made and we finally arrived at the Grand Hotel where we were billeted for the night. General Robert L Eichelberger General Douglas MacArthur during the occupation of Japan. (Eichelberger story, screenshot, National Archives) August 30, 1945 (Yokohama Feather Merchants) By nightfall the operation had progressed as designed, the perimeter was established although no report had been received from the 4th Marines. A radio [message] was consequently sent to General [William T] Clement instructing him to report to me at 1000 tomorrow morning.... The New Grand Hotel was filling up rapidly and the most alarming feature was an ever-growing mass of feather merchants who had no part to play and no concern with the operation other than personal curiosity. These served to fill up the available hotel space to the point whereby late in the evening it had become a subject of considerable discussion, with the result that the Eighth Army was requested to make its rooms available for representatives coming in for the surrender ceremony. On hearing this I went out with a Japanese government representative and inspected and selected a house in the suburban area into which it was decided to move the following day. After dinner at the hotel I retired quite early. In the morning I attended a conference with staff members and had a brief interview with General MacArthur during which he indicated that it is his desire not only to move to Tokyo as soon as possible but to have Mrs MacArthur and little Arthur come up to live with him here. This would bear out the statement made by Mr [Sergio] Osmeña in Manila that he thought General MacArthur would no longer desire to live in the Philippines. The movement of Generals Byers and [Frank S] Bowen [Jr, of the G-3 Operations Division] and myself was completed by mid-afternoon and dinner was eaten at the new house. General Clement arrived at 1000 and a brief conference was held with him. The Marines, it developed, landed additional naval personnel for which they had a perfect out in the Operations Instructions which provided for additional troops "if required." Had lunch at the [hotel] and went to the house early in the afternoon where I took a siesta. During the day several difficulties came to a critical point. Eighth Army was required to leave the Grand Hotel and GHQ reaffirmed its acquisitive characteristic by trying to grab off every bit of office space in sight. The transportation problem also had to be fixed and late in the day General [Harold E] Eastwood [in charge of supply and resources] called a conference at which it was decided that all Japanese vehicles would be impounded and confined in a central pool…The impounding was to start at midnight and did so, although it was not very effective. Orders were received and the perimeter extended to the north at the request of the air corps who desire to take over four additional strips in the area west of Tokyo. Arrangements were also made to send the reconnaissance troop of the 11th Airborne Division to…the Tateyama area… September 1, 1945 (Saturday) I left the house at 0800 and arrived at the Customs Building at 0815 where I conferred with [radio broadcaster and war correspondent John] Howard Pyle for a few moments and then broadcast a personal interview with him asking the questions. The broadcast was made to San Francisco and Mrs [Emma] Eichelberger had been notified in advance that the program was going through. She will also be sent a recording of the broadcast. The broadcast went very well. At its completion I left with General Bowen for the Yokosuka naval base. Marine MP [Military Police] picked us up about two miles outside the naval base and we arrived to be greeted by an honor guard. [US Marine Corps] General Clement and Admiral [Oscar C.] Badger, commanding Task Force 31, received me at naval base headquarters. A short time was spent examining air photos of the area and we then went on a tour of the base itself. A large number of midget submarines were there and these were inspected with much interest…I inspected the flagship of Admiral [Heihachiro] Togo during the Russo-Japanese war. This ship has been beached and established as a training vessel. After this a short trip was taken around the area and at 1200 we went aboard the USS San Diego where we had lunch with Admiral Badger. Following lunch the machine shops of the naval base, the big dry dock and many of the small work shops were inspected. We happened to arrive at one jetty just as a Japanese [ship] was being moored. It had been surrendered early in the morning and had a small navy prize crew and one officer aboard…This was probably the most interesting thing seen all day, for the entire personnel of the captured vessel were on the deck and had just come to the shocking realization that they were in the hands of their American conquerors... US Army Airforce planes fly over Tokyo Bay during the surrender ceremony on the USS Missouri. (Courtesy US National Archives Identifier 520775) I was up at 0530 this morning and we took a destroyer out to the Missouri , arriving there about 0800. There were foreigners of all nationalities — Russians, Chinese, French, Aussies, English, etc — and I had a chance to talk to them all. We were lined up according to diagram and my place was on the front row of the army section between Generals [Courtney] Hodges and [Robert] Richardson and about five paces from the nearest Japanese. There were hundreds of newsmen and photographers and the ceremony was extremely im-pressive. General MacArthur had [prisoner of war survivors] General [Jonathan M] Wainwright and General [Arthur E] Percival (Singapore) stand with him as he signed. Just after the ceremony hundreds of our planes flew over the Missouri , including about 600 B-29ss. Dress was informal and I wore my tropical worsteds without tie, as did General MacArthur. Neither did he wear his ribbons. The Japanese premier was decked out in tails, striped trousers, top hat and gloves and was attended by two other civilians and some top military men… After lunch I returned to Yokohama by destroyer bringing with me the flag which flew on the Missouri during the ceremony. This I shall present to SCAP. It was also flown at Potsdam during the conference there.... The 1st Cavalry Division began landing today…XI Corps is also beginning to land. The weather continues bad and the airborne landings are proceeding very slowly..... In this way, the occupation of Japan would begin and continue for the next six and a half years, a length probably no one would accurately predict in the beginning. Eichelberger would step down as commanding general of the Eighth Army and depart Japan on August 4, 1948. He published his memoirs of World War II, Our Jungle Road to Tokyo , two years later in 1950 after serialization in the Saturday Evening Post . He passed away in 1961 from post-surgery complications. Reviewed by: Robert D Eldridge, PhD Dr Eldridge is a former political advisor to the US Marine Corps in Japan and author of numerous books on Japanese political and diplomatic history.
Los Angeles Times
09-07-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
A Word, Please: Where have all the semicolons gone?
Semicolon use is down, and its slide is making headlines. In the U.S., these punctuation marks are appearing in published books about half as often as they did 25 years ago. The same trend can be seen in the U.K., where only 11% of students surveyed reported that they regularly use semicolons. Some people say this decline is a tragedy. But before you take their word for it, consider who's not saying this: readers. You can listen to a thousand laments about the death of the semicolon and never hear a single complaint from the reader's point of view. No one says they would have enjoyed a piece of writing more if it contained more semicolons. No one says they struggled to understand short sentences because they weren't mashed together into longer, more complicated sentences. No one searches an e-book sample to make sure it has enough semicolons before they buy it. Semicolon love is purely a supply-side phenomenon. Here's one example of an impassioned pro-semicolon argument: 'I'd be reading an article about a flood in Mexico, which would lead me to thinking about a wedding I once went to in Cancun, which would lead me to thinking about marriage, which would lead to gay marriage, which would lead to the presidential election, which would lead to swing states, which would lead to a fascinatingly terrible country song called 'Swing' — and I'd be three songs into a Trace Adkins YouTube marathon before I'd glance back down at the newspaper on the table. It's in honoring this movement of mind, this tendency of thoughts to proliferate like yeast, that I find semicolons so useful.' Honoring the movement of mind. Whose mind? Not the reader's. I don't know about you, but when I read a story, an article or an essay, I'm not in it to honor the author. The very idea runs counter to the writer's job, which is to transform information and ideas into something valuable to the reader. To honor the reader's needs over one's own. Most of the semicolons I see in my editing work amount to simple showing off. The writers, it seems, are so proud they know how to use semicolons they forget it's not about them. One writer I've been editing for years puts exactly one semicolon in almost every feature article she writes. What are the odds that somewhere between 50 and 100 articles she's submitted all needed exactly one semicolon? Far lower than the odds that she just wanted to use one. Semicolons between independent clauses are unnecessary about 99% of the time. Yes, they show that the clauses are closely related. But would that be any less clear if each clause was its own sentence? Semicolons are silliest in paragraphs containing just two clauses. Those clauses' relationship to each other is already crystal clear. What is gained by making those two sentences into one? Besides connecting independent clauses, semicolons have another job: organizing lists too unwieldy for commas to manage. Usually, this means lists of things that contain their own commas: 'They traveled to Dubuque, Iowa; Butte, Montana; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.' In these cases, semicolons are more than justified. They're essential. But they're also dangerous. They make it easy to cram too many bits of information into a single sentence instead of doling out the facts in more easily digestible short sentences. 'They traveled to Dubuque, Iowa, where they visited a museum; Butte, Montana, which is stunningly beautiful; and Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they had fun shopping for one-of-a-kind works by local artisans.' The semicolon lets you do that, but that doesn't mean it's your friend. Anytime you're tempted to lean on semicolons to make sense of your sentence, try breaking it up into shorter sentences instead. It's the right thing to do for your reader. June Casagrande is the author of 'The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.' She can be reached at JuneTCN@
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
2000s Rock Icon Makes Jaw-Dropping Career Move & Fans Are Here for It
2000s Rock Icon Makes Jaw-Dropping Career Move & Fans Are Here for It originally appeared on Parade. All-American Rejects frontman made a jaw-dropping career move by joining OnlyFans—and fans of the 2000s rock icon are here for it. On June 4, Ritter, 41, revealed the controversial update in an interview with GQ. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 "I'm starting an OnlyFans. And the All-American Rejects are behind me doing it, and it's really nice to be supported by my band in this wild adventure of 2025 for us," the "Dirty Little Secret" singer told the publication. Evidently, the decision came after the band went viral for its pop-up concerts—12 shows in 10 days—ahead of the release of their new album in 2026. "I don't think anybody would have expected the All-American Rejects to make a ripple in the water ever again," Ritter told GQ of their sudden reemergence. "And so the excitement behind this whole thing is like, Where else can we be disruptive?" Ritter added, "We've always been a band who's got a tongue bursting through the cheek when it comes to our music. So why not, you know, do a little peen bursting through a zipper?" In a June 5 TikTok video, the "Swing, Swing" singer joked about his OF decision, "Gotta pay for these house party shows somehow." In the comments of a GQ TikTok slideshow of Ritter's revealing photoshoot, All-American Rejects fans sounded off on his latest career move. One user declared, "My middle school inner child is screammiiinnnggg," as a second admitted, "Well my high school heart is freaking out right now. 😂." Someone else reacted, "A small step for Tyson Ritter. A giant step for straight womankind." Another joked, "A dirty little secret we didn't need." "👀I'm looking respectfully," a different TikTok user insisted. Meanwhile, yet another fan confessed, "Actually going feral over this." Next: 2000s Rock Icon Makes Jaw-Dropping Career Move & Fans Are Here for It first appeared on Parade on Jun 5, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 5, 2025, where it first appeared.
Indian Express
02-06-2025
- Health
- Indian Express
Check preparedness of hospitals: Maharashtra's Health dept to civic bodies amid rise in Covid cases
Amid rise in Covid-19 cases across the country, Maharashtra's public health department instructed civic bodies across the state to check the preparedness of hospitals. The health department has directed to conduct mock drills to ensure the efficiency of Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) oxygen plants and check overall oxygen preparedness. 'As on May 28, there are a total of 1,621 active cases of Covid-19 in the country. More than 90 per cent of the total active cases in the country are in six states (Kerala, Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka). Maharashtra currently has approximately 506 active cases, most of which are in Mumbai,' said the letter sent by secretaries of state's Public Health Department to all municipal commissioners, district collectors and chief executive officers of all zilla parishads in the state. The letter noted that most of these cases are mild but as an adequate precaution, the guidelines issued by the central government need to be followed. 'Viral diseases like influenza, SARS-CoV-2, RSV due to various causes appear in the community as seasonal upswings. Some parts of the country are witnessing a significant but gradual increase in cases of acute respiratory infections (ARIs). It is important to note that most cases are mild. The currently circulating Omicron variants are JN 1, XFG and LF 7.9. These variants cause mild illness such as fever, cough and sore throat, which usually resolve on their own,' it said. The department has directed that the preparedness of hospitals at the district, sub-district level as well as in medical colleges, other educational or tertiary institutions, municipal or municipal council hospitals and all other inpatient facilities should be reviewed. 'Emphasis should be placed on adequate availability of diagnostics, essential medicines, PPES, isolation beds, medical oxygen, ICU and ventilator beds. Mock Drills should be conducted to ensure the efficiency of PSA plants and overall Oxygen Preparedness. An action report on the action taken in this regard should be submitted immediately,' it said. The letter added that as per the 'operational guidelines for revised surveillance strategy in context of Covid-19' of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, it is important to send samples of all Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) cases and five per cent of Influenza like Illness (ILI) cases for testing. Samples of positive SARI cases must be sent to Regional VRDL Centres for whole genomic sequencing. The district surveillance unit under IDSP should closely monitor the trend of SARI/ILI cases in their area. The proportion of SARI cases among all ILI/SARI cases should be monitored. All data related to Covid-19, including specific comorbidities, should be regularly entered on IDSP-IHIP. IEC activities should be undertaken to encourage community adherence to hygienic behaviors. The elderly, people with comorbidities and immunocompromised people in these groups should avoid going to poorly ventilated or crowded places or use a face mask in such places. 'Patients with symptoms of acute respiratory illness should self-monitor their health and report to the nearest health facilities if they experience symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pain, etc,' it said.
India Gazette
02-06-2025
- Health
- India Gazette
'We are fully prepared...': Principal of Ayodya's Rajarshi Dashrath Medical College on COVID-19 preparedness
Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh) [India], June 2 (ANI): The Principal of Rajarshi Dashrath Autonomous State Medical College's health department said that the hospital is prepared for COVID-19 and will work as per government directions. Principal Dr Satyajeet Verma said that a mock drill was conducted with regard to COVID-19, and all the Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) oxygen plants are in working condition. Speaking to ANI, Principal Verma said, 'A mock drill was conducted in this regard... All the Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) oxygen plants are in working condition... We are fully prepared and we will work as per the state government's directions...' He added that they will get the tests done for those who show symptoms like a cough to avoid a situation like the pandemic. 'The advisory we are giving includes wearing masks, maintaining necessary distance, and we will try to get the tests done of those who show symptoms like cough, so that we don't have to undergo the consequences of COVID again...' he said. India's active COVID-19 cases stand at 3,961 as of 8 AM on Monday, June 2, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The cumulative COVID-19 deaths in the country since January this year have increased to 32, with four deaths reported since Sunday. According to official data, 203 new cases were added to the active case count since Sunday. Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Kerala each reported one COVID-19 death since Sunday. Delhi reported 47 more COVID-19 cases, increasing the total active cases in the national capital to 483. In Kerala, active COVID-19 cases rose to 1,435, with 35 new cases reported since Sunday. In Maharashtra, 21 new COVID-19 cases were reported, taking the active case count to 506. In West Bengal, 44 new COVID-19 cases were reported, increasing the state's active cases to 331. (ANI)
