Uncle Bob

Almost all of the occupation forces' top brass were at the dockside in Yokohama one day last week as Lieut. General Robert Lawrence Eichelberger walked slowly up the gangplank of an Army transport. There were few dry eyes among the generals and colonels. Many an Eighth Army G.I. was in the dumps. Said one hard-faced sergeant: "There goes the best goddam man the Army ever raised." At 62, Bob Eichelberger was going into retirement.

Absent from the leave-taking was his commander, General Douglas MacArthur; they had said their farewells in private two days before. That was in keeping with their relationship during the last six years; it had always been on the basis of commander and subordinate, each with enormous respect for the other as a soldier.

In war, General MacArthur had used rough and leathery General Eichelberger as his forward-passer and end-runner; from Buna through the Philippines, West Pointer Eichelberger had made more than 55 invasion landings. Few field generals had been as daring, successful or relentless against the Japs: none had commanded so many amphibious assaults on the enemy.

Affectionate Tone. But General Eichelberger's real triumph lay in his dealings with the Japanese people as boss of the occupation forces. At first the Japanese had feared him as a tough soldier who would probably be a hard-heeled conqueror. He showed that he could be firm; he also showed them that he was going to be fair.

The friendly side of Bob Eichelberger soon won the Japanese. He picked up hitchhikers in his car, swapped gifts with peddlers on the streets. His office door was always open to a Japanese. Unlike MacArthur, he got around, made friends with hundreds of big and little Japanese. To the Japanese, aloof, impersonal Douglas MacArthur had supplanted their Emperor as the personification of supreme authority. Eichelberger became a symbol of U.S. democracy and fairness. Many Japanese said "Aikerubaga" in the same affectionate tone used by many of his soldiers in calling him "Uncle Bob."

"Kind Bust" v. "Mean Bust." Before he left, the Japanese poured out their appreciation of General Eichelberger. The Emperor invited him to lunch--a rare courtesy. Prince Takamatsu, the Emperor's brother, came to tea with the general and his wife Emma (who through the war, and after, got a letter a day from her husband until she joined him in Yokohama). The governor of Tokyo and the governor of Yokohama got into a squabble over which would commission a sculptor to do a "kind bust" of the general--to supplant a stern-faced "mean bust" made of him when he first arrived in Japan.

To the general's office came dozens of Japanese with gifts and good-luck keepsakes. Most of them ended their hesitant speeches on the same note: "General, it is a tragedy for Japan that you are leaving us." Many were weeping on the dock when the general joined "Miss Em" on the transport and sailed for a hero's welcome this week in Manila, for an old soldier's quiet life in the States as soon as the Army marks "Retired" on Uncle Bob's service record of more than 43 years.

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