Ike & the Eighth

With Philippine victory proclaimed, the U.S. Eighth Army last week completed its first assignment. In action six and a half months, during which it rarely nudged into the headlines, it had secured its half of the Philippines. From Manila, TIME Correspondent William Gray radioed the Eighth's story:

Lieut. General Robert L. Eichelberger's Eighth Army was General Douglas MacArthur's invaluable Team No. 2 in the Philippine campaign. Built up quietly in New Guinea by big, jovial Ike Eichelberger with a staff which started training in Ben Lear's old Second Army, the Eighth went into action as an identified army late in January. The 38th Division and elements of the 24th piled ashore north of Bataan, went on to take Subic Bay and Olongapo. Two days after the first landing the 11th Airborne piled out of boats at Nasugbu and drove to the southern outskirts of Manila in 104 hours. The 511th Regimental Combat Team made the first paratroop drop of the Philippine campaign, landing along the Tagaytay ridge in support of the11th Airborne's ground drive.

Then MacArthur made Luzon the exclusive business of General Walter Krueger's Sixth Army and sent battle-tried Ike Eichelberger to clean up the rest of the Philippines to the south. How well Team No. 2 had done its job was seen last week as the 24th and 31st Divisions were liquidating isolated pockets of enemy resistance on Mindanao--last of several tough nuts cracked by the Eighth Army.

Fifty-One Landings. The Eighth's chief claim to fame lay perhaps in its 51 amphibious landings (on two dozen islands) since Dec. 26, when MacArthur declared the Leyte campaign strategically closed and turned over the mop-up (which has produced 26,000 dead Japs) to the Eighth. The "Amphibious Eighth" staged the Visayan campaign, which MacArthur called "a model of what a light but aggressive command can accomplish in rapid exploitation." Then it went on to Sulu and Mindanao, where the grateful Sultan of Sulu and Moro chiefs presented to Eichelberger several handsome kris and bolo knives (which the General displays prominentlv at his thatched headquarters on Leyte).

Up to this month, the Eighth had counted 58,365 Jap dead and 1,759 prisoners in its forward areas, another 3,735 dead and 461 prisoners in such rear areas as Biak and Hollandia.

Eichelberger flies to his army's shows in an ancient B-17 fitted up for staff use. A man of sometimes reckless courage, he has decided lately to quit sticking his neck out so often--now that he has served 40 years in the Army and sees the war's end in sight. He wants to be sure to see Tokyo.

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