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On one such uneasy occasion Eichelberger's aide, Major Clyde Schuck, whispered from his foxhole, "General, are you all right?" Getting no answer, he repeated the question in an anxious shout. From Eichelberger's hideout near by came the rumble of the General's voice: "Clyde, my boy, I appreciate your interest, but when the little bastards are infiltrating, I'd just as soon you called me Bob."
Biak & Beyond. At Biak, Eichelberger was sent to rescue another bogged-down force, again superseded a classmate (Major General Horace H. Fuller), straightened out the situation with less trouble than he had had at Buna. It was a clever job of tactics—no frontal assaults, much fast-stepping, cleverly conceived flank movement, a swift securing of the three vital Biak airfields. For such imaginative tactics MacArthur made Eichelberger commander of the new Eighth Army.
MacArthur used the Eighth as his second team in the invasion of the Philippines. Under Eichelberger it mopped up on Leyte (where Eighth Army men killed 26,000 Japs). In the assault on Luzon its role was also secondary, but brilliant: a landing below Manila, climaxed by a razzle-dazzle airborne assault.
Then the Eighth went south to clean up what was left of the Philippines. In 44 days it made six major and 24 minor landings. Eichelberger was all over the place, sleeping among his soldiers on the ground — once, so close to a Jap airfield that the racket of enemy airplane engines kept them awake most of the night. MacArthur wrote this commendation: "a model of what a light but aggressive com mand can accomplish in rapid exploitation."
The Lucky General. Eichelberger, never a man to blow his own horn, attributed his showing to his troops and to a lot of luck. His soldiers knew that he had a lot more than luck.
Eichelberger, who talks of military campaigns in football terms, does not believe in generals who buck the middle of the opponent's line; instead, he favors the end run, the cleverly concealed multiple pass, even on occasion a well-executed shoe string play. He minimizes his achievements in battle but brags unashamedly about what he did to raise the standard of the Military Academy's football team.
As a cadet, Eichelberger, son of an Urbana (Ohio) lawyer, seemed to have an easy time at studies: maybe it was because he had already put in two years at Ohio State. The Howitzer labeled him "divinely tall and most divinely fair" and his wife, whom he calls Miss Em, still quotes it, remembering the second lieutenant who proposed to her 34 years ago in the Canal zone the first evening he met her.
Out of Frustration. As a West Point cadet, Bob Eichelberger did not make the football team, won no letter. But he had wanted to. When he came back in 1940 as a major general and Superintendent of the Point, physical requirements for ad mission were so drawn that a tall candidate had to be underweight to get in. This anomaly was corrected. Eichelberger, who had come back with a fierce determination to make the Academy's football team the best ever, had his chance.