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"No Comment." MacArthur, who had received little comfort from Washington, was, as usual, quite prepared to make his own decisions in his new command. During World War II he had been an aloof figure who avoided interference from his nominal superiors, worked out his problems in his own way. His independence had once prompted Franklin Roosevelt to sigh: "I wish MacArthur would tell me these things."
The general had not changed his ways. Last week this fact was driven home to his superiors in Washington when they tried to offer MacArthur some polite suggestions. The exchange began with a cautiously phrased message from the Pentagon: "If such & such were undertaken, perhaps General MacArthur would like to do so & so?"
The answer from Tokyo bounced back:
"No comment."
The Pentagon brooded for a while, then tried another approach: "Do you desire any instructions?"
The reply was terse: "No."
Douglas MacArthur was still playing Sphinx.
Overnight the sacrosanct sixth floor of MacArthur's headquarters ceased to be the home of SCAP, Japan's military super-government, and was given over to its brother organization, the Far East Command. Down the hall from MacArthur's own office appeared a huge sign bearing the legend "War Room," and underneath, in large red letters, the word "Secret." Headquarters sections concerned with the war went into round-the-clock operations. Top staff officers worked 15-hour shifts and a colonel remarked wearily, "Some tempers are getting mighty short."
MacArthur himself seemed to thrive under the new burden. Said one of his subordinates, "The added responsibility seems to have peeled ten years from his shoulders." Inside the Dai Ichi Building, once the heart of a Japanese insurance empire, bleary-eyed staff officers looked up from stacks of paper, whispered proudly, "God, the man is great." General Almond, his chief of staff, said straight out, "He's the greatest man alive."
And reverent Air Force General George E. Stratemeyer put it as strongly as it could be put (even in the Dai Ichi Building): "He's the greatest man in history."
The Heirs of Colin Kelly. It was upon the reverent Stratemeyer and his Far East Air Forces that MacArthur placed the first heavy burden of U.S. operations in Korea. FEAF's 400-odd fighters, 60-odd bombers and one troop carrier group were scattered halfway across the Pacific. From bases in southern Japan, Stratemeyer sent out jet F80 Shooting Stars and F82 Twin Mustangs to strafe North Korean trucks, locomotives and armor. From Guam he called up B-29 Superfortresses to pound Seoul's Kimpo airfield.
For most bombing missions, however, Stratemeyer relied on the famed 19th Bomb Group, Colin Kelly's old outfit, which had been trapped in the Philippines on Pearl Harbor Day. In all their operations the U.S. planes were hampered by lack of advanced bases and air-ground communication with the South Korean army. And for the first three days after they entered the fight, U.S. fliers were hamstrung by a Washington order to strike only at the airfields south of the 38th parallel. That meant that they could not get at the source of North Korean air power.