From Melbourne, five thousand miles away' at the bottom of the world, General MacArthur by mid-1945 had smashed his way back to the very outposts of the Japanese homeland itself: Buna, Biak, the Philippine Sea, Leyte-a tremendous itinerary of two and a half years against a fanatically resisting foe. At the end of June, he paused to assemble his forces, grown from scattered, relatively green American troops' and a small but battle-hardened section of Australians, into a mighty concentration of power.' On the ground, in the air, and on the sea they were massing for what would be the final drive against the Japanese stronghold, the homeland archipelago. Enemy resistance was to be pulverized in an invasion drive that would begin in the fall of 1945 and be continued in a second phase in the spring of 1946. Operation" Olympic" would launch an amphibious assault by veteran Sixth Army troops against southern Kyushu to secure the needed beachhead.' Tremendous hammer blows by air and sea would soften up the formidable objective before the troops went in. Then, in Operation "Coronet," three corps including eight divisions of the Eighth Army, and two more corps of the First Army would be catapulted into the heart of the Tokyo Plain itself. It was expected to be costly."