SELECTING THE MacARTHUR HONOR GUARD
	by Ralph E. Ermatinger
	From the far eaches of the 511th PIR Regiment they came, those splendid and much decorated paratroopers.  There were 66 enlisted men and two officers; all were veterans of deadly jungle and vicious urban warfare.  They were assembled to accomplish one final mission – the guarding of the General of the Army upon his arrival in Japan to accept the surrender of that defeated nation.
	The year was 1945 and the month was July, when at Lipa, Luzon, Pilippine Islands, Col. Edward H. Lahti, the commander of the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 11th Airborne Division, ordered his company commanders each to select several of their most exemplary soldiers for assigment to duty with a special MacArthur Honor Guard to be under the command of 1st Lt Ralph E. Ermatinger, F-511th and 2nd Lt James C. Watkins, G-511th.  The named Platoon Sergeant was Edward L. Reed, C-511th a holder of the Distinguished Service Cross for exceptional heroism in combat.  The 66 enlisted men and two officers had been awarded more than 400 medals, badges and ribbons.  It was a well-decorated platoon.
	On August 12, 1945, a large fleet of U.S. Army air Corps B-24 bombers departed Lipa airstrip for Okinawa carrying most of the 511th PIR, including the Honor Guard, on the first leg of the trip to Japan.  Guard Commander Ermatinger had loaded into plane number 13, but for a reason unknown to him, he and his group of about 22 men were displaced forward into plane number 12.  Plane 13 crashed and burned on takeoff, killing many of the men aboard, including Lt. Walter Kannely from D-511th.
	After waiting a little more than two weeks on Okinawa, the 11th Airborne Division was flown to Atsugi, Japan, on August 29, 1945, in a large fleet of C-54 transports from the Air Transport Command.
	Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s C-54, the “Bataan,” reached Atsugi airdrome at 2:10pm on the 29th of August.  The Honor Guard stood nearby, as Major General Joseph Swing, the commanding general of the 11th Airborne Division and by Lt. General Robert Eichelberger, who commanded the U.S. Eight Army, greeted the General, at the ladder.  The envoys from the Japanese government were ignored.  A large crowd of newsmen and photographers swarmed around the “Bataan,” while the 11th Airborne Division’s band played in the background.  The general gave the newsmen ample time to get their stories and photographs.  He spoke a few words to the bandleader and then shook his hand.  MacArthur then entered a large Packard sedan, which was sandwiched into the Honor Guard’s 6-truck convoy, and began the 15 mile trip to the New Grand Hotel in Yokohama.
	Japanese troops armed with rifles stood guard on both sides of the route.  They faced inward towards the roadway.  They were spaced at intervals of perhaps two blocks.  An unidentified captain and I leaned over the cab, of our lead truck, and watched for overt signs of hostility among the Japanese troops.  There were none.
	The captain, however, bade a civilian interpreter on board to order the Japanese troops to face away from the road as the convoy neared each pair.  The captain’s order may have contradicted orders received by the Japanese troops, for they hesitated and looked about in confusion.  Then the civilian shouted his order to “ABOUT FACE,” each soldier obeyed and there were no incidents.
	Life magazine, dated September 10, 1945, reported the Japanese guards turned their backs toward MacArthur as a “mark of great respect.”  Backs were always turned when the emperor passed, Life reported, and people standing in doorways turned their faces away as the Americans drove past.  Honor Guard members noted, however, that the Japanese guards did not turn away until they were ordered to do so by the interpreter.
	Upon arrival at the New Grand Hotel, the Honor Guard took up positions at all points of entry to the building.  In addition two men were posted for two-hour intervals, 24 hours a day, outside the door of the general’s suite.
	Toward the end of the first day of the occupation, Gen. Jonathan Wainwright was ushered into the hotel, after spending nearly three years in a prisoner-of-war camp in China following his surrender of the American troops on Bataan in 1942.  MacArthur left the table and greeted “Skinny” Wainwright in the hallway.  It was a poignant meeting.  Taking Wainwright in his arms, MacArthur looked deeply into his face and spoke earnestly to him.  Wainwright appeared overcome by emotion and was unable to speak, but he shed no tears.  While this momentous reunion was taking place in the hotel, two Japanese on the front lawn killed themselves with grenades.
	During MacArthur’s stay at the New Grand Hotel, he sometimes appeared outside his quarters wearing none of the trappings of his rank and personality.  On one such occasion, while en route to inspect the guard at his suite, I met an elderly gentleman in the hallway, who was dressed in suntans but bore no identification at all.  We greeted each other with ‘good mornings” and passed on.  Thinking the stranger’s face looked familiar, I paused for a second look and sure enough there was the bald spot on the back of the head, set about with very black hair.  Could Edith Hamilton have had in mind – five stars, a gold braid cap and a corncob pipe when she wrote this line, “of most famous people, we know only the imposing façade?”
	Guard member George Hadad, E511th of New Prague, Minnesota told the following incident involving MacArthur:  “While doing my shift in front of his door, the general walked out, made a U-turn and faced me.  I was frozen at present arms. ‘Where are you from, soldier?’ the general asked.  ‘Minnesota,’ I replied.  ‘The cold country,’ the general quipped.  ‘We have our seasons, Sir,’ and he walked back in his room – much to my relief.”
	Shortly thereafter the general moved his place of residence from the New Grand Hotel to a western-style house on a high ridge overlooking Yokohama and Tokyo Bay.  The Honor Guard moved into the house next door.  It was from this new location that MacArthur set out for the battleship Missouri and the surrender ceremonies on September 2, 1945.  On that historic day, the 511th Honor Guard assembled on the dock at Yokohama to await the arrival of the General.  It was joined for the first time by Honor Guard units from other elements of the 11th Airborne Division, which altogether created a company of more than 200 soldiers.
	When MacArthur arrived at the dock, the Guard came to attention and presented arms as the general emerged from his sedan and strode to the waiting destroyer, USS Buchanan, which would transport him to the USS Missouri.  The general appeared preoccupied and did not acknowledge the Guard’s salute.  With the exception of a Russian newsreel cameraman, who recorded the dockside ceremony, no other newsmen were present.
	Upon completion of the surrender ceremonies, MacArthur returned to his home on the heights above Yokohama, where he remained under the protection of the Guard, until he moved to Tokyo a few days later.
	Its mission completed, the Honor Guard was now ready to disband and to rejoin the 11th Airborne Division, which had moved to northern Honshu to commence occupation duty.  One final task remained for the troopers to accomplish – that of helping MacArthur’s master sergeant chef load his kitchen equipment and food supplies aboard a truck for the transfer from Yokohama to the general’s new quarters in Tokyo.  The MacArthur larder contained case upon case of Campbell’s soup, Vienna sausage, corn, peas, beans, other “soft” foods and caviar for the general.  There was no evidence of dehydrated potatoes, ersatz butter, bully beef and the “iron rations” that the troops ate in the field.  When some Honor Guard members discovered this treasure trove of food, they were eager to “liberate” a decent share of it.
	A tall hedge separated the general’s former Yokohama home from the Guardhouse next door.  The master sergeant chef pulled his truck in beside the hedge and asked for several “volunteers” to began the loading.  They carried the crates of food from the house to the truck, while two other “volunteers” stacked the cases in the truck.  The sergeant watched suspiciously, but he failed to observe cases after case of the general’s food disappear over the far side of the truck into other “volunteer” hands waiting below.  To a casual observer, these troopers may have been just soldiers at work doing the tasks that soldiers do when they are not prone in the position of “soldiers at rest.”  But this was a “moonlight requisition” of high efficiency pulled off in the full glare of the morning sun under the watchful eyes of a dog-robber mess sergeant.  Not for nothing, had the former regimental commander, Col Orin D. “Hard Rock” Haugen, and his 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment earned the sobriquet in New Guinea – “Ali Haugen and his 2,000 thieves.”
	If the souls of Viking warriors go to the great hall of Valhalla, there to sit at the right side of Thor, Norse god of “Thunder,” the redoubtable Haugen must have looked down that day and said, “You men did a whale of a job here today.”  General MacArthur might have expressed a similar sentiment.
	About the author:
	After the 11th Airborne Division landed in Japan, following WWII, he was selected to lead the "MacArthur Honor Guard".  Ralph was a feature writer during the early years of the 511th PIR newsletter.  Currently he and his wife Lourdes reside in Sacramento, CA
	Courtesy of “WINDS ALOFT” Quarterly publication of the 511th PIR Association