From Melbourne, five thousand miles away'at the bottom of the world, General MacArthurby mid-1945 had smashed his wayback to the very outposts of the Japanesehomeland itself: Buna, Biak, the PhilippineSea, Leyte -- a tremendous itinerary oftwo and a half years against a fanaticallyresisting foe.At the end of June, he paused to assemblehis forces, grown from scattered, relativelygreen American troops and a small butbattle-hardened section of Australians, intoa mighty concentration of power. On theground, in the air, and on the sea theywere massing for what would be the finaldrive against the Japanese stronghold, thehomeland archipelago.Enemy resistance was to be pulverized in aninvasion drive that would begin in the fall of1945 and be continued in a second phase inthe spring of 1946. Operation Olympicwould launch an amphibious assault by veteranSixth Army troops against southern Kyushu tosecure the needed beachhead. Tremendoushammer blows by air and sea would softenup the formidable objective before the troopswent in. Then, in Operation Coronet,three corps including eight divisions of theEighth Army, and two more corps of theFirst Army would be catapulted into the heartof the Tokyo Plain itself.It was expected to be costly.