In 1948, the General Secretary of the American Bible Society reported that General D. McArthur [a larger-than-life and controversial character who commanded the southwest Pacific in World War 2] asked for more copies of the Scriptures to be sent to Japan to satisfy the ‘insatiable demand’ for them there.
The Society planned to supply Japan with 1,725,000 Bibles, all of which were printed in Japan. Japanese Christian leaders also asked for two and a half million Testaments and 700,000 Gospels.
(Floodtide 1949)