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PROGRESS OF WAR AT SEA REVIEWED

WASHINGTON, March 29.^ FLEET Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Fleet and Chief of Naval operations, said in his annual report issued last Tuesday' "The battle of the Pacific has been carried more than three thousand miles to the westward —from the Marshall Islands into the South China Sea beyond the Philippines— and to the Tokyo approaches. The invasion of the continent of Europe has been accomplished. These successes have been made possible only by the strength and resolution of our amphibious forces, acting in conjunction with the fleet." Admiral King's report covered combat operations for the year beginning March 1, 1944. The Admiral declared that the war "is ahead of our expectations of last year," but warned that "a quick and easy Pacific victory cannot be taken for granted, even after the European war is over." In the twelve month period the Navy, he said, had participated in seventy-two actions against the enemy in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. These actions included two major landings on the European continent, 24 landings in the Pacific, 35 carrier task force attacks and two major naval battles—those of the Philippine Sea and for Leyte Gulf. In connection with these actions, he paid high tribute to "the ceaseless and unrelenting depredations of our submarines in the Pacific." He said the rapid advance of both sea and air forces had been due in no small measure to the outstanding success with which submarine activities had been carried on in waters where nothing but submarines could go. Admiral King explained that the report was restricted to those combat operations "which have had a significant or decisive effect upon the progress of the war. ... It has been necessary to omit," he said, "the details of the constant activity of many naval, air, surface and shore-based units which have performed invaluable services of patrol, supply and maintenance on a vast scale." War in the Pacific In discussing overall Pacil: nava' operations, he said in part: "During the year 1944 the whole of the United States Navy in the Pacific was on the offensive. . . . The European war has turned into, a vast land campaign, in which the role of the navies is to keep open the transatlantic sea routes against an enemy whose naval strength appears to be broken except for his U-boat activities. In contrast, the Pacific war is still in that 'crossing the ocean phase. "There are times in the Pacific when troops get beyond the range of naval gun support, but much of the fighting has been, is now, and will continue for some time to be on the beaches where army and navy combine in amphibious operations. Therefore the essential element of our dominance over the Japanese has been the strength of our fleet. The ability to move troops from island to island and to put them ashore against opposition is due to the fact that our command of the

l-sea is spreading as Japanese naval strength withers. As a rough generalisation, the war in Europe is now predominately an affair of armies, while the war in the Pacific is still predominately naval." The strategy in the Pacific, he explained, had been to advance on "the core of the Japanese position" from two directions —north from Australia and west from Hawaii. In discussing the "leap-frog" strategy employed in the Pacific, Admiral King said that its basic concept was the seizure of islands essential for American use and the by-passing of many strongly held intervening ones which were not essential for United States purposes. He declared that that policy was made possible "by the gradually increasing disparitv between our own naval power and that of the enemy, so that the enemy was, and still is, unable to support the garrisons on the bypassed atolls." Admiral King explained that "consequently, by cutting the enemy's line of communicating bases, the isolated ones became innocuous, without the necessity for expending effort for their capture." "Therefore we can, with impunity, bv-pass numerous enemy positions, with small comfort to the isolated Japanese garrisons, who are left to meditate on the fate of exposed forces beyond the range of naval support." Philippine Sea Battle Reviewing the war in the Pacific for the past year the report recapitulated the actiOrt at Hollandia, the capture of which provided airstrips and port facilities for further attacks along the north-western coast of New Guinea. The Marianas operations during the summer of 1944, which resulted in the capture of Saipan, Guam and Tinian and the neutralisation of other Marianas islands, were discussed in detail. - Admiral King said that the sortie of the Japanese fleet developed into the battle of the Philippine Sea on June 19 and 20, and "broke the Japanese effort to reinforce the Marianas." Further Pacific actions included operations at Peleliu and Anguar, frcm which two islands the rest of the Palau group was being dominated and the enemy ground forces on the other islands kept neutralised. Throughout the report Admiral King emphasised the teamwork involved in staging a successful amphibious operation, the section devoted to the reoccupation of the Philippines being a detailed treatment of this type of action. Discussing the navy's share in such an operation, he said of the Lingayen Gulf landings on January 9, 1945: "The extent and varied character of nslval participation in amphibious operations have required vast quantities of ships, men and material. Consider, for example, the Lingayen Gulf landings. The naval attack and covering forces for this operation consisted of 1033 ships, ranging in size from battleships and carriers on down through landing craft. "The naval personnel in this force numbered upwards of 273,000. The army forces put a shore on D day and during the following four days were slightly more than two-thirds of this number." "The amphibious operations of the spring, summer and autumn of 1944 carried our forces such great distances across the Pacific that in February, 1945, they were enabled to begin the assault upon the inner defences of the Japanese empire itself." Opening the assault on these "inner defences" was the attack on

Iwo Jima, 750 miles from Tokyo. The possession of Two Jima, the admiral said, would "permit medium bombers to attack Japan, deprive the enemy of an important aerial lookout station and reduce his air attacks on our Marianas bases." He added that enemy resistance on this strategic island was expected to be severe, consequently preparations had to be made for the most intensive ground fighting yet encountered in the Pacific. "Landing forces cf 60,000 marines put ashore by a naval force of more than 800 ships manned by approximately 220,000 naval personnel are evidence of the scale of the attack and the determination of the opposition expected." Nearer to Japan The report gave the operational details of the bitter and blcody fighting on Iwo Jima. . Concluding the section on this action, Admiral King said: "On March 1, 1944, our forces were in the Marshall Islands and northeast New Guinea, about 2800 miles from Tokyo. On March 1, 1945, they were established in Iwo Jima, 750 miles from Tokyo." An integral part of the overall Pacific action, had been the sweeping operations of the Pacific Fleet's fast carrier task forces which had "softened up" island objectives, aided in covering landing operations and dispatched planes to attack Tokyo. Combat operations of the United States Atlantic Fleet during the past year had been concerned primarily with anti-submarine activities. The Atlantic Fleet had played a vital role in the landings in Normandy. "About 124,000 ... officers and men participated directly or indirectly in the invasion. Of these, 87,000 were aboard landing craft and small escort vessels, 15,000 were aboard combatant ships and 22,000 were attached to amphibious bases in England. By June 1, when the landing of troops began, 2493 United States Navy ships and craift had been assembled for the operation and of these only 14 were unable to take part because of material difficulties." The U.S. Eighth Fleet in the Mediterranean had supported the Anzio beachhead, taken part in the capture of Elba, June 17, and participated vitally in the landings in southern France. The Admiral welcomed the arrival in the Pacific of a task force of the British Fleet under Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser and said units of the Australian Navy had co-operated importantly in Pacific actions. In the Atlantic, he added, the United States Fleet had worked in close co-operation with the British, Canadian, French, Brazilian and Netherlands Navies. In concluding his report the Admiral discussed the "free and rapid interchange of forces of the several services" designed to bring the "greatest strength ... to bear against the enemy at the place and time that will do the most good." Commenting on the complexity of modern amphibious operations, he said: "The experience of more than three years of war has demonstrated the soundness of our concept of a ' balanced fleet,' in which aircraft and ships work together as a coordinated team . . . working together, surface ships, submarines and aircraft supplement each other so that the strength of the unified team is greater than the sum of the parts. "While we rejoice in the reoccupation of Guam and the Philippines, from which our forces were driven three years ago, we must constantly realise that we are only now gaining a position from which we can assault the heart of the Japanese strength. That is our goal, and the enemy is welcome to know that we shall continue to press him with every means at our command."

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19450410.2.47

Bibliographic details

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 84, 10 April 1945, Page 4

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1,596

PROGRESS OF WAR AT SEA REVIEWED Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 84, 10 April 1945, Page 4

PROGRESS OF WAR AT SEA REVIEWED Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 84, 10 April 1945, Page 4