GENERALS AGAINST JAPANESE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 310, 25 September 1943, Page 7

GENERALS AGAINST JAPANESE

Statement In Washington OVERLAPPING COMMANDS NOT SUGGESTED (By Telegraph.—Prew assu.—Copyright.) (Received September 24, 9.15 p.m.) WASHINGTON, September 23. Responding to questions at a Press conference about General MacArthur recent statement, the Secretary of vyar. Mr. Stimson, said he knew of no plans to call General MacArthur , home for a conference. He added: “General MacArthur is very busily engaged and is very active in very important operations. I doubt if he would want to leave at tins time. People from here are all the time going out to see him.” . Reporters asked whether Admiral Mountbatten's South-east Asia Command would overshadow or overlap General MacArthur’s South-west Pacific theatre. Mr. Stimson replied: “1 have never heard it suggested.” General MacArthur’s statement puzzles military and naval circles, reports the Washington bureau ol the Associated Press Reliable sources insist that R does not fit any known situation regarding the assignment of commands, such as Admiral Mountbatten for Burma or General Marshall for the Allied generalhssimo. , ... . At the same time, authorities profess no knowledge of any change in relationship between the naval command in the South and Central Pacific areas and General MacArthur’s command in the Southwest Pacific. They say the basic strategy of the Pacific war remains unchanged. “Inappropriate Moment.’'

The New York “Herald Tribune” corn ments editorially that General MacArthur chose, by design or by accident. a singularly inappropriate moment lor his statement on Pacific strategy. “The injection of a cryptic pronouncement into the gossiping chatter about General Marshall is unlikely to help mucii either toward a proper organization o£ the Allied High Command or the allocation of force among the several war theatres,” it said. The “New York Times says that it General Marshall becomes world generalissimo surelv the British Empire is entitled to appoint the commander of the Asiatic operations based on India. It adds that Admiral Mountbattens appointment does not raise the question of General MacArthur’s subordination, since the distances in the East are so great that, operations must be split into several commands. “Only when- the final stage ot the invasion of Japan from China and Korea has been reached will the question of the supreme commander in East Asia become pertinent,” the newspaper says.