BASES IN PACIFIC

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21900, 19 December 1945, Page 6

BASES IN PACIFIC

AMERICAN CONTROL BID ALLEGED PROPAGANDA SYDNEY, Dec. 10. Some American newspaper interests are trying to mould opinion to the idea that the United States should have sole right of disposal of Japanese bases in the Pacific, says the Australian Army paper Salt. Salt criticises the American newsmagazine Time for having published a distorted account of the campaign at Buna, New Guinea, designed to prompt a belief that victory in the Pacific war was a lone-hand triumph for United States forces. In an article about Lieutenant-General R. Eichelberger, now commanding the Tokio occupation force, Time said: “When Eichelberger and his staff arrived in Australia the Australians were still being pushed south across the Owen Stanley Ranges ... A month after he took command the 32nd U.S. Division captured Buna, and MacArthur had his foothold on the north coast.” Salt says that Time’3 failure to mention that any other troops were engaged in the Buna campaign did not arise from ignorance, because Time correspondents had covered the whole New Guinea campaign and knew that most of the fighting was done by Australians. Troops of the 6th and 7th Divisions, A.1.F., and 14th Militia Brigade fought nearly all the Buna-Sanananda-Gon a campaign in 1942-43, which wiped out the Japanese forces in that area One exception was that the 32nd U.S. Division advanced from the south toward Buna. The Americans became bogged down near Semimi, Giropa Creek and Cape Endaidere. Brigadier G. F. Wooten’s Australian 18th Brigade took over and cleared in nine hours what the Americans had failed to accomplish in a month.

Salt comments: “Responsible Americans say such distortion of facts is an attempt by certain United States newspaper interests to represent the Pacific victory as a 100 per cent United States effort. Their object is to mould opinion to the idea that the United States should have sole control of Japan’s future and the disposal of Japanese bases in the Pacific.”

In addition to former Japanese-held territory north of the equator, the United States Navy is said to be pressing for the right to bases in areas under British Empire control, including Manus Island, in the Admiralty group, north-west of Rabaul.