JOINT STRATEGY

Grey River Argus, 14 December 1943, Page 5

JOINT STRATEGY

AGAINST JAPANESE Allied Plans Outlined [Aust. & N.Z. Press Assn.] (Rec. 11.30.) NEW YORK, Dec. 13. The “New York Times’s” New Delhi correspondent says that the strategic co-ordination of operations on all fronts against the Japanese is assured by arrangement at present being worked out between Lord Mountbatten and General MacArthur’s Headquarters. General MacArthur’s Chief-of-Staff Major-General Sutherland, is at present at New Delhi en route from the Cairo conference and there will be a continual interchange of Anglo-Am-erican officers. The wide geographic separation of the Burma and the South-west Pacific areas precludes joint operations at present, but offensive moves are certain to- be tim s ed together. A land attack through Burma will probably be combined with amphibious assaults on Burma and the Nicobar and Andaman Islands, which are obstacles to attacks further ahead on the Asiatic mainland and the Dutch Indies.

The mountain barriers between India and Burma, and the tenuous communications must limit overland attacks against the Japanese. The amohibious phase of operations must involve some landings at bases seven hundred miles from objectives. Some of the objectives are beyond the range of land-based fighter support and assaults will have to be protected by carrier-based ’planes. The Central Pacific attacks proved that South-eastern Asia attacks are thoroughly feasible, and once positions are established in Burma and the island groups, a wide range of possibilities will be- opened for swift moves, ultimately planting Lora Mountbatten’s forces across the South-east Asia Peninsula on the shores of the China. Sea and controlling Singapore and Sumatra. Some of the initial moves might not be long delayed. „