Mountbatten To Command In S.E. Asia

Northern Advocate, 26 August 1943, Page 3

Mountbatten To Command In S.E. Asia

1.12.15 p.m.) LONDON. Aug. 25. IT HAS BEEN DECIDED TO ESTABLISH A SEPARATE SOUTH-EAST ASIA COMMAND FOR CONDUCTING OPERATIONS EASED IN INDIA AND CEYLON AGAINST JAPAN. IT WILL BE AN ALLIED COMMAND SIMILAR TO THAT IN NORTH AFRICA. HIS MAJESTY THE KING HAS APPROVED THE APPOINTMENT OF ACTING VICEADMIRAL LORD LOUIS MOUNTEATTEN AS SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER OF SOUTH-EAST ASIA. Lord Louis Mountbatten is a cousin of the King and was former Commander of combined operations. Aged 43, he is a son of the late Admiral of the Fleet, First Marquess of Milford Haven, and Princess Victoria. Lord Mountbatten was educated at Cambridge and entered the Royal Navy as a naval cadet in 1913. In 1920. he visited New Zealand with the Prince of Wales on H.M.S. Renown, his rank at that time being lieutenant. In 1936 he was appointed personal Naval A.D.C. to King Edward VIII. Lord Louis is known throughout the Navy as a man of the utmost fearlessness and good humour. Naval ratings visiting Whangarei after serving in the destroyer flotilla which he led in the Mediterranean in the early days of the war, say that there is no more loved or respected officer in the service. Under the most merciless aerial bombing attacks, he invariably brought his ship home however badly crippled, and his first thought was always for his men. Staggering Figures The United States did not regard the war in the South Pacific as a sideshow, said the United States Undersecretary for War (Mr. Patterson) at Sydney. Ivir. Patterson and the Director of Production in the office of the United Stales Secretary for War. LieutenantGeneral Knudsen. yesterday arrived in Australia at the head cf a special mission to the south and south-west Pacific command areas. in a statement. Mr. Patterson promised early powerful blows against the Japanese, and released staggering new figures of American war production. Of America's growing army, now ‘ numbered at seven millions, more than two millions were already serving overseas, said Mr. Patterson. Since the beginning of the war, America had produced more than 109.000 planes, and was now turning them out at the rate of better than 7500 a month. Monthly production of artillery ammunition was 18 million rounds, and of small arms ammunition 1700 million rounds. America was producing 66,000 machine-guns and 2500 seventylive millimetre field guns per month. Mi'. Patterson added that he expected to have conferences with General MacArthur and with the Australian military and Government leaders. The mission was welcomed by the commanding officer of the United Slates Sixth Army. General Krueger, and other high-ranking Allied naval, army and air force officers. The mission includes Major-General le Rov Lutes, Director of the Operations Services ol' Supply at Washington; Briga-dier-General Boykin Wright, of the International Division Services of Supply; Colonel Stanley Grogan, Deputy-Director of the War Department Bureau of Public Relations; Colonel Carl Silverhorne. War Department General Staff'; Major Andrew Goodwin, of the Office of the Undersecretary for War; Julius Amborg, special assistant to the Secretary for War.