THE PACIFIC COMMAND

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 9 April 1945, Page 4

THE PACIFIC COMMAND

GENERAL MACARTHUR and Admiral Nimitz, the two men mainly responsible for speeding the Pacific war to its present hopeful stage, have been given instructions to carry on. On performance they richly deserve the fresh confidence' placed in them. There would have been little point in making a change and it would have been invidious to give one seniority over the other, though this would have been done had the pattern of Allied strategy demanded it. In that event a Supreme Commander would have been appointed, probably one of these two, or General Marshall, Chief of the United States General Staff. But while converging towards narrowing objectives the war against Japan is still being fought over such vast distances as to risk a single command being less efficient than the present arrangement, which has been most fruitful of quick and far-reaching results. The line of control has been drawn between all army forces in the Pacific, which will be under MacArthur, and all naval forces, which are to be in command of Nimitz. Exercising general strategic authority, the Joint Chiefs of Staff will map out the campaigns and allot the responsibility for conducting them, the general rule being that MacArthur will direct those by land and Nimitz those by sea. As Supreme Commander, South-West Pacific, MacArthur’s sphere ended with the Philippines. He has now been briefed for action in a wider field which may, before very long, extend to the China coast and beyond, for, from now on, the defeat of Japan is likely to become much more a land war than it has so far been'. Combined operations will almost certainly be called fqr and in these the two leaders will co-operate in much the same way as has been done in the invasion of Europe from the West. The Chiefs of Staff committee will act as overall commander and, apart from the wider responsibility given to each of the two leaders, the Pacific war will continue to he conducted by the personnel who are now in charge. Admiral Mountbatten’s South-East Asia Command, which stretches as far east as Malay and Indo-China, is not disturbed by the new directives issued to the Americans. .