TRANSFER OF FORCES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25798, 20 March 1945, Page 5

TRANSFER OF FORCES

EUROPE TO THE PACIFIC SHIPPING A PROBLEM (Rec. 10.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, Mar. 19. A warning against expectations of an overnight transfer of huge masses of men and equipment from Europe to the Pacific immediately after Germany collapsed was given to-day by Major-general R. P. Pakenham-Walsh, who is Controller-geiieral of Army Provisions for the Sputh-east Asia Command.

Britain, he said will prosecute the war against Japan to the utmost of her ability, but shipping problems alone will make the concentration of her might a gradual process. It is necessary that those parts of the Empire in which troops will be quartered and trained for Pacific offensives should maintain production to the last minute and at the highest level. Major-general Pakenham-Walsh has come to Australia as head of the central provision office of the Eastern Army group, which covers all the areas east of Cairo (including New Zealand), to arrange a reciprocal basis for the supply of army stores, except foodstuffs and petrol. “It is becoming increasingly clear that a quick, decisive stepping-up of the war against Japan cannot follow the defeat of Germany,” says the Christian Science Monitor's Washington correspondent. “ Military quarters estimate it will take from four to six months to transfer military power from the western front. The War Department would prefer to transfer men direct from Europe, but it is not practicable. United States forces will have first to be shipped to America. Some will cross the Continent by rail and others will go through the Panama canal. Demobilisation questions also arise.

“The War Department is at present striving to work out a fair scheme for partial demobilisation. This means that most of the divisions now fighting in Europe must be reorganised and regrouped.”