BRITISH SHIPS IN PACIFIC

Southland Times, Issue 25545, 13 December 1944, Page 5

BRITISH SHIPS IN PACIFIC

Japanese Fleet To Be Hunted Down (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, Dec. 12. Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, the commander of the newly-formed British Pacific Fleet, who is now in Melbourne, will fly his flag in the battleship Howe, a 35,000-ton vessel of the King George V class. Speaking in Melbourne, Admiral Fraser said the new fleet comprised battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, corvettes and other types of vessels. Australian ratings and R.A.A.F. pilots would join the newly-formed fleet in due course with Australian ships, which

would come under his command, said Sir Bruce. The Australian cruisers which had been in action in the Philippines would remain under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. VISIT TO NIMITZ Admiral Fraser indicated that he would soon visit Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the Allied Supreme Commander of the Pacific operations area. “Our strategy can be expressed simply,” Admiral Fraser stated. “It is to find and sink the Japanese Fleet. We have the requisite strength to do it” The headquarters of the new Pacific Fleet will be Sydney and Melbourne, and Sir Bruce said he hoped one of his battleships would be the first to use Sydney’s new dry dock, the largest in the southern hemisphere, which is now undergoing its final tests. Considerable use would also be made of the new Brisbane dock which was recently opened. Admiral Fraser, who is accompanied by Vice-Admiral C. S. Daniel, in charge of the administration of the fleet, has already conferred with the Australian Navy Board. BETTER WEATHER EXPECTED Admiral Fraser said the Pacific would be a change after convoying supplies to Russia. Although the Pacific distances were more vast, the weather could not be so consistently foul. “A couple of days before I left the Home Fleet, Field-Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery came aboard,” added Sir Bruce. “He told me that there are Germans aged 20 and 25 whom you could never change. ‘There is nothing left to do but kill them; so I kill them,’ he said to me. “As for the Japanese, we have no use for their ships, so we shall sink them. The Japanese shipping position has gone from bad to worse and now we propose to find and sink their Home Fleet.” The creation of the new British Pacific Fleet has been enthusiastically received throughout Australia, says a special correspondent. The Sydney Morning Herald, in a leading article today, says: “Upon Australians there falls amid their rejoicings over the Admiralty’s announcement, the duty to acknowledge what is owed to the United States for aid and protection during the years of crisis. But the news that a British Fleet will come to the Pacific will thrill the Empire. “It is an answer to the critics who have complained, foolishly or maliciously, that Britain intended to shirk her obligations in the war against Japan. It fulfils in considerable measure Mr Churchill’s promise that everything of British strength that could be moved to this theatre would be so moved at the earliest opportunity.”