WAR IN THE PACIFIC

Waikato Times, Volume 132, Issue 22153, 27 September 1943, Page 5

WAR IN THE PACIFIC

MACARTHUR’S COMMAND ALLIED STATUS LIKELY (United Press Assn—Elec. Tel. Copyright) (Received Sept. 27, 11 a.m.) NEW YORK, Sept. 26 “General MacArthur’s South-west Pacific Command will probably within six months be reduced to che status of a garrison holding recaptured territories, while drives from other directions aim at the East Indies and the Philippines,” writes Lewis Sebring in the New York Herald Tribune. “The realisation of this impending situation undoubtedly prompted General MacArthur’s statement implying that his ideas of Pacific strategy would not govern future operations.” Mr Sebring points out that virtually the entire operational activity in General MacArthur’s command is now concentrated north-eastwards of Australia, while the American forces are consolidating their positions in the Solomons. Obviously all these forces must converge on New Britain. Bougainville and New Ireland. The recently-created Central Pacific Command, under LieutenantGeneral Richardson, of Hawaii, gives a hint of where the land forces for the area north of New Guinea might come from. Mr Sebring suggests that it might take a considerable time for General Mae Arthur to clean up New Guinea. Beyond that is where the rub comes in. He would like to push on to the Philippines, but it is conceivable that by that time plans would call for others to undertake this assignment. The “others” might be Lord Louis Mountbailen, moving eastwards from India, or American naval forces, moving westwards through tlTe Parjfi r \ In either case it seems almost certain that General MacArthur’s command will end at the Equator on the north and slightly past the western Up of New Guinea on the west. How this will affect the continued use of Australia as a great

Allied base remains a question,

but with the South-west Pacific command confined to these limits its use as such would seem virtually to have ended.