GENERAL’S PRAISE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 98, 20 January 1943, Page 5

GENERAL’S PRAISE

Performances Of Allied Infantry

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January 19.

A high tribute to the work of both American and Australian infantry in the Papuan fighting has been paid by the commander of the Allied land forces in New Guinea, LieutemintGeneral E. F. Herring.

"Though the Americans had no battle experience when they went into action against the well-trained, strongly-entrenched, fresh Japanese troops at Cape Endiudere, they accomplished things which, for sheer gifts and endurance, wore unsurpassable,” lie declared. General Herring said that the United Slates soldiers had been inspired by the example of their corps commander, General Robert Eichelberger, who had continually gone into action witli his troops like any company commander., The Australians had profited by tlwir earlier battle experience in many theatres of war. Three years of fighting had resulted in less efficient and less inspiring leaders being weeded out. . "The A.T.F. has discovered its leaders in battle,” said General Herring.

In one action at Buna one A.I.F. battalion hud lost every platoon leader, but experienced men from the ranks took their places and the battalion accomplished its task. When a unit of !)(> Australians was ordered to take a strip of beach near Buna 60 of them were killed or wounded, but the. 30 left on their feet made their objective. Man and Machine.

“Plenty of well-trained infantry will be needed to win this war,” said General Herring. “Too many people have been looking for machines—tanks and aeroplanes—to do their lighting for them, but in the end it is the infantry which still wins wars and which does the real tough fighting.” Fifty years old, General Herring is a leading King’s Counsel at the Victorian Bar, and has been Chancellor of the Melbourne Anglican Diocese, the highest ecclesiastical office open to a layman. In 1912 he non n Rhodes Scholarship in his first year at Melbourne University. From Oxford he went to the first World War as a trooper, winning a commission in the field and gaining the M.C. and D.S.O. In this war he left Australia in command of the Royal Australian Artillery of the Sixth Division and fought at Bardin and Tobruk, lie has been commander of the Allied lanu forces in New Guinea since last September.