Significance of Stilwell’s New Appointment

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 63, 17 March 1944, Page 5

Significance of Stilwell’s New Appointment

(By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) Received Thursday, 8.40 p.m. LONDON, March 15. The announcement that General Stilwell has accepted the post of deputy supreme Allied commander in Southeast Asia will read as an indirect commentary on American newspaper reports of differences of opinion between General Stilwell—who in respect of his China responsibilities is an independent commander —and Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten on questions of strategy in Southeast Asia, says the Times' Delhi correspondent. It is no secret that military opinion differs or did differ not only regarding the tactical soundness of the military campaign in Northern Burma but on the usefulness of the land communication which if the campaign were successful would be opened between Northeast Assam and China. The inference that may be drawn from General Stilwell’s most recent appointment is that his penetration of the Jukawng Valley is not an independent undertaking by Stilwell as commander-in-chief of the American forces in China, but fits in the general pattern of the Southeast Asia Command’s strategy. Whether the objections mentioned resulted from delay in putting the plan into execution is not known, but conceivably the suspicion that they did is at the bottom of the impatience the American Press recently displayed. The 14th Army recently accomplished crossings of the Chindwin River in Upper Burma after a 100-mile march across the Naga hills which their commander said eclipsed Hannibal’s performance. The general picture in North Burma is that from east to west north of a line drawn from Tamanthi to the region of Sumprabum the 14th Army with Chinese, American and other Allied columns, all with offensive intentions, are confronting the Japanese there and also in other unspecified 14th Army operations. Eastward of Tamanthi about 100 miles, much of which is hilly, separates the 14th Army from Mogaung to which the Chinese and Americans are driving from the north. The initiative is apparently still with the Japanese in the central sector where they are apparently attempting to envelop the 14th Army’s positions in the Tiddim area.