Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1942. A COMMAND DISSOLVED.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 March 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1942. A COMMAND DISSOLVED.

MANY people no doubt received with an initial sense of disquiet and even of shock the news that General Siy Archibald Wavell has relinquished the supreme command of the Allied forces in the Soutli-Y estern Pacific and is taking up again his former post as Cominander-in-Chief in India, with the iesponsibility that appointment now carries for the operations in Burma and for close co-operation with China. On reflection, -however, it must appear that this readjustment of command is made inevitable by war events and changes already known to all the world. On account of the losses they have suffered for the time being in Malava, the Netherlands Indies and elsewhere, the Allies are-bound to recast their war plans and the arrangements made in detail to carry them out. Until they are able to assemble and bring to bear big additional forces, the Allies must continue to fight holding battles in what is left of the ABDA area. In the conditions that have now arisen, it is natural and right that the task of holding Java, if that be humanly possible, should be entrusted to the Dutch, with all the aid their Allies can give them for the time being. It is clear enough, too, that General Wavell will find full scope for the exercise of all his powers of' organisation and leadership in opposing the Japanese invasion of Burma, with the definite threat it embodies to India and to Allied communications with China. The immediate outlook in both these areas of concentrated conflict is highly critical, but at a minimum something is being done in Java, Burma, the Philippines and elsewhere, to hold, weaken and wear down the enemy, while the Allies are making their preparations for powerful offensive action. It would, of course, be foolish to expect that any detailed information regarding these preparations should be given for the time being. Great striking forces, however, are being organised and there is a hint of coming events in the statemet made by the American Chief of Staff, General Marshall:— The time has now come when we must proceed with the business of carrying the war to the enemy. We must not permit the greater portion of our armed forces and material to be immobilised within the continental United States. Just how much time must elapse before the war is carried to the enemy remains meantime an open question, but that this will be done ultimately is not in doubt. The sacrifices that are being made and have been made in the defence or attempted defence of island and other bases are not and have not been wholly vain. It is very necessary, however, to recognise the immediately critical aspects of the war situation on this side of the world, not least as it affects the South Pacific Dominions. At a meeting of the Australian War Council held in Melbourne a day or two ago—a meeting in which representatives of New Zealand and other united nations participated—it was decided to urge important changes in Allied strategy in the Pacific, “which would mean that Australia would become the main Pacific base of the United Nations.” Against the background of war events —some of them sufficiently tragic—this decision emphasises sharply the fact that the war is at our doors and that it becomes imperative that we should act in our own defence and in the Allied cause with all the energy and resolution at our command. If we arc wise, we shall not allow confidence in ultimate Allied victory to blind us to the immediate perils the situation holds for our own country and others.