Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1942. GENERAL MACARTHUR’S COMMAND.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 March 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1942. GENERAL MACARTHUR’S COMMAND.

EXCELLENT reasons appear lor the universal enthusiasm with which the appointment of General Douglas MacArthur as supreme 15 comma iider in the Anzac area—to a command including, as President Roosevelt has put it, “everything this side of Singapore on the sea, in the air and on land”—has been received in British countries and in the United States. So far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned the appointment will be welcomed not only on account of the personal prestige General MacArthur lias gained in his conduct of a remarkable defensive campaign in the Philippines, but because in the appointment and the accompanying movement of American land and air forces to Australia, New Guinea and elsewhere there is an earnest of the fullest co-operation between the United States and the British Pacific Dominions. The Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) has summed the matter up in paying tribute to General MacArthur as a soldier of the highest reputation and adding that: — His appointment will greatly hearten the people of Australia and New Zealand. It will be to them an indication that the American offensive campaign in the Anzac area is now getting fully underway, and that support is materialising in an effective fashion. Something has yet to be learned of the lengths to which Japan thinks she is capable of going in attack upon India, the South Pacific Dominions, and perhaps Asiatic Russia as well. At. this stage it is a fact to be noted that Japan must strike, in concert with Germany, for complete victory over all the Allied Powers, or expect to lose all and more than she has meantime gained. For the time being many detail possibilities remain open and hard fighting is in prospect. No promise is held out that the Allies can at once or speedily complete their plans for offensive action against Japan. In its setting, however, and in the convincing testimony it bears to unity of Allied purpose, the appointment of General MacArthur encourages the hope that from this time forward the Allies will be able to strike in the Pacific, on balance, with increasing power and effect.