“SIMPLY ISN’T SO”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 April 1943, Page 3

“SIMPLY ISN’T SO”

NO RESERVE OF IDLE PLANES IN UNITED STATES ABOVE COMMITMENTS REPLY TO PACIFIC DEMANDS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK, April 10. “It simply isn’t so,” declared the Director of the Office of War Information, Mr Elmer Davis, referring to a statement enanating from an “authoritative source” at General MacArthur’s headquarters that there are 10,000 idle combat planes in the United States. -The exact number is a military secret, but they are not lying idle,” Mr Davis said. “It is natural that General MacArthur and Mr Curtin should want more planes. They are going to get more planes. Mr Stimson has promised that. But the other fronts need planes. If a lot had not been sent to Africa our recent victories there might well have been defeats.” A message from Sydney on Saturday stated that according to reports emanating from General MacArthur’s headquarters it was estimated that the United Stales had a reserve of 10,000 combat aircraft from which the needs of the South-west Pacific theatre could be supplied. This number was believed to be over and above the lend-lease commitments and assignments to the various fronts. i , Speaking yesterday at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Australia’s Minister Of External Affairs, Dr. Evatt, was reported to have said. “All the necessary equipment from the total pool of the United Nations must be available to halt Japan while the Allies are engaged in beating Hitler first.” Dr Evatt declared that Japan had acquired a most compact empire and perhaps the wealthiest economic empire which the world has ever seen. .By acquiring and holding this new empire Japan was blocking the United Nations, and the longer this blockade lasted the greater would be the difficulty of breaking it.