AMERICAN SUPPLIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1943, Page 3

AMERICAN SUPPLIES

FOR SOUTH-WEST PACIFIC. CORRECTION OF EXAGGERATED IDEAS. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 18. The statement by General MacArthur’s spokesman that the SouthWest Pacific has something less than 5 per cent of the United States’ military resources is aimed chiefly at correcting exaggerated ideas on the American home front of the volume of war equipment supplied to this area. False estimates, it is felt, must discount what has been achieved with the resources actually supplied and create the impression that much more could have been done. It is not denied that the strength in the South-West Pacific has been substantially built up in recent months, but the comments by General MacArthur’s spokesman are interpreted as challenging the statement of Rear-Admiral Young, of the United States Navy, that American supplies are reaching this area in quantities sufficient for large-scale operations against the Japanese. The allocations, it is stated, have never exceeded the requirements of the holding war of which the current threat to the Japanese base at Rabaul is regarded as a part. However, the figures mentioned by the official spokesman do not include any of the South Pacific air, land, or sea strengths, from which substantial task forces have been drawn for the co-ordinated New Guinea-Soldmons campaign under General MacArthur’s command. These forces were assigned to General MacArthur under the tactical command of the Allied commander in the South Pacific, Admiral Halsey. It is understood that the air allocations and replacement schedules for the various theatres of war are to be reviewed shortly in the light of campaign and strategical needs.