WORDY CONTENTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1943, Page 4

WORDY CONTENTION

OVER AMERICAN 'STRENGTH - . & SUPPLIES IN SOUTH-WEST PACIFIC “HARDLY SALUTARY PROCESS” (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright! (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) NEW YORK, November 18. Americans are bewildered by the sharply conflicting reports on supplies and reinforcement that are being sent from the South-West Pacific. In the past'fevz days, directly opposite views have been expressed on Allied strength in that theatre. Reviewing this “internecine war in the newspapers” concerning aid for General MacArthur, the New York “Herald-Tribune” points out that a statement by. a Headquarters spokesman flatly contradicts a despatch from Mr Spencer, Associated Press correspondent in the South-West Pacific, which touched off the controversy, and which General MacArthur’s censorship passed. Mr Spencer’s message was to the effect that there had not been an increase in men and supplies going to the South-West Pacific. An official spokesman later said the supplies now being received in the South-West Pacific were much more than formerly, but were insufficient for a major offensive, against the Japanese. The “HeraldTribune” points out that there is an obvious confusion between General Mad Arthur’s South-West Pacific Command and the geographical area of the South-West Pacific, containing also Admiral Halsey’s South Pacific Command, which is well endowed with naval and aerial strength. “If there is an adequate force in that theatre, no one cares a button what proportion is under General MacArthur and what under Admiral Halsey, providing the

whole is effectively used,” the paper adds. “Further, whether General MacArthur is getting ten, twenty or any other percentage of the total United States overseas resources, is a meaningless datum unless one knows how much is going to each of these other areas and the broad strategic conception determining their distribution.” The paper say that the affair is probably in the nature of an energetic commander’s fight for greater emphasis on his own theatre, and concludes: “But when they conduct a battle in the newspapers before a public utterly ignorant of all the significant factors, it is hardly a salutary process.”