WELDED INTO ONE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1943, Page 4

WELDED INTO ONE

SOUTH-EAST ASIA AIR FORCES. ANNOUNCED BY LORD MOUNTBATTEN. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. December 19. All the operational units of the R.A.F. and the U.S.A.A.F. in South-East Asia are to be united into one striking force under Air Chief Marshal Sir R. Peirse. Admiral Mountbatten announced this at New Delhi today. The first move will be to weld all the combat units of the R.A.F. and the Tenth U.S.A.A.F. into one force under the United States Major-General G. E. Stratemeyer, which will be known as the Eastern Air Command. This will form part of the great combined Allied Air Force under Air Chief Marshal Peirse, which will include the R.A.F. and United States air units in China.

‘•The South-East Asia Command has been established as an Allied command because experience has shown that this is the most efficient weapon for defeating the enemy,” said Admiral Mountbatten. “I feel certain the British and American air forces will prove more effective when united into a single force.” Reuter’s aeronautical writer commenting on the new united Eastern Air Command said: ‘Admiral Mountbatten’s move is the first formidable sequel to the Cairo conference. BritishAmerican air power in Asia will become an instrument such as Air Chief Marshal Tedder wielded in the Mediterranean. One mighty force of bombers, fighter-bombers and fighters will be thrown across the Bay of Bengal, Burma, China and the Pacific to the islands of Japan, with a concentration and flexibility which only a unified command produces. “Air unification will not merely make the most spectacular use of the air arm, but will co-operate flexible, far-reaching air fire-power with naval and army guns. This policy defeated the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean and outdated the Germans’ air technique. It will impose on Japan the certainty of meeting the most powerful co-ordinated offensive weight ever known in Asia.”