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THE PACIFIC FRONT Apr-May 1943 the China Coast Could Best Be Maintained by a Direct Drive Across Th E Central Pacific from Pearl Harbour to the Philippines

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THE PACIFIC FRONT Apr-May 1943 the China Coast Could Best Be Maintained by a Direct Drive Across Th E Central Pacific from Pearl Harbour to the Philippines CHAPTER 8 THE PACIFIC FRON T N mid-1943 the Allied leaders in London and Washington were con- I sidering ambitious proposals for accelerating the defeat of Japan . Thus, on 6th April President Roosevelt discussed with his Chief of Staff, Admiral William D. Leahy, the Joint Chiefs, and Harry L. Hopkins, his adviser and assistant, the possibility of a campaign in Burma to open a road into China . Leahy later described the outcome : Great Britain apparently did not wish to undertake a campaign against th e Japanese in the Burma area, and it was certain that Japan would interrupt our ai r transportation to China if its forces in Burma were not fully occupied in resisting Allied ground troops. President Roosevelt appeared determined to give such assistance as was practicable to keep China in the war against Japan.l On the other side of the Atlantic Mr Churchill, aware of the Americans ' high estimate of the military importance of China, had no doubts about what the Americans were thinking concerning Burma . The advance on Akyab had failed and its capture before the monsoon was now impossible . No advance had been made from Assam . There had been some increase in the air transport available for the China route, but the full developmen t of the air route and the requirements for a land advance towards central Burma had proved utterly beyond British resources . Churchill wrote later : It therefore seemed clear beyond argument that the full "Anakim" [reconques t of Burma] operation could not be attempted in the winter of 1943-44 . I was sure that these conclusions would be very disappointing to the Americans . The President and his circle still cherished exaggerated ideas of the military power which China could exert if given sufficient arms and equipment. They also feared unduly the imminence of a Chinese collapse if support were not forthcoming . I dislike d thoroughly the idea of reconquering Burma by an advance along the miserabl e communications in Assam. I hated jungles—which go to the winner anyway—an d thought in terms of air-power, sea-power, amphibious operations and key points . It was, however, an essential to all our great business that our friends should no t feel we had been slack in trying to fulfil the Casablanca plans and be convince d that we were ready to make the utmost exertions to meet their wishes.2 On 20th April Roosevelt received a message from Churchill suggestin g that he and his full military staff should come to Washington for con- sultation early in May . The date was fixed for 12th May . Meanwhile, on 28th April, the Joint Chiefs' planning staffs, possibl y influenced partly by the Navy's desire to press on against Japan an d partly by the President's interest in China, recommended the establish- ment of a large number of air bases in China, the maintenance of whic h would require, first the opening of a port such as Hong Kong, an d secondly the reopening of the Burma Road. The port to be opened on 1 W. D . Leahy, I Was There (1950), p. 186. 9 W . S . Churchill, The Second World War, Vol IV (1951), p . 702 . 218 THE PACIFIC FRONT Apr-May 1943 the China coast could best be maintained by a direct drive across th e central Pacific from Pearl Harbour to the Philippines . Although they recommended a simultaneous advance from the South-West Pacific Are a they considered that MacArthur's proposed line of advance from New Guinea to the Philippines would follow the long way in and would have a vulnerable right flank . When on 2nd May Roosevelt discussed the impending conference a t Washington with Hopkins, Leahy and the Joint Chiefs, the Army Chie f of Staff, General Marshall, declared that without an immediate offensiv e in northern Burma the air-ferry service to China would be destroyed b y Japanese attacks on the landing fields . And at the Joint Chiefs' final pre-conference meeting with the President on the 8th it was agreed that , although the principal American objective at the conference would b e to pin the British down to a cross-Channel invasion of Europe as soo n as possible, the Americans should also press for some action in Burma . On their way to Washington on 5th May Churchill and his staff pre- pared a paper on the situation in the Indian and Far Eastern spheres . Largely in order to seize the initiative at the con- Nankn'q . ference his plan contem- r ~, 3 na; plated landings on the v , hungking Andaman Islands, Mergui iD I A r {~ with Bangkok as the ass,M . ; C H i N A objective, the Kra Isthmus, ;) / (( S , vun NAN "-- Canton ,Q 1.. BUR MA Sumatra and even Java . -?~ Idandatay, ('- - Churchill would no doubt Akyah( )-~~~ Hanoi . have been the first to ( ~. J 1 fwd admit that these proposals Rangoon L were merely conference THAILAN D tactics. He sent a frank Z Bangkok ' signal to Marshal Stalin in Russia on 8th May : "I am in mid-Atlantic on my way to Washington to settle further exploitation in Europe after Sicily, and also to discourag e undue bias towards the Pacific, and further to deal with the problem of the Indian Ocean and the offensive against Japan there ."3 The "undue bias" was causing deep concern to Churchill's advisers . For example, on 6th May the British Chief of the General Staff, Genera l Brooke, wrote in his diary : There is no doubt that, unless the Americans are prepared to withdraw more shipping from the Pacific, our strategy in Europe will be drastically affected . Up to the present the bulk of the American Navy is in the Pacific and larger land an d air forces have gone to this theatre than to Europe in spite of all we have sai d about the necessity of defeating Germany first .4 8 Churchill, p . 705. 4 Quoted in A . Bryant, The Turn of the Tide 1939-1943, p . 607 . May-June CONFLICTING OPINIONS 21 9 Indeed, there were, in June, 13 American divisions in the Pacific, an d 10 in the United Kingdom or Mediterranean. At the Washington conference, which lasted from 12th until 25th May, the main decision was to fix the date for the cross-Channel invasion o f Europe (OVERLORD) by an initial force of 29 divisions beginning on 1s t May 1944 . If the forthcoming assault on Sicily—it opened on 10th July —did not cause Italy to surrender, General Dwight D . Eisenhower, Allied Commander-in-Chief in North Africa, would be authorised to proceed as he thought fit to bring about the elimination of Italy from the war. Turning to the Pacific the Combined Chiefs resolved "upon defea t of the Axis in Europe, in cooperation with other Pacific powers, and , if possible with Russia, to direct the full resources of the United State s and Great Britain to force the unconditional surrender of Japan" . They added: "If, however, conditions develop which indicate that the war a s a whole can be brought more quickly to a successful conclusion by the earlier mounting of a major offensive against Japan, the strategical concep t set forth herein may be reversed . " 5 In other words the conference did nothing to reconcile the variety o f the opinions canvassed by the various leaders . These opinions were tartl y summed up by General Brooke in his private diary on 24th May : May 24th . Washington . Today we reached the final stages of the Conference, th e "Global Statement of our Strategy". We [concluded] with a long Combined Meet- ing at which we still had many different opinions which were only resolved wit h difficulty. Our difficulties still depended on our different outlook as regards the Pacific . I still feel that we may write a lot on paper, but that it all has little influenc e on our basic outlooks which might be classified as under : (a) King thinks the war can only be won by action in the Pacific at the expens e of all other fronts . (b) Marshall considers that our solution lies in a cross-Channel operation wit h some twenty or thirty divisions, irrespective of the situation on the Russia n front, with which he proposes to clear Europe and win the war . (c) Portal considers that success lies in accumulating the largest Air Force s possible in England and that then, and then only, success lies assured . (d) Dudley Pound on the other hand is obsessed with the anti-'U' boat warfare and considers that success can only be secured by the defeat of this menace . (e) Alan Brooke considers that success can only be secured by pressing opera- tions in the Mediterranean to force a dispersal of German forces, help Russia , and thus eventually produce a situation where cross-Channel operations are possible. (f) And Winston? Thinks one thing at one moment and another the next moment . At times the war may be won by bombing, and all must be sacrificed to it. At others it becomes necessary for us to bleed ourselves dry on the Con- tinent because Russia is doing the same . At others our main effort must be in the Mediterranean directed against Italy or the Balkans alternately , with sporadic desires to invade Norway and "roll up the map in the opposit e direction Hitler did". But more often than all he wants to carry out all operations simultaneously, irrespective of shortage of shipping .6 ', Minute from JCS approved by CCS on 20th May .
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