ROM the Moment He Learned of His Appointment As Commanding
CHAPTER 28 PROBLEMS OF COMMAN D ROM the moment he learned of his appointment as Commanding F General, Allied Air Forces, South-West Pacific Area, General Kenne y must have had few illusions about his new task . He was wished good luck at Washington with the comment that "from reports coming out of tha t theatre" he would need it. From General Arnold and General Marshal l his only instructions were, "Simply report to General MacArthur ." Of this meeting with his two chiefs he has written, "I was told that there were about 600 aircraft out there and that should be enough to fight a pretty good war with. Anyhow, while they would do what they could to help me out, they just had to build up the European show first''' . On the day that he left the United States for Australia the Japanese establishe d their Gona-Buna beach-head . He learned of this at Hickam Field, Hawaii. Kenney flew to Brisbane where General Headquarters, S .W.P.A., and Allied Air Forces Headquarters had now been established, having moved from Melbourne on 20th July and thus sited themselves 800 miles neare r the scene of actual operations . 2 Here he found first that, to use his own crisp phraseology, "Brett certainly was in wrong . Nothing that he did was right. " This he heard from MacArthur's chief of staff, Genera l Sutherland, whom he described as " a brilliant, hard-working officer [who] had always rubbed people the wrong way " , adding, "He was ego- tistic, like most people, but an unfortunate bit of arrogance combined with his egotism had made him almost universally disliked ." According to Sutherland ".
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