Fifth Army takes 2 Italian towns
Activity increases all along front
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Editorial: MacArthur
Manila is Gen. MacArthur’s victory. Americans and Filipinos personalize it. That does not detract a bit from the glory due his officers and men. But his departure from the Philippines had been the symbol of our defeat. His promise to return was the symbol of our hope. His arrival back in Manila has all the glamor, compensation and justice which we yearn for in life but usually find only in fiction. His instinctive ability to dramatize a situation makes it about perfect.
Not that his colorful personality carried him back to the Philippines from Australia. That was military genius. He is a great general. Few ever have doubted that and none lately. He had to contend with almost every conceivable obstacle – including, in the beginning, divided authority and grossly inadequate weapons. Only a superb commander could have gone so far on so little.
Though the enemy knew his objective to be the Philippines and though the route he had to take was clear of all, nevertheless he managed repeatedly to surprise the Japs. He did that all the way from the tip of New Guinea to Manila.
Another characteristic of the superior commander is ability to get maximum results with a minimum expenditure of lives. We cannot recall any major campaign in which American casualties were so low, either absolutely or relative to enemy losses.
An outstanding feature of this campaign – and an unexpected one in view of Gen. MacArthur’s earlier training and experience as a ground general – has been the brilliant use of airpower. With his air chief, Gen. Kenney, he did things with airborne troops and planes which seemed impossible at the time and which since have been followed on other fronts.
But perhaps his major achievement, if one can be singled out, was to weld three brave but highly individualized – and sometimes mutually jealous – forces of land, sea and air into a unified amphibious team. Without that one-for-all-and-all-for-one operation none of the battles of this campaign could have been won, and the Stars and Stripes would not be whipping proudly in the Manila breeze today.
Under the circumstances, the public hardly is prepared for recent hints that Gen. MacArthur has finished his job and earned retirement. His reaction to that is: “On to Tokyo. We are ready in this veteran and proved command when called upon. God speed the day!”
Just what part Gen. MacArthur is to play next in the many-sided campaign required to knock-out Japan, of course, is not for him or for the admiring public to decide. That is for the Commander-in-Chief to determine, on recommendation of the chiefs of staff and their overall strategy in cooperation with our allies. There are plenty of hard jobs ahead, including reconquest of the vast Southwest Pacific.
But, whatever his future assignment, we should be assured that it will be an important one. To drop a winner would be unthinkable.
AFL intensifies fight against work-or-else
War leaders blamed for production lags
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Need for ships stressed in work-or-else fight
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Perkins: Russians, British run show as CIO waits for Hillman
International leader needed by U.S. delegation, now handicapped in competition
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Poll: Labor draft gets approval of public
Principle favored since March 1942
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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