"Reason to Pause"

Into the wide, sunlit harbor of Sydney, New South Wales, one morning last week steamed a squadron of seven U. S. warships. While flags dipped, bombers droned overhead, ships' guns and shore batteries boomed a 21-gun salute, the biggest detachment of the U. S. Fleet to visit Australia in 16 years tied up at the big docks in Woolloomooloo Bay. Ashore piled 2,000 officers and men, leaving aboard the luckless few who had the duty.

The squadron had been lying in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 4,500 miles away, when news arrived last fortnight that Congress had passed the President's Lend-Lease Bill, promising aid to Britain's Empire. Sealed orders were handed to Rear Admiral John H. Newton. With four cruisers, an escort of nine destroyers, he put to sea, there learned that he was bound on a "training cruise" in Australian waters. The squadron split: six ships headed for New Zealand, the rest made for Sydney.

On 24 hours' notice, Australia prepared a rousing reception. Sydney schools were dismissed. At Canberra Parliament declared a recess and Government officials boarded special trains for Sydney. To lonely Australians, lost in the desolate reaches of the Pacific, it was as if a long-expected ally had arrived at last. Streets were jammed as the sailors went ashore, marched through tons of streamers, scraps of paper and confetti to the Town Hall. Girls leaned out of windows, screaming a hysterical welcome. Autograph hunters besieged the grinning men.

For three days the U. S. Navy took over Sydney. Sailors rode free on busses, trains and trams, were ushered into theatres without charge, fed in Australian service men's buffets. With Sydney's girls, hungry for masculine entertainment since some 150,000 young Australians went abroad to fight for Britain, they bathed in the warm surf on Sydney beaches, picnicked, danced, reclined in the parks. At busy King's Cross intersection one sailor stopped traffic, led passers-by in song while police good-naturedly looked on.

The U. S. officers made speeches, exchanged compliments with Australian officials, warned them not to expect "decisive results" from Franklin Roosevelt's new law too soon. That all this was not just hands-across-the-sea frivolity was made plain by Australia's Navy Minister, William Morris Hughes, who told his guests: "Australians feel easier in their minds, and more hopeful that these timely evidences of the United States' Pacific naval power . . . will give Japan reason to pause. . . ."

All the more remarkable was Navyman Hughes's statement because his Government had just finished welcoming Japan's first Minister to Australia: fastidious, silk-smooth Tatsuo Kawai, a onetime secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Washington. Minister Kawai arrived in Australia last fortnight, promptly began to talk about a trade agreement between Australia and Japan, a new airline connecting the two nations. Japan, said he, had no aggressive intentions against Australia--he believed in a policy of Australia for the Australians, Asia for the Japanese.

All the same, Australians felt safer last week with a squadron of U. S. warships in Sydney harbor, U. S. sailors roaming Sydney's streets. In Melbourne, when he heard of the three-day celebration for Admiral Newton's men, amiable Minister Kawai smiled politely. Japan, he said, regarded the visit as a good-will gesture. He would visit the ships himself, if he were invited.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.