Pacific Trinity

In a week in which the entire U.S. was showering praise on General Eisenhower for the job he did in unifying the diverse Allied commands in Europe, many an armchair strategist in the U.S. cried out for an Eisenhower of the Pacific. They had some reason: the Pacific command, the lines of which were defined none too sharply by Franklin Roosevelt shortly be fore he died, is complicated.

General Douglas MacArthur holds two commands: Allied commander in chief of the Southwest Pacific Area (CINCSOWES-PAC), and commander in chief of Army forces in the Pacific (CINCAFPAC). Admiral Chester Nimitz also holds two com mands: commander in chief of Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPOA), and commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC).

In lower echelons, the chains of command are plaited and interknotted beyond a lay man's ability to untangle them.

But last week came news which showed that the Pacific command, complicated as it is, can work smoothly.

A few days after Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., commander of the Tenth Army, was killed in battle, General MacArthur appointed "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell as his successor. Buckner had been fighting in an area (Okinawa) supposedly controlled by Admiral Nimitz. But word trickled through that Admiral Nimitz was as satisfied with the Stilwell appointment as was the U.S. generally.

Command by Function. Actually, the Pacific command situation had settled considerably since its inception. At first, it was an operation divided by geographical lines. By now it was a command by function: the Navy transports the troops and has command of them while at sea, General MacArthur takes over the minute they land on the beaches.

Many top men in the Navy, who once considered the Pacific war their own war, are not dissatisfied with this arrangement.

They know that the Navy's role has changed. Last week Rear Admiral Arthur W. Radford, a veteran carrier admiral, told correspondents on his Pacific flagship just that. Carriers are no longer needed, he said, to clear the way for amphibious thrusts. He added: "Our job now is to keep our own lines of sea communication open and to assure the strict blockade of Japan."

The Airmen. Soon the Pacific command will be a full-fledged trinity. Ever since November 1944 the 21st Bomber Command, now bossed by tough, cigar-smoking Major General Curtis LeMay, has been an independent unit in the Pacific. It is a part of the Twentieth Air Force, commanded by General "Hap" Arnold and responsible only to him.

Within a short time, Lieut. General "Jimmy" Doolittle's Eighth Air Force will join the Pacific air war. At this point, the Eighth is responsible directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is obvious that an air chief will soon be needed on the spot, to coordinate the strategic bombing operations of LeMay and Doolittle. Best guess for the job: General Carl ("Tooey") Spaatz, the U.S.'s top air general at present unemployed.

Divided as it is, the Pacific command has not perceptibly slowed up the war against Japan. There is no reason now to suppose that it ever will.

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