Evening star., 1944-12-20
Mindoro News Reports
Seen Causing Friction
Disservice Done to Macarthur
By Communiques, Says Writer
By David Laurence

BY IOmmun1ques, Says Writer
By David Lawrence
Gen. Douglas Macarthur is doing q
splendid job in the Far East, but who
ever writes his official communicates
from time to time is doing disservice
both to the general and to his reputa-
ton for fairness.
The American people are very much
interested in what the United States
Navy does in the war against Japan,
but if they read some Of Gen. Mac
Arthurs communicates they will not find
it out. Under the unified command set
up, Gen. Macarthur is responsible for
the issuance of information to the public
with respect to all units under his COM
mand-Army, Navy and Air Forces. The
idea of unified command was arrived,
at after much pickering between the,
armed services themselves, because they
feared that If a naval operation were
put under an Army man, or if Army
operations were put under a naval chief,
there would be tendency to over-em-
phasize the work of one service as
against the other.
Unhappily, there is too much evidence
that these fears we're we'll grounded.
Certainly the Macarthur communiques
have created in Washington very un-
favorable impression.
Thus in the initial announcement Of
the Mindoro operation in the Philip
pines, which involved a very remarkable
exploit by the United States Navy, there
is no substantial account of what the
Navy did.
First Communique.
The fret communique. published last
Saturday morning, from Gen. Mac
Arthur's headquarters about the Min
doro operation started out as follows:
"Our ground troops by an overwater
movement from Leyte, 600 statute miles,
have landed on the island of Mindoro
In an amphibious operation of all
services we have seized dominant
beaches along the southern coast Of this
westernmost Visayan island
THE landing, which was effected with
little loss, was preceded by local naval
/ and air bomtardment and an air neu-
| tralization Of all enemy Philippine
| fields which destroyed $50 enemy
| planes"
The rest of the communique made no
| further mention of the Navy's part in
| the operation, and yet a total of 480
| words more was included in the COM
muniQue giving details of what the
Army was doing in connection with the
landing.
Some of the press dispatches from
MacArthur's headquarters naturally fol-
lowed the same line of news as was
contained in the communique, and it was
only in the next few days that special
dispatches told the American people
what remarkable job was done by the
United States Navy in transporting such
a large number of troops 900 miles in
the face of enemy action.
1t is apparent that the enemy knew
from airplane reconnaissance that the
big convoy was moving and attacks were
made while the convoy was en- route.
Later on it was disclosed also that car
rier planes from the United States Navy
had carried on a devastating attack on
little, the facts have leaked out that an
extraordinary job without precedent in
the history of naval warfare was ac-
complished by the carrier planes of the
United States Navy in attacking Luzon.
| Question of Jealousies.
Instead Of giving a comprehensive
| picture of the whole operation and tell
ing the American people what their
Navy had done to make possible the
| landing by Gen. MacArthur's troops, the
official communique from MacArthur's
headquarters was devoted almost wholly
/ to details of scattered operations on
| land
1t is precisely this kind of thing which
gives rise to the assumption that inter-
service jealousies are responsible for
such unbalanced announcements. 1t
may. of course, be due to a lack of CO.
ordination between Gen. MacArthurs
headquarters and other units in his
operation, though it seems difficult to
Imagine that the commander in chief
at Leyte didn't know what the Navy
was doing in connection with an opera
i tlOu lnaV ndQ 10 De pldnned so long IN
! advance.
The American people have been told
that inter-service jealousies were re-
sponsible for some of the mistakes at
| Pearl Harbor, and there has been much
favorable comment on the improvement
that has been made in the cooperation
! of the commanders of our armed services
in joint operations since then. But the
morale of all the services is a much
more important factor than has been
generally realized, and hence those who
write the official communicates should
be cognizant of the many delicate
| problems involved
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