Brisbane, Australia, January 1943.

An empty rainstorm cools the Australian city during its hottest season of the year. However, MacArthur, commander-in-chief of the Allied Southwest Pacific Theater, was extremely angry at the moment, which was exactly the opposite of the weather at this time.

Although Admiral MacArthur, who fled from the Philippines to Australia, was boasted as a heroic figure by the US government because of the need to do so, he was never able to hide the fact that he was defeated in the Philippines, and he was ridiculed by the Axis newspapers as a "coward" and "the best general at escaping". The defeat of the Philippines and the surrender of hundreds of thousands of US-Philippine troops were also a great shame for this "Philippine Field Marshal", and if he could not achieve victory on the battlefield and recover the Philippines victoriously, he would not be able to wash away the stains on this life no matter what.

Therefore, after MacArthur arrived in Australia, he immediately established his Allied Command, and began to implement a huge combat readiness plan to expand the Australian Army from 7 divisions to 21 divisions, and at the same time actively planned the next counteroffensive plan in Southeast Asia.

But MacArthur's actions were constantly hampered by Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff.

Marshall advocated that Europe should be the first, and that the security of the British Empire should be ensured first, and that if the British were finished, there would be no need to fight the war any further. Marshall believed that the danger in Europe was even greater, and that the German-Austrian coalition had begun to attack Soviet Russia with all its might, and that both Britain and Soviet Russia needed the full support of the United States to withstand the offensive of the Axis powers, and that if Europe collapsed, it would not make much sense to continue fighting in the Pacific theater. Therefore, he advocated that all US military supplies and troops should be concentrated on the European and Atlantic theaters on a priority basis.

The question is that Marshall alone said that it doesn't count, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Ernest? King has been singing against Marshall.

In every country, the army and navy have always been adversaries. Whoever looks at it is not pleasing to the eye. The army pointed out that the situation in Europe was tense, and it was necessary to make every effort to help the British and Russians withstand the offensive of the German-Austrian forces, and to open a second battlefield in Africa to contain the forces of Germany and Austria. The navy did not see it that way, and Admiral Kim believed that the Pacific side was now in danger and that the Japanese were about to collapse. Moreover, Australia also faced an attack by the Axis powers, and if Australia was lost, the Americans' power was in danger of being completely expelled from the Pacific region.

Europe or the Pacific?

These are two opposing strategies, and this is a headache for Washington.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Okinawa, there were growing signs that the Axis powers had turned their attention to Australia, and the situation in the Pacific region was becoming increasingly dire. Roosevelt had to convene members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to meet at the White House for several days to discuss countermeasures. Australians and New Zealanders realized that the British Empire was no longer hopeful and turned to the United States. It also placed the United States under the burden of defending Australia and New Zealand from Axis occupation. In order to deal with the threat of the Axis powers, the United States had to send more troops and supplies to Australia, which meant that the United States troops assembled in Britain would be reduced, the navy would be less than half, the United States would be limited in its naval and air forces fighting in Europe, and the operational plan for landing in West Africa would be abandoned.

In order to cope with the critical situation in the Pacific, Admiral Kim vigorously stated the Navy's proposition. Only with full support for Japan and an all-out counteroffensive in the Pacific. in order to prevent the enemy from attacking Australia in the south. At an emergency strategic seminar convened by the President, Admiral King presented a memorandum calling for an immediate increase in material aid to Japan so that it could resist landings from the mainland in order to contain most of the Axis forces. At the same time, the Navy should concentrate more than 60 percent of its forces on the Pacific theater. to ensure that there are sufficient counterattack forces.

The Army Staff did not really like Admiral King's plan. A month earlier, when Admiral King suggested that the number of troops stationed in the Pacific islands should be significantly increased, Marshall dismissed such an action as a sign of "a fundamental change in strategy." Chief of Operational Planning Dwight? Major General Eisenhower insisted that the final defeat of the Axis group was to be considered strategically and logistically. It was absolutely necessary to concentrate the vast majority of forces in the Atlantic theater in 1943. In his view, if Russia and Britain could not hold out, the war would effectively be no longer possible, and the Axis invasion of Australia "had no direct stake in the outcome of the war."

Admiral Kim could not agree with this point of view.

He did not believe that the United States would necessarily be able to defeat the German-Austrian alliance and that the Australian subcontinent would have to hold on, "because this would inevitably have a serious impact on the absolute domination of the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the world." "What the United States sought was to replace Britain as the leader of the Anglo-Saxons, not to abandon the British colonies. He hoped that U.S. help in the war in Europe would be limited to providing material support, rather than being on the front lines. The United States was able to take over the entire Oceania, including Australia and New Zealand, and the islands of the Central Pacific through this war to defend Australia.

What Kim is striving for is to shift the strategic focus of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific, because even if Europe wins, the United States will not have full control of Europe.

The problem is that Marshall came up with the latest telegram from the intelligence services, and on the basis of this information it can be concluded: "By all indications, the Axis bloc will immediately attack Soviet Russia in full force in the spring, and in the face of such a large-scale offensive, the Russian side may be forced to make peace alone." This would be a very serious blow to the global hegemony pursued by the United States and Britain, and if Russia were to withdraw from the war, Britain would simply not be able to face the blows of Germany and Austria alone, and this danger would allow General Marshall to refocus his strategy back to fighting in Europe.

The commander of the Army Air Corps, Admiral Arnold, put forward the advice of the Army Air Corps General Staff: "Go all out and defeat the Axis allies in Europe." He believed that if Germany and Austria were defeated, the Chinese would be powerless to resist the attacks of the United States, Russia, and Japan alone, and would inevitably face destruction, and the Army Air Force advocated not sending reinforcements to the Pacific - even if it meant losing all of Australia and islands in the Central Pacific.

At the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marshall's support was clearly in the majority, but General King had MacArthur behind him to fully support him. MacArthur was jumping up and down in Australia, and he wanted to counterattack back to the Philippines, and Admiral King's proposal was very much to his liking. MacArthur not only revealed the contradictions at the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the media, but also provoked the Australian government to make trouble with Washington.

Now MacArthur is very popular, and he has become a national hero in the eyes of the American people, and President Roosevelt was forced to award him the highest medal of honor under congressional pressure, and many streets, dams, and public buildings across the country are named after him. When Washington hesitated, MacArthur continued to exert pressure, held a press conference, and gave an exclusive interview to Time magazine, asking Washington for money, food, and troops through the media, claiming that as soon as all kinds of supplies were in place, he could immediately start a counterattack in the East Indies.

Washington was overwhelmed, and under pressure from Congress, Marshall finally had no choice but to come up with a compromise plan to demarcate the Pacific theater, but the current combat mission is still mainly defense, and the bottom line is to ensure the security of Australia and Hawaii.

The Pacific campaign would be carried out primarily by the Navy, but Admiral King refused to accept an Army general dictating to his Navy, and although MacArthur contributed a lot to his goal, since the Navy's operations would determine the course of the war against the Axis offensive, Admiral Kimmmel, commander of the Pacific Fleet, must be the natural choice for commander-in-chief of the theater.

In the end, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that the command of the Axis operations would be divided equally between the Army and the Navy, with Kimmel as commander-in-chief of the Pacific region, which included the Central Pacific sea area north of the equator and New Zealand, Samoa, and Fiji, and the South Pacific Sea at 160 degrees to the west, while Admiral MacArthur's position was changed to "Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Army, Navy, and Air Force of Australia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Philippines."

In fact, most of the operational plans and operations will be developed and executed by the Navy.

MacArthur was busy for a long time, and was very dismayed to find that the order of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had actually deprived him of his commanding powers, and that this order had retained a large part of the operational decisions in the hands of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in order to avoid future conflicts between the two jurisdictions in the Pacific. MacArthur therefore had to report to Chief of Staff Marshall and receive orders from him before the battle. And the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Kimmel, will receive instructions through the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral King, and the strategic differences between them will be resolved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

MacArthur was also annoyed by the fact that he could not actually "directly command the forces of any one country" or dictate the entire strategy. The Allied Army units in the Southwest Pacific were led by Australian General Thomas? Conductor Bleimai; U.S. Fleet Naval Commander Herbert? Vice Admiral Leary was in charge of naval operations; Allied Air Force by George? General Brett was under unified command, and MacArthur could not give orders directly to any of the troops.

The biggest problem was that the Allied Army had only 15 divisions in all of Australia at this time with a total strength of less than 430,000, and these forces were simply unable to defend against the country with the longest coastline in the world.

Moreover, the Germans, Austrians and Chinese will soon come. (To be continued.) )