Foreign Relations of the United States, The Conferences at Washington, 1941–1942, and Casablanca, 1943

740.0011 PW/3080 1/2

The Australian Prime Minister (Curtin) to President Roosevelt ¹

January 20, 1943

Dear Mr. President: Having learnt that Mr. Churchill and yourself are meeting in Washington, I presume that discussions of great strategical importance are proceeding and that decisions of far-reaching effect on global strategy may be reached.

2. The following information was recently communicated to me by the Commander in Chief, South West Pacific Area, on the outstanding lessons learnt from the New Guinea campaign and I consider them to be of such transcending importance that we are forthwith communicating them for your urgent consideration, together with my observations and recommendations thereon:—

General Mac Arthurs statement begins:

The outstanding military lesson of this operation was the continuously calculated application of the air power inherent in the potentialities of every component of the air forces employed in the most intimate tactical and logistical union with ground troops. The effect of this modern instrumentality was sharply accentuated by the geographical limitations of this theatre. For months on end air transport with constant fighter coverage moved complete infantry regiments and artillery battalions across the almost impenetrable mountains and jungles of Papua and reaches of the sea; transported field hospital and other base installations to the front; supplied troops and evacuated casualties. For hundreds of miles bombers provided all round reconnaissance, protecting the coast from hostile naval intervention and blasted the way for infantry as it drove forward. A new form of campaign was tested which points the way to the ultimate defeat of the enemy in the Pacific. The offensive and defensive power of air and the adaptability, the range and capacity of transport in effective combination with ground forces, represents tactical and strategical elements of a broadened conception of warfare that will permit the application of offensive power in swift massive strokes rather than the dilatory and costly island to island advance that some have assumed to be necessary in a theatre where the enemy’s far flung strongholds are dispersed throughout a vast expanse of archipelagoes. Air forces and ground forces were welded together in Papua and with proper naval support their indissoluble union points the way to victory through new and broadened strategic and tactical conceptions.

General Mac Arthurs statement ends.

3. I am convinced that this campaign has demonstrated the efficacy of certain principles of modern warfare—the results of which are so important and encouraging as to warrant a review of the present broad strategy of the United Nations and the allocation of additional operational and transport aircraft to the South West Pacific area to permit of the earliest possible extension of offensive action against the Japanese.

4. These operations have been an extraordinary demonstration of the manner in which air power, closely integrated with ground forces and under central direction of one commander, can enable effective blows to be struck at Japan’s sprawling holds on the archipelagoes in the Pacific. This technique is a substitute for a difficult amphibious operation of an island to island nature under earlier conceptions of warfare which would require vast resources in naval and merchant ships and entail opposed landings against strongly defended positions with costly losses in men. This closely co-ordinated use of land forces and air power will therefore conserve both manpower and shipping necessary to bring them and their equipment to this theatre of operations.

5. Whilst realizing the needs of other theatres I feel that if 1500 repeat 1500 additional operational and 500 additional transport aircraft can be made available to the South West Pacific Area as soon as possible in 1943, and if naval disposition can be made to give appropriate covering support, the blows that can be struck against Japan are such that she can be driven from her island gains in the Pacific and forced to contract her lines. It is not improbable that a mortal blow might be dealt while she is still so extended and vulnerable. As you are aware Japan since the losses of Guadalcanal and Buna is concentrating her garrison strength on building up and holding an outer screen to her base at Rabaul which extends from Ambon to the Northern Solomon Islands.

6. The enemy is weakest in the air. He has been decisively outfought in this element in New Guinea and the Solomons. As the productive capacity of the United Nations now greatly exceeds that of the Axis powers, Japan cannot hope to gain air superiority if adequate allocations are made to the Pacific areas. This request for aircraft does not make any extensive demands on shipping resources, as most of the aircraft could be flown to the South West Pacific.

7. The naval support that the operations would call for does not entail any more risk than that which it is presumed Naval Headquarters of the United Nations are prepared to accept at the present time to meet the enemy under land-based air cover.

8. I am sure great credit would redound to Mr. Churchill and yourself by demonstrating that we lack nothing in comparison with our enemies and Russian allies in aggression, devising methods of warfare appropriate to the circumstances which confront us and with weapons that have been developed for hurt and discomfiture of the enemy. I am also confident that such a step will allay the growing anxiety that the Japanese are to be left indefinitely to their own devices with the consequence that the war in the Pacific even after the defeat of Germany will be of the most prolonged duration.

Yours sincerely,

John Curtin

1. A copy of this communication is included in the Roosevelt Papers. The source text is attached to the following memorandum of conversation by Welles, dated January 20, 1943:

   “The Australian Minister called to see me this morning at his request. The Minister handed me two secret messages addressed by the Australian Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin, to the President and to Mr. Churchill. Sir Owen Dixon asked that these messages be transmitted for him by this Government. I told him that I would be very glad to send them to the White House for immediate transmission.”

   In a letter of March 18, 1943, to Welles, not printed, Australian Chargé Watt explained that at the time these messages were sent from Australia, it was not known that Roosevelt and Churchill were at Casablanca; the messages were transmitted to Washington on the assumption that Churchill was in Washington (740.0011 PW/3198 1/2). In a communication dated March 18, 1943, not printed, Curtin reminded Roosevelt that he had not received a reply to this message, either from the President or from Churchill (740.0011 PW/3198 1/2).