the Century
pp. 54-55 · Read in the full issue
The Sorry Story Of Manus
Chifley Made One of Worst Blunders of the Century
IMMEDIATELY after World War 11, the United States announced that it was prepared to maintain the great sea and air base it had constructed in the Admiralty Islands (Manus), then part of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. As part of a plan for protecting the eastern and southern areas of the Pacific against overcrowded Asia, this was .a magnificent thing for Australia and New Zealand.
But Australia announced, haughtily, that no nation, great or small, could in terfere with Australia’s sovereign rights.
The Americans immediately withdrew the suggestion, and the plan fell through.
Now the Australian Socialist Govern ment, with its tiny Navy and the limited resources of IV2 million people, is trying to maintain the gigantic Manus Base — and making itself ridiculous, in the attempt.
During the past month, the Australian Prime Minister and his Deputy, Dr.
Evatt, have replied savagely to their jeering critics, and asserted that they did nothing at all to cause the with drawal of the Americans. But several newspapers, who keep a close index of world events, have re-published certain reports of the 1945-6 period, and given Chifley and Co. the lie direct.
The following is an article published in the Auckland (NZ) Star on March 1.
It tells the whole sorry story:
FOR strategic reasons during the war, America occupied /the Australian mandated island of Manus, in the Admiralties. When the war ended there is little doubt that American planning staffs, and particularly the United States Navy, wanted to retain it. This was scarcely surprising in view of the fact that about £lOO million had been spent converting the island into a base from which to mount the full weight of the Pacific offensive.
But even more important than the airstrips and docks, the warehouses and living quarters, and all the vast mass of supplies, machinery and equipment as sembled on Manus, was Seeadler Harbour, one of the best in the Pacific. Into Seeadler Harbour, once the naval con struction battalions (the “Seabees”) had done their work, came the battle squad rons and the troopships staging for part of the reconquest of the Philippines. Out came the tankers, the ammunition ships, the store ships, the floating docks, the tenders, and the strange, newly-evolved specialised craft to serve a fleet operating thousands of miles from permanent bases. Swiftly grew the shore establish ment of the fleet, its air arm and its transport services.
By 1945, when the heavy carrier-borne attacks on the Japanese homeland began, Manus was one of several assembly points from which the mighty armament of the United States Pacific Fleet finally put to sea with the attendant supply train that enabled it to remain in action for weeks.
Afterwards it became the half-way house for the British Pacific Fleet, be tween its chief base at Sydney and its operating zones off Formosa and then off the divine soil of Honshu. Many of the American and British ships which steamed into Tokyo Bay in August, 1945, had last weighed anchor from Seeadler Harbour. When the Japanese surrend ered, all installations at Manus were in working order and there were enormous reserves of ammunition and the para phernalia of war.
ON February 16, 1946, Vice-Admiral Forrest, deputy-chief of United States Naval Operations, reported to the Naval Affairs Committee of the Senate that the United States Navy wanted to maintain major bases at Honolulu, Guam. Saipan, the Philippines and Manus. The following day the Secretary of State, Mr. James Byrnes, said that the United States had built a huge base on Manus, and post-war plans provided for its continuing that base.
Discussions with Australia were re ported, but the conferences ended abruptly, and the United States suddenly lost interest In the proceedings. The United States evacuated Manus, having
sold or scrapped the stores and equip ment.
Responsibility passed back to Australia, and in the ensuing three years nothing has been done to keep even portion of the great base in working order. An officer just back from Manus now reports that Australia will have to rebuild the port and replace everything the Ameri cans had there in 1946. According to members of the first party which arrived at Manus last month to survey the re quirements and make a start, the base to-day is a vast, crumbling, overgrown junk heap of rusting machinery and rotting wharves—the remains of a base which four years ago could have serviced the world’s largest fleet.
TO the people of Australia and New Zealand, who, as the situation changes in Asia, are realising at last that Pacific defence is something more than a politicians’ catch-cry, what happened over Manus must seem-almost too bad to be true.
The actual course of events that led up to the American abandonment of the base is shrouded in mystery. But all the evidence suggests that, if the Aus tralian Government had been willing, Manus to-day would have been an efficient American base, even though on a much reduced scale. The short-sighted attitude of the Chifley Government (which, instead of putting obstacles in the way, should have done everything possible to encourage the United States to carry the burden of Manus) seems likely to prove one of the most far reaching defence blunders of the century.