"A Go for Our Lives"

Were the Japanese growing weary of war and content with their victories? A Navy spokesman in Tokyo implied as much, warning them against sloth, needling them to further effort.

Were they groggy? U.S. and Australian bombers continued to destroy their shipping, planes and troops in the islands off northern Australia. Toward the mainland, the Japanese last week made no moves except sporadic, ineffectual air raids on the north coast.

Perhaps Berlin and Tokyo, hoping to lull Australia and the U.S., had planted the signs that the Japs were fattening and slowing. If so, they failed to lull General Douglas MacArthur.

General MacArthurs first task was to organize an effective command system. It was no easy job. He had to gear himself to the United Nations' central headquarters in Washington (TIME, March 30) and to a new Pacific War Council which the President created in Washington this week, with equal representation for Australia, New Zealand, China, Canada, the U.S., Britain. He had to find adequate use for the talented, familiar staff which he brought with him from the Philippines* without offending the hospitable but proud Aussies.

Of the three senior commanders under General MacArthur, two were Americans: Lieut. General George H. Brett, a veteran of Java, in charge of the air, and Rear Admiral Herbert F. Leary, in command at sea. Third in the top triumvirate was General Sir Thomas Albert Blarney, commanding all ground forces. Blue-eyed, 58-year-old General Blarney had just returned from the Middle East, bringing with him a big part of the Australian Imperial Force which had fought in Greece, Crete and Libya.

Tom Blarney was a brilliant staff officer in France and at Gallipoli in World War I. He retired from the Army in 1925, and was planning a honeymoon (with his second wife) when World War II began. He immediately rejoined the Army, was soon in the Middle East.

The Aussies whom General Blarney brought home with him greatly reinforced the Australian and U.S. troops already strung from the south coast to bombarded Darwin. He must wait many months before enough U.S. troops and supplies can arrive to make Australia much more than a holding point against the Japanese. But General Blarney may soon have to hold Australia. Said he last week: "We are going to have a go for our lives. We are going to give the Japs a bloody stiff run."

*General MacArthur's good friend and patron, the Philippines' President Manuel Quezon, turned up last week in Australia, immediately set up an absentee Government. Another who arrived from the Philippines was TIME Correspondent Melville Jacoby.

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