New MacArthur Strategy

A great experiment, abolishing a 400-year-old custom, was begun in the Philippines last week. TIME Correspondent Bill Gray was there to report it:

Another D-day has passed and our forces have achieved their primary objective and taken control of a difficult tactical situation with surprisingly small losses.

In one brilliant stroke, the Americans under General MacArthur have changed the ancient traffic pattern of the Philippines from left-to right-side driving. Mopping-up operations are now in progress.

This newest step forward on the road to Tokyo involved revision of the usual Mac-Arthur strategy of hit 'em where they ain't to one of hit 'em where they are--and call a military policeman.

I covered the operation from a carabao cart, crouching low behind the swaying black rump of a carabao named Plaridel as we drove north from Manila. The sun beat down mercilessly and I wished I had brought a sun helmet. Sometimes I also wished I had brought my gas mask. And I certainly wished I had brought a pillow.

The machines of war roared past us, filled with expectant, tense-faced participants in this Dday. In one long block I counted seven jeeps, twelve army trucks, two jammed old busses, four pony carts and a pedestrian--all passing us.

Back down the other side of the highway came one of the early casualties-- a dusty small truck, bent squarely in the middle and looking quite bewildered, towed by a wrecker. When the opposing forces clashed, they clashed with the greatest violence. I remembered what Corporal Melvin Stottlemyer of Muncie, Ind. had told me: "I wouldn't miss this show for anything."

I turned to the driver of my carabao cart, a sturdy Filipino wood cutter named Panteleon Manahan.

"What do you think Plaridel thinks of right-hand traffic?" I shouted over the din. ."All same," he answered.

I got off the cart at the next intersection and returned to Manila by jeep. As I write, I hear an occasional rending noise in the distance. I assume it is the opposing forces still clashing with the greatest possible violence.

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