Two Admirals

Home to the U.S. this week came Admiral Thomas Charles Hart, who commanded the Allied Fleet in the far Pacific until mid-February. Healthy but worn after a bout of food poisoning, 64-year-old Admiral Hart headed for Washington, then for his farm at Sharon, Conn, "to get a little sleep." He said that he was not really sick; he was just very tired when he asked to be relieved of his command.

Admiral Hart's successor was the little Dutch Navy's Vice Admiral Conrad Emil Lambert Helfrich (TIME, March 9). This week Admiral Helfrich was also probably far from Indies waters. Perhaps to Australia, perhaps to Ceylon (see p. 19], he had withdrawn what the overwhelming Japanese Fleet had left of his battered squadrons. Dutchmen in the Indies and the U.S., Allied naval authorities in Washington and London, agreed that Admiral Helfrich had been no sacrificial goat when his command was shifted. To all effects, he had no fleet left to command.

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