No Third Team

Apparently confident that the bitter protests against Pacific redeployment (TIME, Aug. 27) came only from a "fringe" of Army gripers, a War Department spokesman said last week; "The men who beat the Nazis to their knees . . . and defeated the Japanese . . . will not want to throw away the peace before we have begun keeping it." In the meantime the Army had hastily announced that no soldiers with 75 points and no ground forces men over 37 years of age would be sent overseas.

Peace had caught the armed forces in a manpower dilemma. Nonetheless, some European veterans--nobody knew how many--had to police Japan. There were several good reasons: 1) the number of divisions in the Pacific is relatively small, and many of them were badly mauled on Okinawa and in the Philippines; 2) sending nothing but green, untested troops might undo much of the good in occupation, might be risky for the men themselves; 3) it would be unfair to keep Pacific veterans in Japan indefinitely-most Pacific divisions (which will have to berY the early occupation burden) have seen more combat than any of the first six now being redeployed from Europe.*

The Sixth Army's General Walter Krueger, victor of New Guinea and Luzon, commented caustically: "In going to 85 points they took out my first team. If they go to 80 they will take out my second team. I can't land in Japan with a third team."

* The 2nd, 8th, 86th, 95th, 97th, 194th.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.