LONDON: It is officially announced that Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of combined operations, has been appointed Supreme Allied Commander in South-East Asia. A statement issued on Wednesday night [Aug 25] from the Citadel in Quebec says: “IT has been decided to set up a separate South-East Asia Command for conducting operations based on India and Ceylon against Japan. It will be an Allied Command similar to that set up in North Africa.”

This is the first dramatic sequel to the Quebec Conference which Lord Louis has attended with British Chiefs of Staff. Lord Louis who is Chief of Combined Operations is 43. His experience as the head of the Joint Land, Sea and Air Operations is his special qualification for directing the complicated and demanding campaign to purge Asia of the Japanese domination.

The announcement that a separate East Asia Com­mand was to be set up to relieve the Commander-in-Chief of India of his responsibility against Japan was made simultaneously with the appoint­ment of Field-Marshal Wavell, as Viceroy in June. The naming of Lord Louis is a complete surprise and confounds all prophets. — Dawn Delhi

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2018