However, the Quebec Conference did come to the major decision, originating from a proposal by Churchill, to set up a South-East Asia Command under ViceAdmiral Lord Louis Mountbatten to run the Burma campaign and any other operations in the region. The Commander-in-Chief in India became responsible only for providing the new command’s main base and training facilities. The directives of the Allied governments were to reach Mountbatten via the British Chiefs-of-Staff, so that the new organisation became the British equivalent of the American-controlled Pacific and South-West Pacific areas. "Vinegar Joe” Stilwell became Mountbatten’s deputy as well as continuing as Chief-of-Staff to Chiang Kai-shek.
With regard to the Pacific, the Conference merely blessed the now agreed American strategy of two separate but converging axes of advance, one under MacArthur via the northern coast of New Guinea and the other under Nimitz via the Gilberts, Marshalls and Carolines, aimed at establishing a base on the Chinese mainland from which an invasion of Japan could be launched.
A Indispensable companions to any great man, the wives of the three political leaders at Quebec. Their presence prompted a social round, which Brooke, for one, did not approve. "These continual lunches, dinners and cocktail parties were a serious interruption to our work. When occupied with continuous conferences, time is required to collect one’s thoughts, read papers and write notes.”
Nient in the American proposal to set the target date for the final defeat of Japan at twelve months after the defeat of Germany.
So once again the two Allies had composed their differences and emerged with agreed formulas of strategy. In particular, if "Overlord” had indeed been in douht, the British had now committed themselves to it morally and verbally more firmly than before, whatever reservations individuals might still hold.
World History
