Note 26 — Chapter I · The Strategic Plan

The planners from Washington, however, felt that there was sufficient assault shipping in the Pacific without using the same craft for both the Sarangani Bay and the Leyte operations. An enumeration of the vessels assigned to the Southwest Pacific and the Central Pacific gave the areas more than a six-division lift. As Brig. Gen. Frank N. Roberts, chief of the Strategy and Policy Group, Operations Division, War Department General Staff, in Washington, told Col. William L. Ritchie, his deputy, who was in Brisbane, “If you sit down and look at those figures a bit you will see that there should be sufficient assault lift for Leyte just on playing the numbers racket, without touching the shipping on Sarangani.”26