Carl W. Hoffman

“Pearl Harbor conference are interesting, it is apparent that the final decisions in regard to the Marianas had already been made by the Joint Chiefs, and the Truk-by-pass decision would await the results of the carrier strikes. General MacArthur continued his opposition to the Central Pacific route as late as February 1944, when be sent his deputy, Lieutenant General Richard K. Sutherland, USA, to Washington in a desperate effort to convince the Joint Chiefs that both Truk and the Marianas should be by-passed and that the impetus should be along the New Guinea-Mindanao axis of advance. General Sutherland had been in Washington but a short time when he found it necessary to advise MacArthur that the die was, indeed, cast: the Marianas operation was a certainty; the”
― Carl W. Hoffman, Saipan: The Beginning of the End