Navy Department Communique No. 58

MARCH 19, 1942

The Navy Department issued the following communiqué today:

Far East.
In compliance with orders from the Navy Department, Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell, U. S. N., the Commandant of the Sixteenth Naval District (Philippine Islands) has arrived in Australia. Rear Admiral Rockwell left Corregidor in General MacArthur’s party which reached Australia on March seventeenth.  He is now in Melbourne.
When Japan attacked the Philippines without warning, Admiral Rockwell was in command of the Sixteenth Naval District, with his headquarters at the Navy Yard, Cavite, which is across Manila Bay from Manila.  When the Naval Establishment there became no longer tenable, it was destroyed effectively.  Admiral Rockwell then proceeded to Corregidor with the Naval and Marine Corps forces under his command and since then has taken part in the defense of Corregidor and the Bataan Peninsula under command of General MacArthur.  His Naval and Marine Corps forces number only about one-third of the regular U. S. Army troops in that area.
It is expected that Admiral Rockwell will be assigned to an appropriate command, probably at sea.
There is nothing to report from other areas.