state of "complete obduracy", and remained so until the end of the war. As a direct report to the USAAF's Lieutenant-General George Kenney, commander of Allied Air Forces in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA), Bostock was able to ignore many directives from Jones, his nominal superior in the RAAF. Jones nevertheless continued to assert his authority over Bostock's supplies of manpower and equipment. In March 1943 Jones proposed that he take over responsibility for air operations in defence of the Australian mainland but General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander SWPA, refused to countenance it. The next month, with the support of the Australian Air Board, Jones tried to remove Bostock from RAAF Command and replace him with Air Commodore Joe Hewitt, AOC No. 9 Operational Group (No. 9 OG). Bostock appealed to Kenney, who advised Jones that he was opposed to any such change of command and threatened to escalate the matter to the Australian government. MacArthur subsequently told Curtin that Hewitt "was not an adequate replacement" for Bostock, and the matter was dropped. Six months later Jones would sack Hewitt over morale issues in No. 9 OG raised during the offensive on Rabaul; Kenney called Hewitt's removal "bad news". Jones himself came under threat of transfer or subordination in April 1943 when the Federal government began moves to unite the Air Force's command by creating an overarching Air Officer Commanding RAAF position that would have effectively replaced Jones as CAS and also been senior to Bostock. Drummond was again approached but once more the British Air Ministry refused to release him, having selected him for an Air Council post. MacArthur rejected two other RAF candidates, and the plan was held over. In the King's Birthday Honours that June, Jones was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath. By June 1944 the Jones–Bostock conflict and the anomalous division of administrative and operational responsibilities again led the Australian government to consider the appointment of a new commander senior to both officers. Air Marshal Sir Keith Park, the New Zealand-born AOC of No. 11 Group RAF during the Battle of Britain, was sought for the position but negotiations were broken off when MacArthur advised that it was too late to make such a change and that the problem had now gone "quiet". That it was far from over was apparent in a series of cables exchanged between the two air