Word: attu
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...tough hombre is Joe Mendoza, private, first class. Once he licked a truckload of taunting soldiers one by one. On Attu last month Joe Mendoza came upon an unarmed Jap cowering behind a rock. Joe started to shoot, but his sense of fair play got the better of him. Throwing down his rifle, he whipped out a knife. Then he tossed the Jap a bayonet and beckoned him to come on. This act of gallantry frightened the Jap more than the prospect of death itself; he ran. Joe Mendoza, conscience free, shot...
...first attack a sizable task force cruised offshore, pouring round after round of high explosive on the rocky island. No answering flashes came from the shore batteries. Perhaps the Japs, anticipating invasion, did not want to give away their guns' location. Perhaps U.S. battleships which supported the Attu landings were still with the Aleutian fleet; their 14-in. guns would outrange the Jap batteries. But the second shelling, by a single smaller warship, roused the enemy to reply. Results: to the warship, no damage; to the Japs, gun positions revealed. A third shelling brought no reply...
TIME Correspondent Robert Sherrod, who witnessed the Attu action, tells in a letter received last week what U.S. Army doctors did for Attu wounded...
...field hospital on Attu, with a staff of three surgeons, has treated 529 men wounded in battle since U.S. troops landed a month ago. Only three casualties have died. Not one case of infection has turned up in the muddy little hospital area. Doctors credit this record to debridement (cutting out of dead tissues) and sulfanilamide...
During the first few days of the fighting on Attu, belly wounds were predominant. The reason: green troops had not learned to hug the ground closely. During the later phases of Attu's fierce fight more men were wounded in the buttocks than anywhere else. This prompted the hospital's senior surgeon, Major Merriwell T. Shelton, of Augusta, Me., to observe: "A lot of soldiers wearing Purple Heart ribbons are going to have a hard time explaining how they got wounded...