Word: attu
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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...
...miles from Massacre Bay to Chichagof Harbor, on bleak and barren Attu, are a five-hour walk. Covering this distance in the wake of the Japs' last stand at the end of May, TIME, Correspondent Robert Sherrod gained a gruesome insight into the nature of the enemy in the Pacific. In a two-mile stretch there were 800 Japanese dead. Many of them had killed themselves. Reported Correspondent Sherrod...
...easy to distinguish those who had used our grenades. Their chests and stomachs were both gone. Our grenades, which probably accounted for half the Japs we killed on Attu, carry a much more powerful charge. The Jap grenade is vastly inferior. Some Jap bodies were found beside three or four duds, indicating that the victim had had an exasperating time killing himself...
Pattern of Frustration. The fantastic Battle of Attu may be a pattern in our war against Japan. The suicides obviously were an act of frustration. When the Jap knows he is hopelessly beaten he tries to kill himself, after killing as many of us as he can. But in his anxiety he presses the grenade to his stomach before the plotted time. The ordinary, unreasoning Jap is ignorant. Perhaps he is human. Nothing on Attu indicates...