Word: attu
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Remnants of Attu's Jap defenders were herded this week into three tiny pockets of bitter-end resistance on the northeast tip of the Aleutian outpost. Because most of them would probably choose death to surrender, several days of mopping-up operations were in prospect; but U.S. troops, in less than two weeks of fighting, had won their most important victory in the Pacific since Guadalcanal...
...assault column. The Jap was tricky. Routed from one foxhole, he would escape by tunnel to another. But his tricks did him little good. U.S. officials had said they would not "send a boy to do a man's job." The 3,000 to 3,500 Japs on Attu were outnumbered as well as outarmed...
Beyond the Outpost. As has been true on every other Pacific front, the Japs were cool fighters. But with Attu firmly in the U.S. grasp, Kiska gravely threatened and the Jap naval base at Paramoshiri only 750 miles beyond the westernmost U.S. outpost, signs of nervousness began to appear in Tokyo. Blustered the Jap, in an official broadcast: "If in the future Russia ever puts her Siberian bases at the disposal of the U.S., the Japanese Army will resort to a blitzkrieg that will deal upon her the heaviest blows Russia has ever known...
...Objective. Occupation of Attu will give the U.S. a bomber strip which the Japs recently built (but apparently have never been able to use in the foul Aleutian weather). That strip, when & if it can be used, places the Jap naval base at Paramoshiri, 750 miles to the west on the Northern tip of the Kurile Islands, within easy reach of U.S. bombers. Established there, U.S. fighting men would be only 650 miles from Hokkaido, topmost of the main Japanese islands...
...Kiska, now between Americans on Attu and Americans on Amchitka, the Japs have a fighter strip, several thousand bomb-harried troops, a seaplane base, and a haven for submarines. The Japs' General Baron Sadao Araki was not sanguine. Said he: "Setbacks there and at home will only increase our strength...