Word: balikpapan
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...spectacular campaign was against an estimated 30,000 enemy troops on Borneo. It was also their most successful. Under the Corps command of dapper, dashing Lieut. General Sir Leslie ("Holy Terror") Morshead, onetime schoolmaster and hero of the siege of Tobruk, the 7th Division had secured the vital Balikpapan area within three weeks of its invasion. Last week the 7th beat down bitter resistance to take another first-rate military prize: the Sambodja oil field, 28 miles northeast of Balikpapan and one of the three major producing areas of eastern Borneo...
While Kenney's air force in the south pounded the Celebes and Halmahera, oil-rich Balikpapan in Borneo and the supply center of Zamboanga in the southern Philippines, a detached force of Pacific Fleet battleships steamed north to tiny (740 acres) Marcus Island, little more than 1,100 miles southeast of Tokyo. After a full day of bombardment, Marcus' two air strips were out of commission...
Last week came the news which surprised no one. Back on duty in the Southwest Pacific as a gunnery instructor, Dick Bong was in battle again. He had led Lightning fighters on a 1,500-mile raid to Balikpapan, the longest fighter operation ever attempted in the theater. Over Borneo 20 Jap planes had jumped U.S. heavy bombers. Bong and his P-38s piled in and drove them off. Instructor Bong's personal score: two Japanese planes...
Most important of last week's raids was staged by Major General St. Clair Streett's Thirteenth Air Force-a 2,500-mile round trip from New Guinea to Balikpapan on the east coast of Borneo. Said General MacArthur: "The advance of our bomber line now has made possible heavy bomber attacks on Balikpapan, major fuel storage center, with more than 3,000,000 barrels capacity, and the most important source of aviation gasoline and lubricating oils...
...Balikpapan raid (second in a week) showed that the Japs were still fiercely determined to defend the "Ploesti of the Pacific." As the Liberators crossed Celebes they were picked up by Jap "Bettys" (fast twin-engined bombers) which radioed instructions ahead to fighters. Forty Zeros were ready for the U.S. flyers at Balikpapan and, though 19 Japs were shot down, seven Liberators with 70 airmen went down in flames...