Word: beachhead
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...Hersey reached Guadalcanal it was strafed by Jap Zeros. The day before he left he watched the Marines shoot down eight of 27 Jap bombers trying to knock out our airfield-and he took off the day the Jap cruisers first ventured inshore to shell the American beachhead by daylight...
First they felt out the U.S. defenses to the west of the beachhead, in a series of light attacks. The Marines held. Then the Japs struck hard on that quarter, with artillery and tanks for the first time. The Marines held. Next the Japs swept down from the hills to the south of the camp. The Marines held...
...sailors had damaged 51 and sunk eleven ships and destroyed 340 planes in the Solomons area since Aug. 7, while their own announced losses had been only a fraction as high. But the U.S. forces were in trouble as they had not been since Bataan fell. Against the Guadalcanal beachhead held by Marines (plus some recent Army arrivals) the Japs poured wave on wave of cruisers, destroyers, planes and transports brimming with...
...Marines had fought well. TIME Editor John Hersey, who left Guadalcanal last week, wrote: "The men have spent themselves as if they were as worthless as the Jap occupation currency they found on the beachhead. It is impossible to say who deserves most credit. Certainly the command has been alert and tough. It has anticipated every Jap stroke, including the present push...
...case of "Here we go to Tokyo"; rather it was: "We are fighting like hell to hold on." Navy communiques, which last month optimistically had the Marines "mopping up" Guadalcanal, now said only "our positions remain intact"-without mentioning that those positions covered but 6,000 yards of beachhead, including a captured airdrome...