Word: beachheads
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...jungle, enabling combat troops to cross the mountains on the Australians' flank and knock at the Japs' back door. More troops came in planes which landed on a natural strip discovered in the jungle. Said General MacArthur: "The Allied forces now control all of Papua except the beachhead in the Buna-Gona area...
East is East. For the first time in several weeks, the Japanese were in force to the east of the Henderson Field beachhead, on the wide, open plains of Koli Point. They had slipped troops ashore by night...
West is West. On the other side of the beachhead, where the Japs had been pressing for a fortnight, the urgency was greater. There were two specific reasons why an attack had to be put on there...
...first place, the Marines' beachhead on Guadalcanal is important by the mere fact of its having been the first offensive U.S. battlefield against the Japs. It has become the vortex of a naval whirlpool which may easily engulf either adversary. But beyond that it is a geographic key. If the U.S. loses Guadalcanal, the Japanese can press on with relative ease, take the whole chain of islands down through the New Hebrides to New Caledonia (see map), and then have only the narrow moat of the Coral Sea between them and Australia. But if the U.S. holds Guadalcanal...
...Land: Killing or Being Killed. Land fighting on Guadalcanal is unlike any other fighting in this war. The terrain around the flat beachhead is unique. It consists of high, steep ridges covered with chest-high grass, alternating with valleys choked with jungle. The Japanese cling, animallike, to the jungle. The Marines prefer the ridges, from which their weapons, particularly artillery, can dominate the valleys. But they go down into the tangle to hunt out their prey...