Word: biak
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...other side of the world, Japan felt the weight of U.S. power as a big naval task force struck by sea & air into the Marianas Islands, while heavy bombers from the South Pacific area attacked enemy bases in the Carolines. On Biak Island, a long step back toward the conquered Philippines, U.S. troops captured one key airfield, were pressing the Japs back...
Comeback at Biak. Some 1400 miles south of Guam, General Douglas Mac- Arthur's last important island hop in his leapfrogging New Guinea campaign was progressing-but it was no walkover. Sixth Army infantrymen had been all but stalled in their drive along the coastal flats of Biak Island in the Schouten group, aimed at the capture of three airfields within heavy-bomber range of the Philippines. They had to fall back, call for reinforcements, amend their tactics. Last week they drove inland, outflanked the Japs, captured Mokmer airfield...
...flotillas of destroyers, sometimes with cruisers, down the Spice Islands into Geelvink Bay, between the Schoutens and New Guinea's mainland. Whether they were for reinforcement or for evacuation, Allied flyers could not tell. But they attacked them anyway, sank five destroyers, routed four sections of the express. Biak got no help...
...Secretary Stimson announced that the Army has 3,657,000 overseas, of its total strength of 7,700,000. These men are on every continent and hundreds of islands from Iceland to Biak. (Peak A.E.F. strength in World War I was 2,057,675.) To nourish this great force supply lines stretch more than 56,000 miles, to every continent. Some 1,150,000 of the Army's troops outside the U.S. are in the Air Forces...
According to Plan. The first step - -the beachhead - of the "final stage" went off smoothly. At Biak, largest of the is lands in the Schouten group, it was clear dawn. Offshore, the invasion task force under Rear Admiral William M. Fechteler hove to before the rock-pointed sandy beach at the southeastern heel of the island. From cruisers and destroyers poured a 19-minute barrage...