Word: blows
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Outnumbered, outgunned, sorely in need of heavy cruisers to bolster their light naval units, the Allies took a beating off Java. The Dutch had started the war with five cruisers: the loss was a severe blow to total cruiser strength in the Indies. For his losses, the Jap got his landings on Java (see p. 16). For the Allies, graver than their total loss in ships was the immediate threat to their last naval base in the Indies...
WASHINGTON--Gen. Douglas MacArthur's amazing little band of airmen appeared tonight--in one smashing blow--to have avenged" with compound interest" the death of every American soldier and sailor who perished at Peal Harbor...
This was the worst week of the war. The nation took one great trip-hammer blow after another-vast, numbing shocks...
News dispatches contained evidence of incredible complacency. Five days before Singapore fell, the local authorities announced their intention to build air-raid shelters. A.P. Correspondent C. Yates McDaniel overheard a telephone conversation in which the manager of the Singapore radio asked permission of Governor General Sir Shenton Thomas to blow up the station because the Japanese were so close. Sir Shenton demurred; the situation was not so bad, he said. So the station went on broadcasting. Very soon, he wrote, in the midst of an admonition to keep fighting, the station went ominously dead...
...Best estimate: one of twelve battleships; one of (at most) 13 aircraft carriers; seven of 46 light and heavy cruisers; 14 of 126 destroyers; 13 of 70 submarines. Many more had been damaged, put temporarily out of action. Added to Jap losses in commercial tonnage they constituted a substantial blow at Japan's total sea strength...