Word: borneo
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...largest: Greenland, New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar, Baffin, Sumatra, Honshu, Great Britain, Celebes, South New Zealand...
Over Balikpapan on the east Borneo coast the smoke hung thick; flames from the oil wells fired by the Dutch stabbed red into the murk. The Japanese were closing in. Off the port in the Strait of Macassar a great Japanese convoy stood, ready to move south toward Java. Before the next dawn. Feb. 24, it had been slashed into gaping disorder in one of the wildest naval raids in modern naval history...
...admiring U.S. naval officer, Admiral Helfrich believed that the risks would be justified, that warships were built to be risked and perhaps lost. But higher orders kept the combined Dutch and U.S. Fleets from the offensive until the Japs were firmly based in the northern Celebes and upper Borneo, were on the way down the Strait of Macassar...
Then the Allies hit hard: U.S. sea attack, Dutch and U.S. air attack ravaged the Japs' warships and transports. But, if it had ever been early enough, it was now too late. The Japanese secured their bases in lower Borneo, in Sumatra on Java's western flank, in the Guineas, in Amboina and elsewhere in the east...
...impossible task. Admiral Helfrich had to be prepared for invasion convoys on his left (Sumatra), at his center (Borneo), from his right (Bali). Exactly what he had long dreaded, what he had long planned to prevent, had now come to pass: the Japs were too many and too close...