Word: calcutta
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Holding Ceylon, Wavell holds the sea entrances to India's eastern ports (Madras and Calcutta) which are also inlets for China's supplies. On Ceylon is Trincomalee, Britain's secondary naval base, immensely important now that Singapore is gone. Trincomalee is now the Allies' only useful naval base north of Capetown and east of Suez. Whoever holds Trincomalee and Ceylon's airdromes holds the key to the Indian Ocean and all its vital sea routes between Africa, Australia, India and the Middle East. Without Trincomalee and Ceylon, the Japanese can make Allied transport...
...Western Hemisphere aplenty: last year's production was 1,761,951,000 barrels, 78% of world production. But nearly 7,000 miles of water -a four months' round trip for a fast tanker -lie between San Francisco and Melbourne. India's port of Calcutta is 16,425 miles from San Francisco. It is 4,673 miles from New York to Archangel. And all these trips will require some convoying...
...other alternative that I believe possible," de Haas revealed, "is to assist England in holding India. We would probably have to do this operating from Ceylon and Calcutta and it would be largely a question of naval strength. Having held India, we could reinforce China and develop an eastern front on which to fight Japan...
...talk with the most remarkable of them all could only have strengthened his desire. He met Mohandas Gandhi shortly after noon in the marbled and gilded Calcutta mansion of Gandhi's rich cotton-milling backer, Ghanshyamdas Birla. Throughout the conversations, Gandhi spun yarn on a charkha (hand spinning wheel). He talked with the Gissimo through an interpreter, with vivid Mme. Chiang in English. After 80 minutes the Chinese visitors dined, while the Mohandas, as usual, abstained from mid-day eating. The conference continued through Gandhi's evening meal of unleavened cakes, boiled vegetables, goat's milk...
...Burma's west coast lies a long chain of flying fields, all the way back to Calcutta and beyond. By this route new planes were coming to be added to Burma's thin complement of bombers and U.S.-made fighters. The Allies raided Bangkok, reported they set great fires. They pounced on Jap airfields, riddling their ground establishments. In one raid near week's end, returning pilots reported they had smashed up 27 Jap planes, mostly bombers, on the ground...