Word: guam
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...when organized enemy resistance on Guam had ended, 10,971 Japs had been buried (along with 1,214 U.S. casualties) and the disorganized enemy had been driven into the hills. To the folks back home a communiqué announced that Guam had been "secured." But to the bearded, haggard soldiers and marines who had done the securing, that did not mean that the fighting was over-not by a long shot...
Most home-staying U.S. citizens still think of Guam as a speck in the vast Pacific. But actually Guam is a sizable piece of land covering 206 square miles. By last week, four months after its recapture by U.S. forces, it was also taking shape as a great, new base which its commanders proudly characterized as the "Pearl Harbor of the Western Pacific...
...rebuilding the island's living quarters, almost all of which were smashed into rubble by the pre-invasion bombardment, and erecting a sea wall to protect port facilities. Seabees had almost finished the wall once when a tropical storm blew up, washed away all their work. Half of Guam's supplies had to be unloaded at portable pontoon piers...
...best the harbor of Guam could shelter only about 100 ships. But in comparison to Pearl Harbor, it was nearly 4,000 miles closer to the war. From Australia this week a radio newscast reported that five-star Admiral Chester W. Nimitz would move his headquarters from Pearl Harbor to Guam shortly after the first of the year...
Saipan had already become the bastion for attack on Japan (see WORLD BATTLEFRONTS). From Guam, 128 miles south, New York Herald Tribune Correspondent Bert Andrews cabled: "It would be helpful if the home-held picture of Guam as a tiny Pacific 'pin point' were dispelled." Through heaviest censorship he slipped a general's quote: "This will be another Pearl Harbor...