Word: guam
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...keys to the eastern reaches of the Philippine Sea were being seized by U.S. hands: Saipan, now taken; Guam, in process of liberation; Tinian under invasion. From these points, U.S. land-based bombers could bring the whole sea under their bombsights. The sea's western reaches were in the range of B245 and 6-295, operating from China; its southern reaches could be covered from the Biak-Noemfoor area off New Guinea. These ranges fanned out and overlapped. The islands studding these waters held Jap garrisons for whom death was certain: U.S. forces were coming to get them...
Besides, this amphibious campaign-of the made-in-America type by which U.S. forces in two hemispheres have conquered historic handicaps-would win bases for U.S. air fleets. If the Americans' monstrous B-29s could come from western China to Yawata, they could come from Saipan (and, doubtless, Guam) to Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe...
Next day the carriers' planes returned to the attack, added twelve-mile-long Rota (between Tinian and Guam) to the rota of points bombed...
Were the carrier-aircraft strikes at Guam merely preparatory blows, like that of Feb. 21-22? Or were they the curtain-raiser for a lightning amphibious conquest patterned after Tarawa and Kwajalein...
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...