Word: jap
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Jap planes shot down, 177 destroyed aground, more than 150 damaged or probably destroyed...
Lieut. Commander Philip Torrey, skipper of the Essex' Air Group 9, was a brave man. But when the target was announced, he later recalled, "My first instinct was to jump overboard." On the first day at Truk, 127 land-based Jap planes were shot down, 77 more were bagged on the ground. On the second day, not one got off the ground. Two of the hardiest myths of the war in the Pacific had been exploded: 1) Truk was not impregnable; 2) in a contest with seaborne planes, land-based air power was no better than its planes...
...Hornet when she carried Doolittle's daring little squadron toward Tokyo. But in the intervening 34 months, America's seaborne air force had grown beyond recognition. Now, hundreds of planes circled the carriers as they formed up: for two simultaneous dawn strikes, there were (by Jap count) 300 planes in each attack group...
...Overcast. The Japs claimed to have known, two days in advance, that the blow was coming. But they were strangely unprepared when the white-starred fighters dropped out of the overcast above each of the main airfields around Tokyo and tore across the strips, strafing scores of enemy planes still aground. Dive bombers screamed down almost vertically; Avengers roared in at a steep glide, each with a 2,000-lb. bomb. The Jap air bases erupted flames and smoke...
...Suribachi in the southwest, and a series of hills in the northeast, the Japanese poured enfilading fire into the attackers. Forward observers with the marines radioed back to the ships for fire support. Turner conceded that the preliminary bombardment had cleaned out "by no means all" of the Jap artillery positions. Said Howlin' Mad Smith: Our men are spread all over hell's acre out there, and they're going after those hidden Jap guns, which are mighty hard to locate. Most of those guns are in caves. They come out and fire five or six rounds...