Word: jap
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Cleanup. At week's end on New Georgia only a small Jap detachment at Bai-roko Harbor was still to be done in, but victorious units from Munda moved for ward to help in the job. Army engineers and Navy Seabees prepared to restore the 4,000-ft. Munda airstrip, which would bring the U.S. just within fighter-plane range of Rabaul. Eyes turned to Vila, Munda's supplementary airstrip 17 miles away, huddled against the great cone of Kolombangara. That the Japs were determined to cling to Vila was evident when they once more took the impossible...
Outlook. Since General Vandegrift's Marines made their frontal assault on Guadalcanal, the U.S. has learned much about island warfare. The new tactics are to surround the Jap bases in overwhelming force and in combined operation to squeeze the life out of them. Though the capture of Munda was somewhat behind schedule, the Japs were left no secondary retreats, would soon be cleaned up. Gen eral Vandegrift, with his spearhead of Amphibious Marines, looked forward to future operations conducted by "all of us, a highly cooperative team...
When artillery scorched and tumbled the hillsides, the Jap holed in. But to cover the 40 to 60 yards necessary for direct assault sometimes took the Allied soldiers five or ten minutes, and the Jap popped out swiftly to man his machine guns. Occasionally cliffs had to be scaled, hand over hand with the help of thorny lawyer vines: the Jap, creeping from his caves, pulled the pins from mortar bombs, dropped them on the attackers. Such fighting necessarily slowed the Allied onslaught. Patrols probed ahead to pinpoint enemy positions. Plane and artillery bombardment constantly softened the Jap defenses...
...lookouts spotted a submarine's twin periscopes sticking up. Skipper Cornell ordered a depth-charge attack. One charge exploded close to the hull, forcing the Jap to the surface. The Little Fellow heeled around sharply in a 180-degree turn, churned up to 19 knots and rammerd the sub amidships...
...patrol boat poured streams of bullets into the enemy craft. The forward deck gun crew got off one round?a direct hit on the conning tower?as the 487 circled to ram again. Now the submarine was almost entirely on the surface. The Little Fellow crashed into the Jap just forward of the conning tower, rolling the sub over. A wavering periscope scraped the side of the 487's hull, broke a stanchion on deck and came within an inch of decapitating Skipper Cornell...