Word: java
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Surabaya, on the island of Java, was not sleeping. Lights glittered along the waterfront, indicating that the Jap was making full use of this great shipping and naval base he had torn from the Dutch. Out of the dawn swept a formation of Liberator bombers, their exhausts glowing red. For 70 minutes they "buzzed" the city, bombing warehouses, railroads, docks. Most important target was the big oil refinery. As the bombers winged homeward to their Australian base, flames from the refinery could be seen for 140 miles. It was the longest raid of the Pacific war-2,400 miles round...
...Japs are bound to feel such losses, but they have many hundreds of planes tucked away on 60-odd airdromes along the arc from Java to the Solomons. After four raids on Vunakanau, Rapopo and Lakunai airfields near Rabaul within the last fortnight, American crews could still count around 200 Jap planes, and the force scattered along the south Pacific front probably totals 1.500 to 2,000-a good many more than the Allies have mustered in the same theaters...
...will accord the honor of independence to the Philippines in the course of the current year. . . . We shall take measures envisaging participation of native populations in the Government to an extent commensurate with their ability. . . . We intend to realize this state of affairs as early as possible in Java . . . and Burma...
...base, then, as the Japs drew closer, as a place to load bombs and gas on missions flown from Australia, "touching it as lightly as you would a hot stove." They flew 18 hours a day, with minutes of cat naps in between, until they were sent down to Java...
...Field near Surabaya was "a better job of camouflaging than anything we'd ever dreamed of in the Philippines." Before long, it was a nightmare field. From here the shattered remnants of the U.S. 19th Bombardment Group tried to stop the massive Japanese advance down Macassar Straits to Java...