Word: kwajaleins
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Largest of these islands is also called Kwajalein. It is two and a half miles long, a third of a mile wide-about as big as Tarawa's Betio. Some 50 miles north along the beads lies Roi, 7/10 sq. mi.-just large enough for an airfield...
...pounding of Kwajalein began two months before the attack. In 17 raids by Army and Navy bombers the atoll was plastered with heavy bombs. The actual bombardment from the sea began three days before DDay. Hour after hour battleships and cruisers poured in thousands of rounds of 6-to-16-in. explosives. Roi and adjacent Namur rattled under the weight of 5,000 tons of naval shells...
...Invasion. Then it was time for the foot soldiers to go in. Against Kwajalein on the south, "Terrible" Turner sent troops of Nebraska-born Major General Charles H. Corlett's Seventh Army division, battlewise veterans of Attu. Against Roi and Namur on the north went Nebraska-born Major General Harry Schmidt's new Fourth Marine Division...
Tarawa had shown the high price of frontal assault. This time the Army troops landed first on Kwajalein's flank, on the islet of Gea (which they mistook in the dark for Ninni). They dragged their artillery through the water with them. Then they crossed to Ninni, Ennylabegan and Enubuj...
South Battle. The Army found the going slower on Kwajalein Island, whose strong pockets held out until battleships and bombers were recalled to help the land-based artillery and bazookas. Kwajalein's pillbox-to-pillbox struggle ended after four days, and Corlett's soldiers rushed northward to capture Ebeye with its seaplane base, Loi and Gugegwe...