Word: lae
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...offensive, but it had two parts. One part, directly under General Douglas MacArthur, was aimed at the Japanese positions in northern New Guinea (first Salamaua, then Lae) and at the island gateway between the Pacific proper and its southern satellite, the Coral Sea. The other part, though planned by General MacArthur, was under the immediate command of Admiral Halsey. His Naval, Marine and Army forces aimed at Munda, a Japanese air base and army station on New Georgia Island, some 200 miles northwest of Guadalcanal. On the approach to Munda, the Americans first took the outlying island of Rendova...
These were preliminaries. Salamaua, Lae and Munda also were intermediate objectives on the road to a larger objective-Rabaul, heart & center of the Japanese naval, air and land establishment on the southwestern periphery. North of Rabaul there is only open sea (775 miles of it) between the periphery and the great naval base at Truk in the Carolines. From Rabaul the Allies also could strike behind the Japs' long Indies line, across the inner shipping lanes to Japan itself...
...front line" left in the Southwest Pacific war is in the New Guinea jungle, where small handfuls of garrisoning Allied troops continue a gradual encroachment on Jap outposts. Most advanced of these outposts is the native village of Mubo, which straddles the only practicable land route to Salamaua and Lae. Near by, on Lababia ridge, Allied patrols have established some of the fixed positions gained in weeks of skirmishing...
...this ridge one day last week swarmed Jap jungle fighters in greater force than they had mustered for some time. Anticipating attacks on Salamaua and Lae, they were feeling out Allied positions, possibly planning to open a limited drive southeast to establish better defenses. But the Allied troops, now skilled in jungle warfare, tore into the Japs, killing 100. Boston medium bombers thundered low over the retreating enemy. After five days of scattered fighting the score of Jap casualties was 204. Planes continued to roar overhead daily, blasting supply dumps of an enemy whose supplies had long been bone-thin...
Salamaua, a tadpole-shaped peninsula, is only ten miles from Mubo. It is now scarcely tenable by the Japanese. Its occupation would bring the Allies within 21 miles of the important Jap base at Lae. At week's end Allied bombers gave Lae one of its heaviest poundings since the war began...