Word: lavella
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...paratroops boxed them in by landing in their rear. From Rekata Bay on Santa Isabel Island, east of Vella Lavella, the Japs evacuated a long-held seaplane base-the third position they had abandoned in less than a month.* Though the heart of Japan's defense was still untouched and intact, the fatty outer layer was shrinking...
...around Vila this week an unknown number of Japs uneasily awaited the next step. U.S. artillery and aircraft menaced them from New Georgia. They were cut off from their big base on Bougainville by U.S. troops which had skipped around Kolombangara to land at Vella Lavella (TIME, Aug. 30). Unless they could be evacuated by sea under the noses of U.S. naval and air forces, their fate was slow death...
...unexpected move bypassed Jap-held Bairoko Harbor, Vila airfield and lesser positions in such jungle islands as Gizo. Vella Lavella was important as bait. The Jap bit. He tried almost immediately to land reinforcements on Vella Lavella and came down in 20-to-30 troop-carrying barges escorted by four destroyers. U.S. warships struck. One Jap destroyer was probably sunk, another damaged and a third hit. Most of the barges were sunk. Although an estimated 300 Japs managed to get ashore, some 1,000 perished...
...Vella Lavella is of no immediate im portance as a base. But it demonstrated how the U.S. can accelerate its conquest of the Pacific...
...have accomplished what we have in the Pacific with our left hand and our back turned-in the Solomons chiefly with naval and air weapons. Once we can turn our face to the Pacific, the hop-skip to Vella Lavella will look like a pip-squeak. Then strategists can begin to contemplate the kind of spectacular bypassing that will be necessary if we ever expect to reach Tokyo, the kind of massive land invasions necessary to knock the Jap out of his main bases and hold them. Until they can turn around, the Allies will have to be satisfied with...