Word: merchantmen
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...when the enemy turned around. Unlike the Battle of Java, where Allied naval forces potted Jap merchantmen, were themselves knocked off by Jap warcraft, the fighters in the Coral Sea concentrated on the enemy's warcraft. They were at it until Saturday night...
...Time for Rejoicing. The Jap had taken a shattering defeat. The Navy listed his losses: sunk, one aircraft carrier, one heavy cruiser, one light cruiser, two destroyers, one seaplane tender, four gunboats, two submarines, three supply vessels; damaged, a carrier, heavy cruiser, light cruiser, seaplane tender, two merchantmen...
...supply. Last week a London naval analyst listed Britain's most important lines (the Indian Ocean, her route to Russia via Murmansk, her north Atlantic route from the U.S.), and said: "If it is not possible to safeguard all three without incurring disastrous losses both in warships and merchantmen, surely it is necessary to decide what it would be literally fatal to lose, and to concentrate on that...
...eastern India, between Calcutta and Madras, Jap warships and planes closed on a British merchant fleet. Some 500 survivors said nothing about air defense from nearby India, nothing of defense by any accompanying British warships. Tokyo later claimed that in this and other attacks, the Japanese sank 2 merchantmen, damaged 23 more. New Delhi admitted some merchant losses...
Only then did Commander Talbot order gunfire. His 4-inchers blazed. The Japanese began to fire from armed merchantmen and destroyers. But it was much too late. Only four U.S. sailors were wounded when Desdiv 59, blacked out and wondering just how much damage it had done, bore south through the Strait again. When daylight came, the division looked forward to its leading ship, saw that Talbot had run up the signal that Navy men prize most...