Word: mindanao
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Without invading Babelthuap and the other northern Palaus, the U.S. could not immediately use the vast Palau fleet basin. But airfields in the southern Palaus would serve: 1) for bombing the Philippines-if MacArthur invaded the central Philippines instead of Mindanao, Peleliu would be closer to the invasion coast than Morotai; 2) for air patrols which could clamp the northern Palaus in a neutralizing vise. Last week marine flyers based on Peleliu were already strafing and bombing Babelthuap...
Liberators and PBYs from General MacArthur's command struck repeatedly at Davao, capital of Mindanao. U.S. carriers, of which more than 50 now roam the Pacific, hammered Halmahera, the Jap island stronghold which MacArthur bypassed in occupying Morotai. Still other carrier planes ranged 325 miles behind Palau to strike the Jap base...
Palau. The same day that MacArthur struck, and three months to the day after Saipan, Admiral Nimitz' marines attacked, 500 miles due east of Mindanao. Their target: the Palau Archipelago (five principal islands, 100 smaller ones). Palau was the brightest star (and capital) of Japan's vast mandated empire. "The spigot of our oil barrel," the Japs called it, when their ships left port to tap the great oil reserves of the stolen Indies...
...Philippines. While Navy carrier-based aviation eased up its blistering pace the Empire was hit from both west and east by Army bombers in a foretaste of what was to come as new bases, now taken, were built up. For the first time since General MacArthur was evacuated from Mindanao to Australia, U.S. heavy bombers flew over the southern Philippines in force. Davao, principal seaport and military base of the southern Philippines, was attacked for three nights running and on odd nights thereafter by Lieut. General George C. Kenney's Liberators...
...MacArthur, in the Southwest Pacific, was in the best position for such a move, and inching closer to the takeoff point. From westernmost New Guinea to Halmahera was an easy distance (200 miles) by the new U.S. Pacific standards; from Halmahera it is another short hop (400 miles) to Mindanao in the Philippines...