Word: munda
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...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, and positions on New Georgia itself, and on Vangunu Island...
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...
...suddenly changed in any important respect last week, except that the Japanese haa begun to cash in on four to six months' gradual preparations along their 6,000-mile defensive arc. For some time they had been building airstrips, until now there were 65 between Timor and Munda. For some time they had been moving troops to a maze of forward garrisons, until there were seven to ten divisions in line. Some of these were good troops: one division had fought several months in China against the Communist Chu Teh, another had fought through Burma, another through Malaya...
...Five Jap destroyers and a cargo ship were spotted steaming toward New Georgia, apparently to reinforce frequently bombed Munda...
Second team posts went to forwards Dick Giles of Cornell and Jim Olsen of Dartmouth, Freshman Walt Budko of Columbia was named for the center slot, and Jack Munda of Princeton and Captain Les Martens of Columbia were the guard selectees...