Word: naval
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...week. It was the Japanese Empire's last stand. Never had a sea battle's stakes been so high, never so many warships involved, never such fierce fighting over such a vast expanse of trackless ocean. It was in fact four great battles, waged with every known naval weapon, majestic in its sweep, but complex and even controversial in its detail. Both the sense of sweep and the drama of detail are to be found in color maps with accompanying text...
...greatest battle in the history of naval warfare, which destroyed the Japanese fleet and swept clear the sea roads to the Philippines and Tokyo, raged across 500,000 square miles of churned and bloodied Western Pacific Ocean 15 years ago this week. This was the Battle for Leyte Gulf, which pitted the U.S. fleets supporting General Douglas MacArthur's landings on the island of Leyte against all the naval might that the crumbling Japanese Empire could salvage for a desperate last stand...
...grand climax to the most massive naval campaign ever, a campaign that led through Coral Sea, where the drive toward Australia was thrown back; through Midway, where the threat to Hawaii was decisively broken; through the "Marianas Turkey Shoot" (the Battle of the Philippine Sea), which broke the back of Japanese naval airpower. The relentless surge had driven the Japanese back to a final line of defense that included the home islands themselves, and hinged on the Philippines...
...within nine minutes after the U.S. cruiser Denver fired the first shot in the bombardment that prepared the way for MacArthur's amphibious attack, the Japanese naval command radioed: SHO1 OPERATION ALERT. Next morning came the order: EXECUTE. The Japanese fleets began converging on Leyte Gulf and the four mighty engagements that lay ahead...
...night of Oct. 24, Nishimura tried to run Oldendorf's gantlet, suffered six murderous destroyer attacks, steamed on toward Oldendorf's battle line with only battleship Yamashiro, heavy cruiser Mogami and destroyer Shigure still in action. Oldendorf had achieved the naval commander's dream: with his battle line he had capped the T of Nishimura's little column. At 0419 Yamashiro went down, taking Admiral Nishimura with her. Mogami got away but was sunk in the pursuit that came later, leaving Shigure the only ship afloat of Nishimura's force...