Word: navale
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...NAVAL OFFICER'S NAME WITHHELD...
...obvious candidate for the new big air job would be wizened, frail-looking 58-year-old Vice-Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, a naval aviator since 1915, pilot of the NC1 on the first Navy transatlantic flight in 1919, commander of the carrier Hornet, which launched the Doolittle raiders against Tokyo, best known as the boss of famed Task Force 58 which has swept the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo...
Born of Desperation. The basis of future Japanese naval and naval-air war was thus laid bare. With their air force in tatters and their navy cut to shreds, the enemy was preparing for a last-ditch defense by any means at hand. And to the Japanese, that meant murder and suicide...
...strength of the Kamikaze Corps was already added that of the Jinrai (piloted buzz-bombs) and the Giretsu (airborne saboteurs). Ozawa would go further: he would take surface ships, rig them for self-destruction, then -if the Kamikaze squadrons could blast a way through the "picket line" (outer naval screen)-he would send the ships in to try "body-crashing" tactics against major U.S. fleet units...
...future, as in the recent past. But there was one great flaw in the Japs' plan: while they could be sure of committing suicide, they still could not be sure of getting away with enough murder in the process. Radio Tokyo, announcing that Japan's entire naval air corps had been converted to a suicide outfit, explained with admirable clarity: "If this tactic is successful, victory is assured for Japan. If otherwise, the navy will have many heroes for our shrines...