Word: nicobar
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Allied Southeast Asia commander, was now able to consider: 1) a move to cut off the Malay peninsula by a thrust through Moulmein to Bangkok; 2) a drive at southern Malaya and Singapore by way of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean...
...Indies Fleet units, standing in to the Gulf of Martaban, shelled the flatlands south of Rangoon. Paratroops floated down south of Rangoon to smooth the way for amphibious forces. Far to the southwest, in the Bay of Bengal, aircraft carriers and battleships carried out strikes on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to prevent interference with the big show...
Hero of the attack was Lieut. Commander L. W. A. Bennington, commander of a submarine force (the "Porpoise Carrier") which kept Malta alive at the height of its blockade. In the Pacific, his submarine crept through the grey-green waters of the Bay of Bengal, past the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which screen the Singapore-Rangoon sea lanes, scouted the narrow (225 mi.) northern approaches of the Malacca Straits. He attacked and sank three large cargo vessels, sighted the cruiser and closed at full speed...
...Allied drive from India will find the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Sumatra and Malaya stoutly defended. Japanese air power centers around Singapore. Any enemy approach will be both costly and foolhardy...
...Delhi had to admit that it was conquest by default. The small garrison, the few colonials, civil servants and guards at the Indian penal center in Port Blair had abandoned the Andamans to the Japs. Ready for plucking were the 204 big & little Andamans and the adjoining Nicobar Islands, which curve between Burma's central coast and the northern tip of Sumatra, locking a gateway to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean...