Word: okinawa
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...Range. On a recent, typical duty day a wing of B-47s left Ohio for duty in North Africa; at almost the same moment a squadron of F-84s started from Virginia for Okinawa. Each flight stirred up a wasp's nest of Air Defense Command interceptors (practicing supersonic passes at the outbound planes in carefully planned defense exercises), air refueling tankers far-flung in Atlantic and Pacific bases, air traffic controllers, air detection and warning networks, air-sea rescue squadrons, and MATS units hauling spare parts, supplies and technicians...
When U.S. forces invaded Okinawa on Easter Sunday in 1945, some divisions were assigned to hit the beaches and engage the known enemy, the Japanese army, while others were held aboard ships bobbing offshore, as replacements for men expected to be knocked out of battle by a second enemy, unseen and almost unknown. In that campaign, however, this unknown enemy held his fire. In Tokyo, later, occupation forces set up a special headquarters near the Imperial Palace to direct operations against the stealthy killer. By 1950 they thought they had him cornered, but then Red aggression gave him the chance...
...rife in such places as Dienbienphu and Kuala Lumpur. In the Pusan perimeter, the bugs got out of hand when Army medics had to lay down their DDT guns and pick up Mis. Since this realization, U.S. forces have had relatively little trouble (only 30 cases, two deaths on Okinawa this year). They spray mosquito lairs, sleep under nets; in a tough combat situation they would slaughter all the nesting birds they could find...
Your Aug. 15 article "Okinawa: Levittown-on-the-Pacific" should have been "Okinawa: Dependent's Paradise." . . . Take us away from this lushest of assignments and give us that rough Stateside duty...
...until the Cape Gloucester operation in March 1944 that Smith, by then a greying colonel, got his first taste of combat and a Bronze Star. In his second operation, bloody Peleliu, he won the Legion of Merit for the smooth landing of three Marine assault teams. From Peleliu to Okinawa and from Inchon to Changjin reservoir, he won many honors (including the Distinguished Service Medal and the Army's Distinguished Service Cross) and advanced rapidly in the esteem of the corps...