Word: palau
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...Business. Palau, which lies more than 1,100 miles west of Truk, also lies nearly 1,100 miles northwest of General MacArthur's farthest outpost in the Admiralties. On this deep thrust into Japanese waters the Navy went with no light task force, but with a full-fledged battle fleet. Of the 50 carriers which Secretary Knox last week announced were in the Pacific, many took part. So did enough battleships to challenge the main Japanese fleet...
This time the target beyond the dark horizon was Palau, 1,176 miles due west of Truk, only 550 miles short of the Philippines. And this time it was a far bigger operation than any the U.S. Navy had previously undertaken in the Pacific. In fact, both in its execution and in its objective, this was an operation involving the whole Pacific theater...
...blow at Palau the U.S. extended its reach. Unless the Japanese were willing to meet the thrusts of the U.S. Navy at or near Palau, they would have to withdraw their supply route still farther west, to the Philippines, leaving all their mid-Pacific garrisons as well as their garrisons in New Guinea, New Britain and New Ireland at the end of a very long and tortuous line...
...likelihood last week the main units of Japan's fleet were based along the Jap lifeline which stretches from the homeland to The Netherlands East Indies, a line which passes through Palau and Yap, strong bases 470 and 750 miles off the coast of the Philippines. Sooner or later the U.S. would be in a position to strike at that line. It is there that the Jap fleet may make its last-ditch defense, when the U.S. fleet is 4,000 miles from Pearl Harbor...
...defense Colonel Hilsman had more problems than a small force, a long supply line and the size of his opponent (who probably came from the Japanese base at Palau in the Mandated Islands 600 miles east of Davao). Colonel Hilsman's worst problem was likely to be the Japanese population of Davao, estimated as high as 25,000, composed predominantly of men and flecked heavily with youngsters whose carriage and demeanor bear the unmistakable marks of military training...