Word: papua
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Connecticut-born Sergeant O'Connell writes his verse when most soldiers are asleep. In the stifling heat of a rear base in Papua, he dictates by muffled flashlight to 23-year-old Private Stephen J. Haretik of Cleveland. Sergeant O'Connell's theory: "In this war there is too much written about Zeros shot down and cruisers sunk and not enough about what soldiers think. We've glamorized, a thousand men, but after the thousandth hero the soldier isn't anything to write about; except to his intimates, nothing even to think about...
From the banks of the wide, swiftly flowing Gerua River in north Papua I can overlook the four fronts of the battle for Buna. But the only visible signs are two flat-topped pillars of smoke rising, one from Buna and one from Gona, and the Flying Fortresses weaving across the top of Buna through sooty puffs of ack-ack fire which are ragged now from repeated bombing. There is nothing else to see but the cloud-spattered tropic sky above the vast bowl of sun-drenched, emerald-green jungle, which is interspersed with patches of yellow, man-high kunai...
...splayfooted natives. A native walks beside each man, holding a huge green banana leaf to keep the burning sun from the head of the soldier, who has found that the war learned at the Louisiana maneuvers is a very different thing from the war learned in the jungles of Papua...
...MACARTHUR'S HEADQUARTERS, AUSTRALIA--The Allies have occupied Gona, westernmost Japanese strong point in Papua, and have launched an around-the-clock aerial bombardment against the surviving enemy positions, Prime Minister John Curtin announced today...
...Papua is only one-fourth of the island of New Guinea, but it is the most important part of that eerie, partially explored island. For the first time since they landed there last February, it seemed that the Japs might have to look to the defense of their bases, Lae and Salamaua, 150-odd miles northwest of Buna. If MacArthur could take Lae and Salamaua, New Guinea would be lost to the Japs. Already Australian Commandos were harassing the two bases, working in the dead of night with their knives and tommy guns...