Word: rabaul
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...Solomons campaign one more example of the still-divided U.S. command in the Pacific? (General MacArthur is responsible for attacking Rabaul; Vice Admiral Ghormley for Guadalcanal, 700 miles to the south...
Last week Colonel Carmichael put on his first big show over Rabaul, Japanese naval and air base 600 miles northeast of Port Moresby, 700 miles northwest of Guadalcanal. For once, he had enough planes: more Fortresses than anyone had ever had before in the Southwest Pacific. For once, the raid was well planned. First the Australians went over Rabaul in their Catalina flying boats, loosed their bombs shortly after midnight. Then, about 4 a.m. when the Japs were comfortably in bed again, the Fortresses began coming...
...first dropped flares and bombs, then went down low and shot out the Japanese searchlights. Soon the fires of Rabaul provided a guide visible for 35 miles. The Fortresses kept coming for an hour and a half, from different directions and at different levels, until 60 tons of bombs had fallen on Japanese warehouses. Many were piloted by old hands who had seen the war through Java and the Philippines...
...Admiral Ernest J. King's numerous sons-in-law) as observer. Colonel Carmichael was pleased as punch with his first big raid. Said he: "I had what amounted to a grandstand seat at the Yankee Stadium." Early next morning Colonel Carmichael's flyers visited Rabaul again, dropped 40 more tons on its supply dumps, warehouses, machine shops, barracks and jetties...
...bases which the U.S. and Australian forces will need soon to clean out: all the airdromes, troop centers and anchorages in the upper Solomons, within easy range of the Marines' southern toehold. The job even then would not be finished. For the Japs' great concentration point at Rabaul in New Britain would still be dangerously close-660 miles from Tulagi, 200 from Bougainville. The Japs would even then still be in upper New Guinea, a scant 350 miles from Rabaul. Above Port Moresby last week, an Australian force (with some U.S. troops) was slowly retreating, and soon...