Word: ryukyu
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...suspected that Communist-tinged unions especially those affiliated with the clangorous Congress of International Unions (Japan's C.I.O.), were using their privileges to sabotage the occupation. When a seamen's walkout at Sasebo halted the sailing of five merchant ships which were to bring repatriates from the Ryukyu Islands and Manchuria, MacArthur decided it was time for plain speaking. He directed the Japanese Government to man and operate the ships and take necessary steps to prevent further walkouts. The Government was to carry out these orders "without the use of police force"; if this was impossible, occupation forces...
...hours before Doolittle spoke, command of the U.S.-held islands in the Ryukyu chain, including Okinawa, had passed in part from Admiral Nimitz to General MacArthur. But no word of this change had come from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who made the decision. Not until week's end did MacArthur's headquarters proclaim: the Ryukyus, with the Philippines, "form a great semicircular base from which a mighty invasion force is being forged under the primary responsibility of General MacArthur for the final conquest of Japan...
...more steps were taken last week to unravel the Pacific command situation. Army air forces on Okinawa and other Ryukyu bases were transferred from the command of Admiral Nimitz to General MacArthur...
...Wreckers. Little known to the U.S. public, but greatly feared by Jap shipmasters, are the fleet air wings, which the Navy calls "Fairwings" for short. Fairwing 1 and Fairwing 18 have been based in the Ryukyu Islands since early April. Fairwing 1, under veteran seaplaner Rear Admiral John Dale Price, has sunk or damaged more than 200,000 tons of shipping in Korean waters. Fairwing 18, skippered by Rear Admiral Marshall Raymond Greer (onetime shipmate of Price in the old battleship North Dakota), has operated farther east, where the hunting was not so good, but sometimes it has flown over...
...bolt position in the center of their line, the Japs had the ancient citadel of Shuri, visited by Commodore Perry in 1853. In Shuri castle, biggest and stoutest structure on the island, the Ryukyu kings had lived before the Japs took over, a quarter-century after Perry's visit. Last week a U.S. battleship scored 25 direct hits on the castle, but the shells bounced off, said an observer, like "rubber balls...