Word: ryukyus
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With the securing of the Philippines, MacArthur would come to the geographical limits of his present command. As CINCSoWesPAC (Commander in Chief, Southwest Pacific), he now has nothing to say about operations which might take Allied forces to China, Formosa, the Bonins, Ryukyus, Kurils or Japan itself...
...Japs were as badly off. Since the landings in Lingayen Gulf began, not one of their surface ships had appeared to dispute Allied control of the sea lanes. Instead, their own cargo carriers and escort craft were being bombed and strafed from Indo-China to the Ryukyus. Admiral William F. Halsey's Third Fleet carriers (16, by enemy count) sent planes up & down the coast and the island chain. They hammered Hong Kong, Swatow, Amoy and Canton in China; Takao on Formosa; Okinawa in the Ryukyus. Primarily, their job was to keep the Japs from flying planes or shipping...
...summer long the Japanese naval high command, reshuffled after the smashing defeat in the First Battle of the Philippine Sea, had planned for the next inevitable meeting with the U.S. Fleet. The blow must be struck when the U.S. amphibious forces entered the last island defense line, Japan-Ryukyus-Formosa-Philip-pines. So for the three top-ranking taisho* there was not a wide choice of time. But the taisho could still pick the specific moment: it would be in the first confused days of the beachhead. They devised an ingenious Japanese plan, last week snapped it into execution, after...
...Inner Waters. If the U.S. target for the next invasion was the Philippines, there was still one major area in which the Japs first had to be beaten groggy. That was the island chain stretching south from the homeland through the Ryukyus and Formosa to Luzon, and the sheltered waterway lying behind the islands through the East and South China Seas...
...Haul. Hidden under the edge of a typhoon, the fleet bored in. Halsey sent only part of his forces on the deepest mission-to the Ryukyus, 270 miles south of Japan. Hellcats, Avengers and Hell-divers from Mitscher's carriers thundered across the islands in four heavy strikes-1,500 sorties...