Word: saipan
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Neither Madrid nor Stalingrad nor Cassino had the elements of this fantastic fight for Intramuros . . ." And still another comes from Bob Sherrod, veteran of New Guinea and Attu, of Tarawa and Saipan, who landed with the Marines on Iwo Jima : "Shortly before we hit the beach three mortar shells dropped in the water beyond us, but the Higgins boat crunched on the shore and without even getting our feet wet we ran up the steep beach and started digging in. ... That first night can only be described as a nightmare in hell. The Japs rained heavy mortars and rockets...
...General was still around on D-plus-twelve, he must have seen something to pack his belly with anguish: a huge cloud of yellow dust rising over Motoyama Airfield No. 1. The dust was lifted by big U.S. transport planes landing from Saipan. The Americans were putting to use what they had come to Iwo to get, and the incoming planes were tokens of the approaching end of the hardest amphibious campaign in the Pacific. Iwo Jima was not yet secure, but for practical purposes the ugly, sulfurous, mean little island was theirs...
...Tarawa the 2nd Division marines paid the highest relative price: 1,000 killed and 2,000 wounded in exchange for one square mile of land. The 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions and the 27th Army Division suffered 16,500 casualties to win Saipan's 75 square miles. Iwo Jima is smaller (eight square miles) than Saipan, and its casualty ratio will hardly equal Tarawa's, but at the end of a fortnight's bloody fighting there is no longer any doubt that Iwo is the most difficult amphibious operation in U.S. history...
Between the tenth and 14th days the bloody battle seesawed back & forth. The 4th Division, veterans of Kwajalein, Saipan and Tinian, has taken Hill 382 six times, has lost it five times (they will not lose it again) when Jap fire became unbearable. In spite of this the 4th edged over, around and beyond 382, and the 5th pressed forward relentlessly. Meanwhile Erskine's regiments pierced the center, nearly split northernmost...
Said the editorial: "American forces are paying heavily for [Iwo Jima]-perhaps too heavily. . . . The same thing . . . happened at Tarawa and Saipan. . . . The American forces are in danger of being worn out before they ever reach [Japan], Plainly, what we need is ... General MacArthur. ... He outwits and outmaneuvers the Japanese. HE SAVES THE LIVES or HIS OWN MEN. . . ." That was not the way to talk to marines, and they had come to tell somebody...