Word: shima
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Bitter Tea. When the Japs at last decided to get on with it, MacArthur rubbed the salt of Bataan into their wounds, insisting they use the word as their planes' radio call. During the halfway halt at Ie Shima, one of the Jap crewmen appeared with a bouquet for "peace and friendship." Not an arm was bent in salute. Gaping G.I.s showed more interest in the booted, fur-hatted Jap pilots than in the stubby little men walking over to the Army Transport Command plane (a C-54 Skymaster) assigned to carry them to Manila...
...Tokyo radio crackled out: "Many enemy planes raided Minami Tori shima† at dawn today." With amazing promptness the U.S. Navy verified Tokyo's announcement, but added: "No report has been received from the raiding force and it is presumed that there will be none until need for radio silence ceases to exist." Except for a second broadcast from Tokyo that 90 "Grumman fighters" and "about 60 carrier bombers" and two carriers had taken part in the assault, the silence was still unbroken at week's end. The attack could have had one or a number of objectives...
...smashed the daylights out of two Jap bases. One of them was Wake Island, where 378 Marines had held out for 14 gallant days, second stop beyond Pearl Harbor in the reach to Jap-held Guam and Manila. The other was Marcus Island (Minama Tori Shima to the Japanese), only 1,150 miles from Tokyo...