Word: shimada
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This week Shimada had to make a new set of plans to stave off the Americans, who certainly intend to plow into his inner defenses. Except for his German counterpart, no leader had the impossible alternatives that lay before Shimada. He could come out and fight, hurl his whole force against the U.S. fleet. The result would be destruction. Or he could stand on his one thrust at the enemy and keep his fleet in being, a threat that might never be used but that would have to be reckoned with. Or he could spend his fleet piecemeal in harassing...
Cherry Ripe., Stubby, troubled Shimada, with his Prussian hairdo and his overripe cherry mouth, was not going to feel the warm smile of history. But he had worked hard to win it. No less than six times he had been assigned to the General Staff; the first five were considered successful. Between these tours of duty he had commanded a submarine division, a cruiser, the battleship Hiei, finally (in 1940 and early 1941) the Third Fleet, entrusted with blockade of the China coast toward which Nimitz now aims...
...When Shimada was recalled from China, the Emperor gave him a special purse. He used it with scrupulous correctness to buy 70 memorial swords for his staff...
Although a disciple of the violently anti-foreign Admiral Nobumasa Suetsugu, Shimada refrained then, as usual, from rattling his tongue. He sedulously avoided embroilment in domestic Jap politics. He won the confidence of Jap Army leaders because he had the reputation of being "regular Navy"-only more so-and minding his business...
...trouble was that, no matter how safely an officer tried to set his course, there were obstacles-like calculating Spruance and wizened, air-wise Marc Mitscher. And they were not passive obstacles: they were closing around him like a tightening clamp. They were closing inexorably on the Empire where Shimada had worked so hard and dully to be a great naval captain...