Word: shimada
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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When the U.S. made its latest leap 1,200 miles west from Kwajalein, into Saipan, key to the Marianas, Shimada had to put up or shut up. Caught in an impossible dilemma, he made the worst decision possible: a compromise...
...then even the regimented Japs were beginning to ask when their fleet would come out and fight. For the nonce, plump, taciturn Shimada said nothing; Tokyo's radio fantasists explained to the homeland and to Greater East Asia that the thing to do was to wait and see: some time the U.S. fleet would find itself far from home. Then the Jap fleet would strike the crushing blow...
...Shimada knew that his problem was far tougher than Togo's. It was all very well to wait for the U.S. fleet to steam in close to the sacred homeland. The trouble was that the more he waited, the more hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned he would be. The U.S. fleet had grown to monstrous size, and had developed a way of taking its bases along with it. The Pacific was dotted with them...
...Score. For the two weeks of U.S. campaigning in the far Pacific, from the Bonins to the Philippine Sea, the summary of Jap losses, released this week by the U.S. Navy, was even more horrific for Shimada to contemplate...
Delimited Liability. In these weeks, Shimada had learned a lesson he should have known: there are no bargain counters in the marts...