Word: tarawa
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...attack on the Marshall Islands had caused Navy tacticians many a sleepless night since the decision was made, last summer, to open the Central Pacific. After the expensive Tarawa assault on the Gilberts in November, the tacticians squirmed harder. If the Japs had been able to fortify Tarawa so strongly in a year and a half, what would the Marshalls be like after some 20 years of fortification...
Largest of these islands is also called Kwajalein. It is two and a half miles long, a third of a mile wide-about as big as Tarawa's Betio. Some 50 miles north along the beads lies Roi, 7/10 sq. mi.-just large enough for an airfield...
...Preparation. At Tarawa the Navy learned that 3,000 tons of bombs and shells (more weight-but not more explosive-than ever hit Berlin in a single raid) was not enough to knock out the Japs' coconut-log, steel and concrete fortifications. The Navy also learned that four hours of pounding is not enough...
Whenever the warships took a breather, land-based Army and carrier-based Navy planes streaked in to drop bombs by the hundreds. There were plenty of 2,000-pounders; Tarawa had proved that Jap defenses could hold up under half-ton bombs...
...Tarawa had shown the high price of frontal assault. This time the Army troops landed first on Kwajalein's flank, on the islet of Gea (which they mistook in the dark for Ninni). They dragged their artillery through the water with them. Then they crossed to Ninni, Ennylabegan and Enubuj...