Word: tarawa
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...heroism yes, but also profound sadness; for World War II was not a good war. From North Africa to Salerno, from Normandy to the Bulge to Berlin, an entire continent lost to fascism had to be taken back, village by village, hill by hill. And further eastward, from Tarawa to Okinawa, the death struggle for Asia was an assault against dug-in positions, surmounted only by unbelievable courage at unbearable loss...
...fighting in the central Pacific, some 20,000 U.S. soldiers died. On Saipan, Japanese women and children hurled themselves from cliffs rather than submit to the American invaders. Most Japanese soldiers there either died fighting or took their own lives: 27,040 corpses were found. The toll from Tarawa--984 U.S. Marines and 29 Navy men killed in just 76 hours of fighting--caused normally self-censoring correspondents to send home horror stories that nearly triggered a congressional investigation. All of February 1945 saw street fighting in Manila between American soldiers and renegade Japanese troops intent on turning the Philippine...