Word: andamans
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Birds and reptiles have always abounded in the Andaman Islands, a series of lush green mountaintops dotting the Bay of Bengal. But up to 25 years ago the mammal population of the Andamans was a poor minority. The only wild four-footed friends the island Pygmies could boast were a few small pigs, rats and native, skunklike creatures. In 1928 an Indian government expert visited the Andamans and decided that what the islands needed was a properly decorative quadruped. He introduced a pair (male & female) of dainty spotted chital deer. With no natural enemies to bother them, the chital deer...
...Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Allied Southeast Asia commander, was now able to consider: 1) a move to cut off the Malay peninsula by a thrust through Moulmein to Bangkok; 2) a drive at southern Malaya and Singapore by way of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean...
...British East Indies Fleet units, standing in to the Gulf of Martaban, shelled the flatlands south of Rangoon. Paratroops floated down south of Rangoon to smooth the way for amphibious forces. Far to the southwest, in the Bay of Bengal, aircraft carriers and battleships carried out strikes on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to prevent interference with the big show...
Hero of the attack was Lieut. Commander L. W. A. Bennington, commander of a submarine force (the "Porpoise Carrier") which kept Malta alive at the height of its blockade. In the Pacific, his submarine crept through the grey-green waters of the Bay of Bengal, past the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which screen the Singapore-Rangoon sea lanes, scouted the narrow (225 mi.) northern approaches of the Malacca Straits. He attacked and sank three large cargo vessels, sighted the cruiser and closed at full speed...
...Allied drive from India will find the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Sumatra and Malaya stoutly defended. Japanese air power centers around Singapore. Any enemy approach will be both costly and foolhardy...