Word: cebu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...MacArthur's hastily prepared air strips could accommodate only fighters during the battle's first fortnight, but the fighters were busy. Their task was not only to defend eastern Leyte's installations and supply dumps, but also to work as bombers against Jap airfields on Cebu and Negros. The first job was harder than the second...
...Japs fought fanatically for the inland town of Pastrana, and U.S. casualties there were heavy. But the Japs, after losing the Leyte Valley and its excellent airfield terrain, streaked for the west coast, began embarking for Cebu in barges and other small craft, under fire from U.S. PT boats. Meanwhile the 21st Infantry, which had landed on A-day at Leyte's southern end, overran the southern third of the island with help from guerrillas. This week Douglas MacArthur announced that two-thirds of Leyte, including 212 miles of north and east coastline, had been liberated...
Where was the promised help? Seven ships from Australia had started out with supplies but only three had broken past Jap raiders to arrive at Cebu. In Washington the Philippines were written off. MacArthur was ordered...
When they think of these things, they remember the men who had to pay the price: the dead of Cavite, buried by the process of "collecting heads and arms and legs and putting them into the nearest bomb crater"; the lone repairman at Cebu who fixed their boat and calmly stayed behind to fight the Japs alone. And they think of some 60 men who were once members of their squadron-how their numbers were whittled down by days of incessant, hopeless action...
...that were to be done, the Jap had to be kept out of U.S. operations bases in the islands to the south, where he was striving with might & main to get everything into the clutch of his stubby fingers. He had finally taken the city of Cebu (which U.S. airmen promptly fired - see p. 20), had landed also on Panay...