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...June 29 review of Samuel Eliot Morison's New Guinea and Marianas: it might well be subtitled, "How the Navy and Marines won the war without help from the Army and Air Corps." In particular, I bridle at the mention of the 2nd and 4th Divisions storming ashore [on Saipan], etc. No mention is made of the fact that the 27th Infantry Division was called in to bail the Marines out of the mess they got themselves into . . . because they didn't have the wherewithal to secure the beachhead. The 27th was a floating reserve...
...Guinea and the Marianas, by Samuel Eliot Morison. The definitive U.S. naval history of World War II reaches Volume VIII, the decisive summer of 1944, and the campaigns which brought the Pacific War to the doorstep of Japan (TIME, June...
...says Historian Morison, there was disagreement among U.S. commanders as to the best route to Tokyo. General MacArthur "firmly believed in the one road to Tokyo, his own," along the New Guinea-Philippines axis, with the Navy in a supporting role. The Navy was convinced that "relentless pressure by sea power could defeat Japan short of invasion." The Marianas, Admiral King felt, was the logical base from which to attack Japan's inner defenses. The Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered that both roads be taken...
...Bird's Head. On April 22, 1944, like three streams of tracers arcing toward their targets, troops of MacArthur's 32nd, 24th and 41st Divisions landed at Aitape, Tanahmerah and Humboldt Bays. Their goal: three first-rate airstrips at Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea. Since the Japs had conveniently parked 340 planes, wingtip to wingtip, to be destroyed days before, mainly by General Kenney's Fifth Air Force, there was no air resistance. Bare of fighting forces, since the local Japanese commander expected to be attacked at Wewak, Hollandia proved to be a giveaway. Counterattacking Jap forces...
...defenders at 2,000; there were actually 10,000, including crack veterans of the China campaign. Ably led and zealously fanatic, they fought for a month before they were subdued. In the meantime, MacArthur pushed on to Noem-foor and by July 31 was perched on the New Guinea bird's head at Sansapor about 600 miles from Mindanao. There Author Morison leaves him to backtrack to Admiral Spruance, "Operation Forager," and the Marianas...