Word: saipan
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...morning we set out once more in the heat on the long road back. Chungking radio was telling of victories on Saipan, at Minsk, in Italy, in France. All we had to tell about was an obscure campaign in an unknown valley and the suffering of a sick, ragged, dauntless army...
...keys to the eastern reaches of the Philippine Sea were being seized by U.S. hands: Saipan, now taken; Guam, in process of liberation; Tinian under invasion. From these points, U.S. land-based bombers could bring the whole sea under their bombsights. The sea's western reaches were in the range of B245 and 6-295, operating from China; its southern reaches could be covered from the Biak-Noemfoor area off New Guinea. These ranges fanned out and overlapped. The islands studding these waters held Jap garrisons for whom death was certain: U.S. forces were coming to get them...
Admiral Ernest J. King, fresh from a survey of the Navy's latest acquisition, Saipan, pointed out at week's end that the southern Marianas are roughly 1,500 sea miles from Japan, China and the Philippines. For Tokyo's benefit he added that "1,500 miles is considered a fair operational radius for the fleet. That is an opportunity of which we will take full advantage...
...Blue Lagoon. With air bases for the Army's heavy bombers already being readied for use, the U.S. command's greatest need was a fleet anchorage in the western Pacific, fronting on the Philippine Sea. Saipan and Guam could serve only as staging points for a fleet; what was wanted was a landlocked basin such as Pearl Harbor, a blue lagoon like Kwajalein, Eniwetok or Majuro. A fine harbor could be had at Palau, a poorer one at Yap; a lagoon could be secured at one of several atolls in the western Carolines-far beyond the bypassed enemy...
...Gonna Die." Hays & Hepburn began their recording aboard ship with the Amphibious Corps on the way to Saipan, setting the battle scene by casual conversations with privates and admirals, by recording 250 men singing Abide With Me (and obviously meaning it) in the ship's sweaty hold, led by a sweating chaplain. The recorders were near the beachhead in a landing craft as the first wave of Marines went in, Hays quietly telling what he saw, Hepburn manipulating the controls and making one anxious comment for all to hear: "If that's not recording, I'm gonna...