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Colonel Shoup, who wore a mask of dust and dirt like every other marine on the island, summed up the situation that afternoon: "Well, I think we're winning, but the bastards have got a lot of bullets left. I think we'll clean up tomorrow."57 He was plainly exhausted, having slept not at all the previous night. He was still bleeding through his bandage. His report to General Julian Smith would enter Marine Corps lore: "Casualties many; perce..
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Ian W. Toll |
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020bf24
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On the qualities required of naval officers, Roosevelt was outspoken: "They must have skill in handling the ships, skill in tactics, skill in strategy . . . the dogged ability to bear punishment, the power and desire to inflict it, the daring, the resolution, the willingness to take risks and incur responsibilities which have been possessed by the great captains of all ages, and without which no man can ever hope to stand in the front rank ..
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Ian W. Toll |
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60fe80c
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Stoddert named Joshua Humphreys Chief Naval Constructor of the United States, and authorized him to oversee naval shipbuilding operations throughout the country. But Humphreys's efforts to impose his authority on shipwrights in other cities met with strong resistance. Different techniques, styles, and designs prevailed in the various seaports, and much of the terminology had evolved into regional dialects that outsiders found unintelligible..
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Ian W. Toll |
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28100b9
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The Japanese people were rapidly succumbing to what would later be called shoribyo, or "victory disease"--a faith that Japan was invincible, and could afford to treat its enemies with contempt. Its symptoms were overconfidence, a failure to weigh risks properly, and a basic misunderstanding of the enemy."
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Ian W. Toll |
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b417018
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It was decided to leave her where she lay. She lies there
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Ian W. Toll |
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4518e31
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Throughout the Pacific, one could find an illicit trade in "torpedo juice," the high-proof fuel used in torpedoes. Beer was usually rationed at two cans a week. When a larger quantity of beer was obtained by backhanded means, it could be chilled by taking it to high altitude for thirty minutes. Pilots would provide that service in exchange for a share of the spoils."
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Ian W. Toll |
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97f75bf
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Lieutenant (jg) Ralph Hanks, an Iowa pig farmer before the war, became an "ace in a day" by shooting down five Zeros in a single skirmish. In a fifteen-minute air engagement, his throttle never left the firewall and his Hellcat surpassed 400 knots in a diving attack. Hanks had to stand on his rudder pedals and use his entire upper-body strength to keep his stick under control. Intense g-forces caused him to black out several times. This fir..
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Ian W. Toll |
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362c343
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As is almost always the case with the Army, and often with the Marines, it was very difficult to get enough men to unload boats, even slowly," he told Spruance on November 30. "As soon as the troops debarked from the LSTs and APs, they simply evaporated. Boats would lie at the pier for hours on end without a pound moving, while those garrison troops were out sightseeing."
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Ian W. Toll |
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f479d36
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Marine Captain Bankson T. Holcomb, Jr., a Japanese-language officer detached from Pearl Harbor's codebreaking unit, picked up a transmission by a Japanese patrol pilot (probably the same one that had been picked up by the carrier's radar). The aircraft had reached the end of its patrol route and the pilot had "nothing to report."
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Ian W. Toll |
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f9dfc5c
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A jolt, a white flash, a thunderclap, and the Hayate was torn apart--her bow floated one way, her stern the other, each section bobbing pitifully on the sea, and then both quickly sank, taking 168 men down with them. The battery's crew let out a full-throated cheer. "Knock it off, you bastards, and get back on the guns!" bellowed Platoon Sergeant Henry Bedell. "What do you think this is, a ball game?"
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Ian W. Toll |
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5254851
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The french Captain tells me, I have caused a War with France," Truxtun wrote Stoddert. "If so I am glad of it, for I detest Things being done by Halves." The"
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Ian W. Toll |
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Amari did as he was told. At
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Ian W. Toll |
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9b75266
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Shattered Sword
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Ian W. Toll |
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others, the story losing
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Ian W. Toll |
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could
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Ian W. Toll |
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48b3b48
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Reaching California, many of the Pacific-bound servicemen were caught in limbo, waiting for a ship and that suited them fine. No one doubted that the route to Tokyo would be long and bloody, and they were in no hurry to travel it. The sweating malarial jungles of the South Pacific, the infinitesimal atolls of the Central Pacific, all those obscure islands with their alien names - Efate, Espiritu Santo, Malaita, Gaudalcanal, Emirau, Tarawa, ..
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Ian W. Toll |
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20095bd
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forces in Batjan on June 11.61
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Ian W. Toll |
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than it had ever been before:
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Ian W. Toll |
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5d990a9
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Families were bound by the oyaku-shinju (parent-child death pact). The were obligated to take their own lives and those of their kin by any means at hand. Cyanide capsules were given out until there were no more. Soldiers offered to shoot civilians in turn and did not always wait to be invited. In a crowded cave, one grenade might do the work of twenty bullets. Sword-wielding officers beheaded dozens of willing victims. There were reports o..
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Ian W. Toll |
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5fdc1d6
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That day buried levees, birthdays, royal parades, and the arrogation of precedence in society by certain self-styled friends of order, but truly styled friends of privileged orders.... In social circles all are equal, whether in or out of office, foreign or domestic, & the same equality exists among ladies as among gentlemen. No precedence therefore, of any one over another, exists either in right or practice at dinners, assemblies, or any ..
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Ian W. Toll |
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6fe1fac
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Britain would work its influence gently, so as not to chafe the fragile American ego--Churchill informed his war cabinet that the Americans "were not above learning from us, provided that we did not set out to teach them."
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Ian W. Toll |
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How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
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Ian W. Toll |