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Show America Girds for Still Greater Effort As Pearl Harbor Anniversary Nears A Review of Outstanding Engagements of Our Country's First Year at War. By CHARLES A. SINGLER Released by Western Newspaper Union. With the approach of December 7 the "date of infamy" Americans everywhere will reaffirm their determination to work, fight and sacrifice to win the war, and spend a little time in retrospect. No attempt will be made here to give an overall picture of what has happened during this fateful year, but rather a review of some of the great battles in which American forces have been engaged. Without difficulty we recall thatS fateful Sunday afternoon when, over a radio suddenly gone wild, the shocking and bewildering reports came in. Pearl Harbor had been attacked! People could hardly believe be-lieve it. But it was true. The next day the United States declared war on Japan, and on December 16 war was declared on Japan's partners in crime, Germany and Italy. Since then many thousands of brave American boys have been wrapped in the flag they loved, or have found a last resting place beneath be-neath the ocean's swell. These men have illuminated the pages of American Amer-ican history with deeds as bright as the orange flash of a cruiser's guns. Fall of Wake Island. All will remember with reverence the epiq of Wake island, when a handful of U. S. marines, marooned on a tiny atoll in the Southwest Pacific, made history in Courage. On this occasion a heroic garrison of less than 400 marines defended Wake island against a powerful Japanese attacking force, from December De-cember 2 to 22, until they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. With a few out-dated planes and a gun or two our boys sank seven Jap warships, one cruiser, four destroyers, de-stroyers, one submarine and one gunboat. Fall of Bataan. The next staggering shock of the war was the fall of Manila and the U. S. naval base of Cavite, in the Philippines. America took heart, though, when it learned of the magnificent mag-nificent defense which was put up by U. S. and Filipino troops in the rugged terrain of Bataan peninsula, under the leadership of Gen. Douglas Doug-las MacArthur. As it was impossible impossi-ble to get reinforcements through the Japanese naval blockade of the Philippines, Bataan appeared doomed. We recall that in Bataan's darkest hour MacArthur was spirited spirit-ed out of the islands in a remarkable remarka-ble under-cover dash to Australia by the "mosquito boat" hero of Subic Bay, Lieut. John D. Bulkeley. Lieut. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright took over on Bataan Wainwright, the stony-faced general whom the boys loved as much as MacArthur. Lacking food, heavy guns, planes and tanks, and facing an overwhelming over-whelming superiority in enemy forces, Wainwright's men were finally final-ly overwhelmed by Jap forces estimated esti-mated at 200,000 on April 9. Long after the guns on Bataan ceased firing, the guns of Corregi-dor Corregi-dor (Wainwright's Rock) kept fir- y Allies lost all five cruisers which participated par-ticipated in the action. These losses were "hard to take, but America began to smile again in fact it howled with delight when the big news broke that Brig. Gen. James ("Jimmy") Doolittle, famous speed flier and World War I ace, had dropped plenty of "eggs" over Tokyo with a squadron of North American B-25s. That "mission" was fulfilled on April 18, and it went over big, both here in America and in Tokyo. First Real Victory of War. In the battle of that island-studded ocean known as the Coral sea, which is near the Solomon islands and about 1,000 miles northeast of Australia, Aus-tralia, America's first real victory of the war with Japan was scored. The action occurred on May 4 and called forth deeds of valor as thrilling thrill-ing as any in all American history. The Coral Sea battle was the first great naval defeat ever dealt the imperial Japanese fleets. And yet this great battle was fought entirely in the air, by the planes of opposing oppos-ing aircraft carriers. The ships engaged in this battle never got sight of each other. They slugged it out without firing a single gun at another ship the first engagement en-gagement of its kind in history. In this first great victory for the U. S. in this global war the Japs lost more than 15 ships sunk and at least 20 others severely damaged. The action perhaps saved Australia from invasion. ' However, America paid a price for her victory in the sultry Coral sea. In this engagement the 880-foot aircraft carrier Lexington, famed ship that laid the foundation for our modern navy's aircraft carrier operations, op-erations, went to the bottom. This happened on May 7. The destruction of a Japanese armada ar-mada some hundreds of miles off Midway island, on June 4 and 5, was another action of the same kind. In this engagement U. S. army bombers bomb-ers roared off from their bases on Midway island just another dot on the Pacific to meet the most formidable for-midable array of warships that imperial im-perial Japan ever sent steaming against a foe. The armada was put to complete rout. The carrier Yorktown was lost in the Battle of Midway. It went to the bottom on June 7 in the final phases of the great sea-air battle. But before the grand old "Y" went down she catapulted from her flight Official U. S. navy photo showing wreckage of the battleship Arizona after the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. ing. Wainwright and some of his I men had, fortunately enough, suc-j suc-j ceeded in getting on the Rock be-I be-I fore Bataan fell. Completely cut off I from reinforcements, and -heavily outnumbered, Corregidor surrendered surren-dered to the Japs on May 6. Wainwright Wain-wright and his gallant band are now presumed to be prisoners of the Japs. Battle of Java Sea. The battle of the Java sea began February 27, when the Allied fleet attacked the superior Japanese fleet, off the Netherlands East Indies. In this engagement 13 United Nations warships totaling 47,708 tons were lost in a series of engagements lasting last-ing from February 27 to March 1. Included in the U. S. losses was the 9,050-ton cruiser "Houston," and the 1,193 ton destroyer "Pope." The deck the dive bombers, fighters and torpedo planes that swung the tide of battle in favor of Old Glory. A heavy toll of Jap ships was taken. Japs Invade Aleutians. Early in June, after bombing Dutch Harbor in Alaska, Jap forces invaded several of the Aleutian islands, is-lands, in the North Pacific. They made their main stronghold Kiska, and evidently believed that the everlasting ever-lasting fogs that shroud these islands would be their protection. But Uncle Un-cle Sam was up there, too, and soon the fleet's heavy guns, Catalina Flying Fly-ing Boats, B-17s and B-24s (Flying Fortresses and Liberators) began bombing and blasting them out. On August 8, a U. S. navy task force, consisting of a great concentration of cruisers and destroyers, glided through the Aleutian fogs almost to When Major General Wainwright, hero of Corregidor, saw that defeat was inevitable he said, "I'll stay with my men." And he did. General Gen-eral Wainwright (shown above) Is now a prisoner of the Japs. the very guns of the invaders and hurled 400 tons of TNT and steel into Jap shipping and shore installations instal-lations in Kiska harbor. In the battle bat-tle of Kiska only one observation plane was lost Not as much as a machine gun bullet hit the fleet. Since thit time the Japs have pulled out of the Aleutians, with the exception of Kiska, their main stronghold, and the United States has strengthened its position against them by occupation of the Andreanof group of the Aleutians much closer to Jap-held Kiska. Old Glory Hoisted in Solomons. On the very day when the Japs in Kiska took such a pounding from U. S. forces exactly eight months to the day after Pearl Harbor Old Glory was hoisted by U. S. marines over the first territory taken back from the Japs. This glorious event took place on the mountainous island is-land of Guadalcanal, key to the Solomon Sol-omon Islands in the Southwest Pacific. Pa-cific. This 100-mile long island lies athvvart the strategic route to Australia. Aus-tralia. The Japs' had labored long in hacking an airfield out of the tropical tropi-cal wilderness of Guadalcanal. The marines took it away from them, and there has been a continuing day and night battle for possession of the airfield ever since. In their efforts to recover this vital airfield (Henderson Field) and the key island, is-land, the Japs have risked placing the main force of their navy within range of MacArthur's deadly Flying Fly-ing Fortresses and the "Forts" that roar up off of Henderson Field. We have lost some fine ships in the region of Guadalcanal, but losses on the island have been light compared to what the Japs have lost according to navy reports their losses run four or five times as heavy as ours. However, there has been a running battle for continued possession oi the island on the part of the U. S., and for re-possession on part of the Japs. Day and night the pounding goes on, from sea and sky, but the marines, backed by the army and navy, have hung on and have made some gains. - A real show-down between h. S. and Jap forces in the Solomons came about in mid-November when the greatest naval battle since Jutland in 1916 was fought. Supported by MacArthur's big bombers the navy, in a three-day running battle, smashed a tremendous enemy armada, lifting the immediate threat to U. S. positions on Guadalcanal. As we pause to remember Pearl Harbor, we must, to get the overall picture, have in mind the heroic work of U. S. air pilots over China, and U. S. air pilots co-operating with the Royal Air Force in almost al-most daily or nightly operations over Hitler's Reich, and over what was known as Occupied France. We must remember the fine work done by American troops in co-operation with Australians, who have pushed back the Japs in New Guinea, turning turn-ing the tide of battle In the Owen Stanley mountains, saving Port Moresby, and helping to remove the threat from Australia. Day by day through all the months this has been going on brave men dying while we take time out to read about it. Opening of the Second Front. Things came to a head in the African Afri-can desert early in November. Thousands Thou-sands of American boys, tank men and aviators participated in the great push of the British Eighth army against Gen. Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, which at one time was dangerously close to the Suez canal one of Britain's darkest hours. Swiftly on the heels of this battle, which became a rout as British Brit-ish forces broke through the El Ala-mein Ala-mein line, America got the world-shaking world-shaking news of the opening of the long expected Second Front at an unexpected spot in North Africa, on Saturday, November 7. Ah, we've forgotten for the moment mo-ment that raid on Dieppe, in Occupied Occu-pied France that dangerous, costly raid last August when American Rangers were the first actual units to participate in land operations on the continent during this war. The Dieppe raid was not only a rehearsal re-hearsal for the second front, but also a red herring drawn across the bloody Nazi trail. The Dieppe raid was the foundation of the magnificent magnifi-cent success with which the AEF in North Africa was launched, under the brilliant leader. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. |
