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Their organization broke completely; battalions...
10:40 PM, Thursday, May 6, 2010
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Their organization broke completely; battalions were cut off, and then companies, and finally platoons and squads and little slivers of five and three and two men hid in the jungle, attempted to escape the flood of American patrolsToward the end the casualty figures were unbelievableOn the fifth day two hundred and seventy-eight Japanese were killed and two Americans; on the eighth day, the most productive of the campaign, eight hundred and twenty-one Japanese were killed and nine captured for the loss of three American livesThe communiques went out with a monotonous regularity, terse and modest, not wholly inaccurate
"General MacArthur announced today the official end of the battle for Anopopei
"American troops under Major General Edward Cummings announced capture today of five enemy strong-points and large concentrations of food and ammunitionMopping up is in progress
Astonishing reports continued to come in to Cummings's deskIt was discovered from questioning the few prisoners that for over a month the Japanese had omega automatic watches been on half rations, and toward the end there had been almost no food at allA Japanese supply dump had been destroyed by artillery five weeks before, and no one had known itTheir medical facilities had been exhausted, there were portions of the Toyaku Line which had been in disrepair for six or eight weeksFinally they discovered that the Japanese ammunition had been almost depleted a week before the last attack had begun
Cummings searched through old patrol reports, read again all accounts of enemy activity on the front for the past monthHe even digested once more the puny findings of intelligenceIn all that, there was no hint of the actual Japanese situationFrom the reports, he had made the only possible assumption -- that the Japanese were still in strengthIt bothered him, terrified him; this was the most powerful lesson he had ever derived from a campaignUntil now, while he had partially discounted any patrol information he received, he had nevertheless given it some weightThe information here had been worthless
He had cartier replica watch ladies santos 100 steel never quite freed himself of the shock Major Dalleson's victory had given himTo leave his battle front on a quiet morning and return the next day to find the campaign virtually over was a little like the disbelief with which a man would come home to find his house burned downCertainly he had handled the mopping up with brillianceThe Japanese, once staggered, had been given no opportunity to regroup but that was a hollow triumph, the salvaging of a few sticks of furnitureIt enraged him secretly that Dalleson's blundering should have exploded the campaign; the collapse of the Japanese had been due to his efforts, and he should have had the pleasure of detonating the fuseWhat irritated him most of all was that he must congratulate Dalleson, perhaps even promote himTo snub Dalleson now would be too patent
But this frustration was replaced by anotherWhat if he had been present, had directed the climactic day himself? What really would it have meant? The Japanese had been worn down to the point where any concerted tactic no prada bags sales matter how rudimentary would have been enough to collapse their linesIt was impossible to shake the idea that anyone could have won this campaign, and it had consisted of only patience and sandpaper
For a moment he almost admitted that he had had very little or perhaps nothing at all to do with this victory, or indeed any victory -- it had been accomplished by a random play of vulgar good luck larded into a causal net of factors too large, too vague, for him to comprehendHe allowed himself this thought, brought it almost to the point of words and then forced it backBut it caused him a deep depression
If only he had conceived that patrol a little earlier in the campaign, had had time to work it out more completelyIt had been a botch, and Hearn was dead
Well, one could not really call it a shockStill, for a little while, Hearn had been the only man in the division who was capable of understanding his more ambitious plans, capable even of understanding himBut Hearn had not been big enoughHe had looked, become frightened, and tiffany
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