Macclan5
Posts: 1065
Joined: 3/24/2016 From: Toronto Canada Status: offline
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..and respect and cherish Democracy to such a degree that you protect it World Wide in multiple hemispheres **Full credit to Author Philip A Crowl United States Army In WW2 Softening the Target: Pre-D-Day Bombardment On 6 June, while the convoys carrying the attack troops headed westward for their staging bases in the Marshalls, Marc Mitscher's Task Force 58 weighed anchor and slipped out of Majuro for waters east of the Marianas. For this operation Admiral Mitscher had gathered together a total of seven carriers, eight light carriers, seven fast battleships, three heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers, and fifty-two destroyers.1 Their missions were to prevent Japanese aircraft from interfering with the capture of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam; to protect the expeditionary force and the troops ashore from attack by enemy surface vessels; and, commencing on D minus 3 (12 June), to destroy aircraft and air facilities in the Marianas. Finally, on 13 June when it was presumed that Japanese aircraft operating from fields in the Marianas would be eliminated, Task Force 58 was directed to destroy all other types of Japanese defenses both by aerial bombardment and by ships' fire from its supporting vesse
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A People that values its privileges above it's principles will soon loose both. Dwight D Eisenhower.
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