World Battlefronts, THE ENEMY: Truk's Echo

The thunder at Truk echoed from Tokyo. In a move without precedent, Japan's rulers summarily sacked the chiefs of the Army and Navy General Staffs, openly admitted the loss of two cruisers, three destroyers, 13 transports, 120 planes.

Even to Japan's befuddled man-in-the-street it was plain: the punishment did not fit the crime. Seemingly the two chief strategists were penalized less for Truk than for the bankruptcy of their strategy of an impenetrable sea perimeter.

Victims and Successors. Out went: Field Marshal Gen. Sugiyama, the brilliant, irascible, Occident-hating Army Chief of Staff, opposite...

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