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Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner
(1885–1961),US naval officer who proved to be the most gifted amphibious commander the Pacific war produced.Though he was one of the US Navy's most outstanding pre-war planners—he wrote ...
African-American troops
Variously called negro, coloured, and black, the history of African-American soldiers is that of US race relations in general. Even after the abolition of formal discrimination by colour, advancement ...
A-GŌ
Codename for the Japanese operation during the Pacific war to deny the Mariana Islands to US forces. It was originally Vice-Admiral Koga's Operation ‘Z’ which detailed the destruction by Japanese ...
air gap, mid-Atlantic
Area south of Greenland in which Allied convoys could not be given air cover against U-boat attacks during much of the battle of the Atlantic (see Map 1). It was ...
airborne force
A force made up of both ground and air combat units, brought together, equipped, and trained to engage in airborne missions.
airforce
The armed service concerned with attack and defence in the air. Aircraft were first used in World War I to locate targets for artillery on the Western Front, but from 1916 onwards they were developed ...
air-sea rescue
The equipment and organization used to pick up air crew forced to ‘ditch’ in the sea. The efficiency of this service, for Allied airmen at least, increased as the war ...
Aleutian Islands campaigns
Kiska and Attu, two of the most westerly of these US-owned islands, which stretch across the north Pacific between Alaska and Japan, were occupied by Japanese forces in June 1942 ...
Americal Division
US Army division formed in May 1942 from Task Force 6184 which garrisoned New Caledonia in the Pacific war. After the destruction of the Philippine division in the Philippines campaign ...
amphibian
N. a small craft capable of moving on land or water driven by propellers and wheels or air cushion.
amphibious Operations
An attack launched from the sea by naval and landing forces, embarked in ships or craft involving a landing on a hostile or potentially hostile shore. An amphibious operation involves five phases: ...
amphibious Ships and Landing Craft
Ships designed to carry, land, and support assault forces and capable of being loaded or unloaded in the objective area by Navy personnel without external assistance.
amphibious warfare
Warfare consisting of attacks launched from the sea by naval and landing forces embarked in ships or craft and involving the landing and establishing of forces on a hostile shore.[...]
Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham
(1883–1963)British admiral. At the beginning of World War II he was commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. Here he was faced with an Italian fleet that was numerically superior to his own. However, ...
anti-imperialism
The Second World War is widely believed to have encouraged the forces of anti-imperialism within the international system at large and undermined the viability of the various European colonial ...
Axis strategy and co-operation
Although the leaders of the Axis spoke frequently in public of their co-operation, and they were bound by various treaties (see Tripartite Pact, Pact of Steel, and Anti-Comintern pact), in ...
Baka bomb
Small rocket-driven plane with a 816 kg. (1,800 lb.) explosive nose, which the Japanese first used in April 1945 at Okinawa during the Pacific war. Baka means ‘idiot’ in Japanese, and it ...
Battle of Bismarck Sea
(March 3, 1943) a World War II naval battle in which combined Allied sea and air forces destroyed a Japanese convoy near New Guinea. Eight troop transports and eight destroyers ...
