Operation Flintlock, Marshall Islands 1944 | Clearing the Admiralty Area | Easy Red 2 скачать в хорошем качестве

Operation Flintlock, Marshall Islands 1944 | Clearing the Admiralty Area | Easy Red 2

2/1/1944 The Admiralty Area on Kwajalein—located along the western shore near the island’s central administration and logistics zone—became one of the key objectives during the clearing operations on 1–2 February 1944. After pushing north from the landing beaches, Marines of the 23rd and 24th Marines reached the district and found it filled with wrecked Japanese headquarters buildings, supply warehouses, radio facilities, and partially intact concrete shelters. Although naval bombardment had leveled much of the area, the surviving Japanese defenders used the rubble to their advantage, firing from collapsed doorframes, broken stairwells, and trenches buried under debris. The fighting here tightened into short-range engagements as Marines advanced through courtyards and shattered compounds, clearing each structure room by room with grenades and automatic fire. Engineers and flamethrower teams played a decisive role in reducing the Admiralty Area’s stronger positions. Bunkers and blockhouses that had not been destroyed by the pre-invasion bombardment were cracked open with demolitions, while tanks rolled up to blast firing ports at point-blank range. The Japanese launched a few desperate counterattacks from interconnected trenches between the administrative buildings, but Marine machine guns quickly smothered them. By the afternoon of 2 February, organized resistance in the Admiralty Area had collapsed, allowing the Marines to secure the island’s central command zone and push toward the final pockets of defenders in the northern sector of Kwajalein. The clearing of the Admiralty Area marked a key step in the systematic dismantling of the island’s defensive network.