Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.HISTORICAL NOTES: 15496
It was June 4, 1942, and World War II in the Pacific was almost six months old. Pearl Harbor lay far behind, a symbol of heartbreaking disaster; Singapore had fallen, and so had Rangoon, and so had Corregidor. The U.S. fleet, though it had won a strategic edge, had been mauled, and the carrier Lexington sunk, in the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 4-8). Japan was threatening Australia, and her ships scouted with impunity around the Indian Ocean and Ceylon. The U.S., a long way yet from the glory days of island...
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