(Photo: Landing Zone B was formerly a 9 hole golf
course) |
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LANDING ZONE B |
Below
us, as we banked for a turn, the complete panorama of the Island lay
exposed. There, rose the perpendicular cliffs; there, the rough,
shell-blasted Top-Side; there, the narrow waist of the beach; and
there, the towering mass of Malinta Hill still smoking from the
bombs so recently dropped upon it. There, the parade ground and the
tiny golf course
were littered with chutes, while still others in mid-air floated
down on them. From our flight we could see no fire fights, no smoke
of grenades or mortars, though it was too early to expect a heavy
action. The crumbling wreckage of demolished buildings offered the
most forbidding sight. They were crowded in a spectral palisade
around our "drop zone"; and already some of
them were festooned with chutes where some unfortunate jumpers had
landed. Except for those patchworks of silk, the ravaged structures
looked exactly as others had described them to us; like
centuries-old ruins, steeped in history, and dreaming moodily of
their Past. At the moment, however, we were their Past, which, if
they survived for centuries yet to come, would continue to make them
immemorial.
Capt. Charles M. Bradford
MD |
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