My father spent a chunk of the war in the Pacific with the New Zealand forces. The Americans had a pattern: bombardment, storm beaches, fight fight fight....

My father spent a chunk of the war in the Pacific with the New Zealand forces. The Americans had a pattern: bombardment, storm beaches, fight fight fight.... The New Zealand forces used this to their advantage. When they had to take an Island they would row ashore in the night with some howitzers, sneak up the beech. They knew where their enemy camped, relative to the beech, where they were waiting for teh naval bombardment to start, then stop, whence they planned to go down to the beech and machine gun the American troops coming ashore. The New Zealand forces would already be ashore, dug in, and wake their enemy up with howitzers from the shore based dug in positions. All his life he had a contempt for American culture based on that experience. "They depend so much on technology" he would say. Yes. They (the Americans) had a lot of experience. But they were not the best.