Turkey Shoot
Another Pacific War allusion . . .
“Every summer, people would come from all around to go out and hunt down her turkeys. It didn’t attract the serious hunter, but everyone who wanted either fresh turkey or a chance to fire a rifle, or just to join in a good time, came in droves. She built a billboard on the approach to her house, advertising the campaign as ‘MaryAnn’s Great Turkey Shoot’.”
This allusion—a horrifically bad pun of which I am immensely proud—is about the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” as the Battle of the Philippine Sea became known (or a portion of it). U.S. Navy fliers had their best outing ever, and the disproportionate losses were compared to a “turkey shoot”. It’s a minor sidebar in the novel, which focuses heavily on the European side of World War 2, but I looked for places to discuss some of the big happenings in the Pacific, too. It’s technically a tragedy in how it ends (the novel’s turkey shoot), but it makes me chuckle every time.