Sitrep assault presented, but it may be doubted Mao and his supporters would have come to power without the devastation the Japanese Army wrought on Guomindang forces and, more importantly, on Guomindang legitimacy in the eyes of many Chinese See also Neutrality Acts Suggested Reading: John Boyle, China and Japan at War, 1937–1945 (1972); F Dorn, The Sino-Japanese War (1974); Peter Duus et al., eds., The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931– 1945 (1996); James Morley, The China Quagmire (1983) SINTI See Roma SINZWEYA, BATTLE OF (1944) See Admin Box, Battle of SIPO See Sicherheitspolizei SIS See Secret Intelligence Service SITREP Situational reports prepared every 24 hours by G-3 staff for U.S commanders or for SHAEF SITZKRIEG “Sitting war.” German pun on Blitzkrieg referring to the period the British called the Phoney War A comparable English-language pun was “Bore War.” Winston Churchill preferred “twilight war.” The French knew the same period as the drôle de guerre SKIP BOMBING Low-level bombing over water from slower medium or heavy bombers, by “skipping” normal 500 or 1000-pound bombs along the surface like thrown stones It was pioneered by RAF Coastal Command in the Atlantic but refined and first effectively used in the Pacific by the USAAF It was first used against Japanese shipping in Rabaul, again in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (March 2–4, 1943) against troop transports, and later in hunting unescorted Japanese tankers and cargo ships It was especially effective against slow merchantmen The technique was difficult to master, involving extreme low-level flight into the teeth of defensive fire A bomber often had to pull up at the last second to clear the masts of the ship it had just attacked A skipped bomb might hit the ship, or explode under or over it Fighters flew in front of the bombers to strafe the ship and suppress antiaircraft fire for the slower bombers Skip bombing was transplanted back to the North Atlantic and used against U-boats from 1943 The Red Army Air Force also 992