Word: aft
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Lieut, (j.g.) John F. Kennedy, 26-year-old son of the ex-Ambassador to Britain, was commanding a PT boat on night patrol north of New Georgia when a Jap destroyer sliced it in two. The aft portion went up in flames. Kennedy rescued two of his crewmen, clung to the bow with them and eight others for twelve hours, towed one of the men on a three-hour swim to a small island. There they lived on coconuts for three days, then swam to a larger island, where friendly natives found them the next day, carried back...
They found their target in the evening. "Four heavy cruisers steamed abeam in the center of the force. Three . . . light cruisers were aft of them and three forward. ... Six destroyers champed and pawed around them in, a rough, diamond-shaped formation, so that whichever way a plane came in there would be hoofs in its face...
...hard-muscled youngster paused as he monkeyed up the ladder from the conning tower. "Permission-to-come-on-the-bridge-relieve-the-stern-lookout-sir?" he rattled off in a breath. The officer of the deck muttered: "Granted," returned to his own search of the darkness. Aft, the fresh-eyed lookout took the heavy Navy binoculars from the man on watch, began to scan his sector. Then his voice lifted over the wet mumble of the charging diesel: "Gunfire bearing one seven...
...plane started up before we were sitting down. A young lieutenant, settled on the benches running fore & aft on both sides of the glider, checking parachutes, barely got out in time. He lit running as the big 15-man glider, suddenly an amazingly skittish, lightfooted creature, lifted off the runway. To a glider novice the take-off was startling; we were airborne and climbing on the rope while the heavier tow plane was still soaring down the runway, picking up speed for its own takeoff. We climbed rapidly to 700 feet, circled to get into formation...
...Spencer, first into action was the forward 3-in. gun. A splash foamed beyond the submarine. Another was closer. The port 3-incher roared. Big 5-in. guns fore & aft plowed furrows of water near the U-boat. The air reeked of cordite fumes. Black dust and smoke settled over the Spencer's decks and hung in the air. Stocky, gruff Captain Harold Sloop Berdine kept his ship on a course that gave the gunners a maximum chance...