Word: airdrops
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...Christmas Island, there have been eight explosions of airplane-dropped atomic devices to check out new weapons designs, and one underwater shot to study antisubmarine techniques. Security rules prevented anyone from disclosing what the air tests showed, although California's Republican Representative Craig Hosmer described one airdrop at which he was an eyewitness: "It flashed brighter than the noonday sun. As the fireball developed, it turned to shades of orange, red and purple. Then a white mushroom cloud shot toward the heavens. The morning sun began to shine upon it, producing a new and beautiful kaleidoscope of colors...
Next day, as Sergeant Duarte and his men were laying out red markers in a field for a supply airdrop, Viet Cong snipers fired from the bush. The first bullets whizzed by within an inch of Duarte's head. He hit the dirt and, on signal, his Rangers began an enveloping movement that soon silenced the guerrillas. "Just the way they were taught in training," said Duarte proudly. "They're brave men and good soldiers." But he is both baffled and grudgingly impressed by the Communist enemy. Says Duarte: "The Viet Cong have the initiative. They also have...
...Luangprabang as pro-Western Laotian forces made desultory trouble for pro-Communist rebels. Soviet transports droned out of North Viet Nam parachuting supplies to the rebels, and Communists in the air or on the ground shot up an unarmed U.S. observation plane that was taking pictures of the airdrop...
Military historians have recorded the tactics-an airdrop too far north of the main body at Arnhem, bad communications because of radio breakdowns, not enough air support in foggy weather, the capture of the complete Allied battle plan by the Germans. But it remains for Daniel Paul,*then 29, a captain-surgeon with the 16th Parachute Field Ambulance, to tell the personal story of that terrible battle. It is, he says, a story that "demanded to be written." He tells it deftly and quickly-as he would suture a wound...
...hours, between 0015 and 0900, the Allies won three quick successes. On the left flank the British 6th Airborne Division achieved complete tactical surprise, wiped out German positions east of the Orne River. On the right flank the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, although badly scattered in the airdrop, outfought three German divisions, suffering 2,500 casualties. Shielded by this U.S. airborne success, the U.S. 4th Infantry Division swept ashore soon after the first light on Utah Beach, swamped the defenses at a cost of only 197 casualties. It was D-Day's first major breakthrough...