Word: airfield
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Twice the Italian garrison had been invited to surrender. Admiral Gino Pavesi, senior Italian officer, and his men clung to Pantelleria's 32 sq. mi. of volcanic rock. Each refusal increased the tempo of attack. First the Spadillo airfield was blown to bits. Then the island's one good harbor, a nest for E-boats and submarines harassing the Sicilian straits, was smashed. Low-flying planes bounced their bombs down ramps leading to underground hangars. "Pattern bombing" crushed gun emplacements...
...American air base: "Beg surrender through lack of water." At 11:40 a.m. planes over the island and lookouts aboard cruisers and destroyers offshore (General Dwight Eisenhower and Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham were aboard the British cruiser Aurora) spotted two signals : a white cross on the airfield, a white flag on the wrecked harbor installations. By 12:22 p.m. British landing parties had scrambled ashore, mopped up a few troops who had either not been informed of the surrender or could not see their own signals through Pantelleria's shroud of brushwood smoke. The landing party herded together...
Smallest of the island objectives is humpy, volcanic Pantelleria (see map). Its single harbor, its one known airfield, its coastal and interior fortifications were bombed around the clock last week. Five times in seven days British naval guns raked the island's shores. Apparently Pantelleria was to be the first objective, perhaps with simultaneous moves against the other islands...
...vanished Douglas had taken off from Portela airfield outside Lisbon, an international junction shared by Allied and Axis planes. The afternoon transport from London used to bring English newspapers for the German Embassy. Over this line, via Switzerland, passed information on war prisoners. The planes using Portela enjoyed an unwritten guarantee of safe conduct...
Since we started the Army & Navy section Alexander has personally visited close to a hundred Army and Navy posts, ranging all the way from Pearl Harbor to Britain, where he spent two months last fall, hopping from airfield to airfield, bunking with the American flyers, renewing his acquaintance with Air Forcemen like Generals Doolittle, Eaker and Spaatz...