Word: auk
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
These actions did credit to The Auk's aggressive spirit, but they did not alter the basic situation: Rommel was defending his front with infantry and artillery; the bulk of his armored forces were withdrawn from action for rest and repair...
Lieut. General Neil Ritchie, who lost the first round of the battle, was out, and command of the battered Eighth Army had been taken over by no less a person than the British Commander in Chief of the Middle East, General Sir Claude John Eyre ("The Auk") Auchinleck. The Auk decided to plug Rommel at the neck of a funnel-the 35-mile gap between El Alamein on the coast and the northern tongue of the steep-sided, marsh-bedded Qattara Depression.* El Alamein is 70 miles from Alexandria...
Bolstering his defense line with reinforcements as fast as careening trucks could take them forward, the Auk hoped for time to prepare for the blow. Some of the reinforcements were seasoned brown soldiers from the British Ninth and Tenth Armies in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran. Others were pink-skinned newcomers to the desert-due for a bad beating from the sizzling sun, if from nothing else. At last it was officially disclosed that U.S. tank troops had been fighting with the British, under Major Henry Cabot Lodge of Boston...
...Specimens of such extinct creatures as the great auk, the Labrador duck, the sea mink; and the only Townsend's bunting (a bird) ever found in hand or in bush...
...Auk. Behind these three field commanders was the real boss, General Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, Commander in Chief of the whole Middle East...