Word: battalion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Some of them carried signs proclaiming "God is on the Side of the Heaviest Battalion" and "A Socialist Is a 'Man' with Both Feet Planted Firmly...
...week after its stormy birth, the infant nation of Malaysia was hoping for peace but preparing for war. Two Malayan infantry battalions packed their kit bags and prepared to embark for the steaming jungles of Sarawak and Sabah (North Borneo); in Sarawak, orders were issued to raise a native infantry battalion. A round-the-clock watch was begun on the Malayan shore of the Malacca Straits, and 6,000 British, Gurkha and local troops and constabulary units doubled their patrols along Sarawak's tangled, 400-mile border with Indonesian Borneo...
...killed; officials in Saigon now estimate that hard-core Communist strength has gone up from 23,000 to 31,000 over the past few months. But government strikes are at least more and more frequent. In the first week of September, 55 separate offensive ground actions of battalion strength or larger were under way, close to an alltime record. Conversely, Red attacks also increased from 300 to 400 in the same period. As this week's operations illustrate, however, many government troops have learned to stand and fight...
...fast and too thin, and that too many of the strongholds are not really defensible against determined Red attack. In the strategically important Mekong River delta, moreover, the well-armed Viet Cong operates with near impunity. For the first time in months, the Reds are consistently raising attacks in battalion-size strength, are showing an increasing tendency to stand and fight against government forces instead of fading away into the paddies...
This time, with Zanzibar choosing the government that will lead the protectorate to independence, the British took no chances. For the two-week voting and counting period, a full battalion of Scots Guards was flown in from Kenya. Spotter aircraft flew low over the clove plantations. Below, rural polling stations pegged white sheets to the ground as an all-well signal, kept red ones on hand in case of trouble. So great was popular enthusiasm for the election that on the nearby island of Pemba, known throughout Africa as the "Witchdoctors' University," leading practitioners were paid by both sides...