Word: catapulted
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...hydraulic catapults on U.S. aircraft carriers have figured in a long series of postwar accidents, e.g., the explosion that took 103 lives on the U.S.S. Bennington (TIME, June 7). Last week the Navy announced that it is abandoning the hydraulic catapult. A steam-powered model of British design, already tested successfully aboard the U.S.S. Hancock, will be installed on all American carriers. The steam catapult, utilizing a hooked piston riding in a slotted cylinder, is safer than the old hydraulic model because it uses no highly volatile, explosive liquids...
...last jet was shot off, Hanley snapped awake, suddenly aware of a strange hissing noise coming from the giant hydraulic catapult mechanism on the deck just over his head. He was hardly out of bed before he felt the soft concussion of a flash-fire explosion, then the rending blast of a second that shook Big Ben from stem to stern...
...Hanley fought his way topside, he saw steel bulkheads crumpled like tinfoil. Radiating out from the vicinity of the catapult room, the blast had smashed and seared its way through the forward part of the ship-through the junior officers' wardroom, where pilots lounged over an early cup of coffee; through the enlisted men's mess hall, and on into the enlisted sleeping quarters, where many a sailor was just blinking his eyes and wondering what the bonging call to general quarters was all about...
...speech from Florida about two weeks ago, Adlai Stevenson also appeared worried about the implication of Dulles' statement. Rash use of the bomb, he feared, could catapult us into the horrors of a world war. Yet if we did not use the bomb, and were not prepared to fight Korea-type actions, we might be forced to lie idle while the communists "nibbled us to death...
After an hour and a half, rescue workers got to the scene of the explosion, in the third-deck forward catapult room. But the only eyewitnesses, nine men who had been making adjustments on the hydraulic machinery, were dead. FBI agents combed the blackened passages for evidence of sabotage. This week a special Navy board of inquiry opened hearings in Boston, and Commanding Officer Ahroon offered his explanation: an explosion of "vaporized or atomized" hydraulic fluid. The board of inquiry withheld its official verdict, pending further investigation, and the Navy added up its losses: 36 dead, 40 injured, one badly...