Word: commandant
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...average of three times monthly, a Soviet Tu-16 "Badger" reconnaissance jet roars off from the world's largest military base, just outside Murmansk, and heads westward to probe Norway's air defenses. Alerted by radar, a vast ultramodern command center in the craggy mountain range of northern Norway scrambles two Norwegian Royal Air Force F-104G Starfighters. The fighters usually intercept the Badger within a few minutes; one of them hangs off the Soviet craft's tail, while the other flies just ahead of its nose. The lead Norwegian Starfighter will then waggle its wings...
Plastic Charges. As they charged, the marines concentrated much of their fire on the first-class front of the train, where the Moluccans had established their command post. Demolition experts with plastic charges blasted down the doors, and the marines ducked inside, shooting as they went. As the assault began, 13 armored cars in nearby Bovensmilde started racing toward the school building. One of them burst through the main doors while three others took up positions around the building...
Mission Accomplished. Whether or not the warnings had their intended effect, the Rhodesians reported their mission accomplished after five days at Mapai, and packed up to return home. The joint operations command in Salisbury announced that 32 guerrillas had been killed and only one Rhodesian-a pilot who was shot down after taking off from the airstrip at Mapai. For its part, Mozambique reported that it shot down three Rhodesian planes and a helicopter, and engaged the Rhodesian forces in "heavy fighting." Minister of Combined Operations Roger Hawkins denied such claims, as well as Mozambique's announcement that...
...were faulty, so communication with them was impossible; fog in England hampered air-support operations; the road over which the ground forces were supposed to travel was too narrow, slowing their progress to a painful crawl. Finally, there were more German troops in the area than the Allied high command expected, partly because they had ignored their own intelligence reports...
Despite the fact that the characters are based on historical models, they come out as standard-issue war-movie types. As a result, the film lacks the grandeur one sometimes finds in the literature of military history, where erroneous command decisions, flowing out of the psychological flaws of the generals, can take on a near-tragic force. It also lacks the common humanity of well-made war movies, in which one is invited to share the fates of a small unit whose interest is survival rather than the big historical picture. Aspiring to combine the two forms, A Bridge...