Word: commandeering
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Nazi command-not Aachen's 20,000 unevacuated civilians- quickly answered the first question. It chose certain destruction of the city rather than surrender a point that had become tactically valueless. But the High Command could not so quickly make up its mind about the second and more important question...
...midweek, when Aachen had been beaten into mortar-stained destruction, the German command apparently came to its decision: the battle centered on Aachen was indeed the real thing. Now quick to act, the Germans plunged into desperate attacks to break the left arm of Hodges' army. Recklessly they expended sorely needed first-rate fighting "men in futile efforts to smash the most advanced spearheads. In two days they spent more than 60 tanks, gave up the intensive battle for the next two days to gather more strength...
...British forces were small. They were a section of the newly formed Land Forces of the Adriatic under General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson's Mediterranean command; included paratroopers, commandos, infantrymen, engineers and an R.A.F. regiment. The two Greek guerrilla forces -E.D.E.S. and E.L.A.S. -had promised cooperation. Local commander was the 26-year-old Earl Jellicoe, son of the British commander at Jutland in World War I. Young Jellicoe went in as a major, was promoted to a lieutenant colonel four days later...
There had been little aerial help either. During the first few weeks of the uprising, the Russian Army twelve miles away did nothing to aid the Partisans, who were under the command of the Polish Government in Exile. Instead it disarmed Partisans. When Madame Helena Sikorska (widow of Poland's late great Premier and commander in chief) and 15 leading Poles protested, Prime Minister Winston Churchill fumed. Foreign Minister Anthony Eden lectured Premier Mikolajczyk. But R.A.F. flyers from Italy made a 1,750-mile round trip to drop a pathetic driblet of supplies to the besieged. Polish paratroops, idle...
...ingenious aerial-delivery gadget was announced by the Air Technical Service Command last week. It is a rotary wing, shaped much like an ordinary maple seed, that twirls to earth without benefit of "umbrella" or rigging. The bulbous plastic container, hitched to the wooden blade, can hold 65 lbs. The rate of fall is slightly faster than a parachute's, but the "Sky Hook" is not subject to the wind drift that makes parachuting of supplies inaccurate from high (safe) altitudes...