Word: decking
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...carrier [Franklin'] was turned into a floating inferno. . . . Chaplain O'Callahan left his battle station . . . to go to the blazing flight deck. There he ministered to the wounded and dying of all faiths . . . . Though wounded . . . he continued his life-saving efforts in spite of suffocating smoke and searing heat...
...Storm. After that, the tiny vessel sailed south to the 20th degree of latitude, headed west before the warm trade winds. For five weeks the women & children sunbathed on the deck, the men lounged, bare-armed, in the cockpit. Then, on Nov. 27, 60 miles off Cape Hatteras, the Erma ran into a freezing westerly gale. She was assailed by storm after storm. Sledging seas sent water spraying through her leaking cabin ports. Everything-clothes, shoes, blankets, bulkheads-grew wet with sea water. It was bitter cold...
Food ran low; the Erma's passengers ate but one meal a day. To cook it, one woman held a Primus stove down on the deck, a second held a pan to the flame. Often the stove bounced and rolled; food and fuel spilled, threatening the boat with fire. Day after day the shivering women read aloud to quiet their shivering children; during the worst of the storms the men on deck sang to reassure them. Finally a U.S. destroyer sighted the dingy sailboat, pulled alongside. Her crew passed down food, cigarets, fuel. The Erma was 100 miles...
Sailors on the Washington reported that "at least half" of their G.I. passengers had upchucked. Fiddles on the mess tables were useless-crockery, cutlery and food were dashed to the deck as the inclinometer showed a list of 31 degrees...
During one twelve-hour siege the giant Enterprise had been driven back 41 miles. Steel gun shields were crushed. Catwalks were swept away as waves thundered over the flightdeck 50 feet above the water line. Water pouring through her open fo'c'sle deck split the seams of a 60-foot strip of steel bulkhead and flooded officers' quarters forward...