Word: fiascos
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Lifted Eyebrows. "Jumbo" Wilson's appointment to the job late in December had caused some eyebrow-lifting in British military circles. His most recent campaign as Middle East commander, the attack on the Aegean Islands of Cos, Samos and Leros had been a fiasco. Troops had been pushed within easy reach of German land-based air power; communications were so badly organized that landing parties had trouble contacting headquarters at Cairo 500 miles away; equipment was rusty and inadequate. Some wit rose to the occasion by dubbing Jumbo "The Wizard of Cos." Another commented that the Russians shoot generals...
Lost Chance. Since the Allies never really held the invaded islands, the loss was serious only because the abortive sorties had caused the Germans to look to their Balkan outworks. One possible effect was hardly mentioned: the effect on neutral Turkey. The Aegean fiasco might well slow the Turks' recent drift toward active collaboration with the Allies...
...fighting at Kursk [last July] witnessed the destruction of the main forces. ... [It] was the last German attempt to materialize the so-called German offensive. The offensive ended in a complete fiasco. ... If Stalingrad was a defeat.. . Kursk was a catastrophe...
...Hard Axis Shell. If the Allies launch an offensive toward the Balkans they will find some tough going at the main line of defense. The Germans have not been idle. Since their fiasco in Tunisia, they have poured troops into Greece and Bulgaria and have greatly strengthened their fortifications. Allied estimates are that the Germans have 60 divisions in the Balkans, commanded by such outstanding men as Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, Air Chief of the Mediterranean; General Alexander Löhr, Commander of Balkan land forces. Top commander in the area was reported to be Field Marshal Siegmund Wilhelm Walther...
Rubber. The easing of the rubber shortage was itself an ironic triumph for chemurgy. Synthetic rubber tires, with almost all their rubber derived from alcohol, are now rolling into service. Yet the greatest fiasco of the chemurgic movement had been the 1937 investment of $275,000 of Chemical Foundation funds in a 10,000-gallon-a-day alcohol plant of the Atchison Agrol Co. at Atchison, Kans. This was an effort to introduce a motor fuel containing 10% alcohol. It was successful in using surplus grain but unsuccessful in competition with gasoline, and closed after a year. Today the plant...