Word: fire
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...virtually unopposed conquest of Denmark took only a few hours. Casualties on both sides totaled 56. Norway offered somewhat more resistance. As a German naval task force steamed up the fjord leading to Oslo, the Oscarsborg Fort outside the capital opened fire with its turn-of-the-century German cannons and sank the heavy cruiser Blucher, killing more than 1,000 Germans. Among them were Gestapo agents under orders to seize King Haakon VII. Reprieved, the 67-year-old King fled northward on a railroad train, along with the national gold supply, 23 tons...
...might have left. But Guderian's tanks did not move, and more British troops kept pouring into Dunkirk. While the Royal Navy sent 165 ships, many of which could not enter the shallow harbor, London issued an emergency call for everything that could float -- yachts, fishing boats, excursion steamers, fire-fighting boats, some 850 vessels in all. The first 25,000 men reached England by May 28, and then the bizarre rescue fleet hurried back for more...
...nine days, often under heavy fire, the ships steamed to and fro as the great evacuation continued. By June 4, when it ended, some 200,000 British troops had been rescued, along with about 140,000 Allied forces, mostly French. British losses: 40,000 left behind, dead or taken prisoner. To many of the French, the evacuation was a British betrayal, a flight, the abandonment of an ally. To the British, it was a miracle and the only route to national survival...
Here is one of them, Richard Hillary, remembering his first kill: "We ran into them at 18,000 ft., 20 yellow-nosed Messerschmitt 109s, about 500 ft. above us . . . Brian Carbury, who was leading the section . . . let go a burst of fire at the leading plane. ((I)) saw the pilot put his machine into a half roll and knew that he was mine. Automatically, I kicked the rudder to the left to get him at right angles, turned the gun-button to FIRE and let go in a 4- sec. burst . . . He seemed to hang motionless; then...
...most extraordinary thing was that the Germans did not machine-gun the thousands of men on the beach. The Stukas did attack the boats, and I remember one in particular, a paddleboat that had been bombed and caught fire. There were maybe 100 to 200 men grouped in the back of the boat because the front < was in flames. But the wind kept whipping the fire back on them, and the men were crying. It was a kind of moan, but a collective moan, an inhuman moan. I tried to drag a man out of the water and up onto...