Word: flak
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...lucid composite of several missions against sources of anything from Heinkels to ball bearings. It gives much the impression of a single day's work. The flight itself, the mortal moment when the bombers, committed to their target, are locked defenseless in their courses, the thick flakiness of flak and the grim-gay dialogue between gunners and pilots-these things have already been paralleled in the memorable Memphis Belle. But the preparation, the aftermath, the cold exactitude and inflexibility of purpose, the extraordinarily various and forceful individuality and professionalism of the men who do the job-these things have...
...Returning from Paramushiro, the pilot of a twin-engined Navy Ventura bomber found that flak had holed the hydraulic-pressure system; there was not enough fluid left to lower the landing flaps. A machinist's mate used the crew's hoard of orange juice and coffee to refill the hydraulic reservoir. It worked...
...last week 1,250 U.S. heavies, escorted by 1,000 fighters, bombed four synthetic oil plants in the Leipzig area. Only a dozen German fighters were seen, and four of these were shot down; but the flak was the thickest and deadliest that U.S. crews had ever encountered. "Flak burst in a mass," said one radioman, "a forest of it so dense that we could only get occasional glimpses of the formations ahead of us. It was a solid wall at the target...
...favorite hunting ground was the Truk lagoon, where he habitually flew through a storm of flak at 50 ft. in order to bomb and strafe Jap ships...
...Polish flight of the Balkan Air Force. Though they had had months of experience in dropping arms to partisans in enemy-held territory, this job made the airmen blanch. It meant flying 900 miles each way over hostile territory; part over Czechoslovakia, through some of the heaviest flak in Europe. Fighter cover was impossible and all the way back Nazi night fighters would lie in wait for them. Over Warsaw, they had to turn southwest to a certain bridge over the Vistula, fly so many blocks, and make their drops on a particular side of a given street...