Word: fortressed
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Above the thin shimmering water-slash of a rising moon, a U.S. Flying Fortress thundered into the Jap harbor at Rabaul one night several months ago to make the first test in the South Pacific of a new technique-"skip-bombing...
...struck the water, still with more forward than downward momentum, skittered across the waves like a stone skipped by a small boy, struck the side of the freighter, settled in the water. The target belched two livid bursts of flame and a tall column of water licked at the Fortress' high tail as it thundered overhead...
...first test had been a success. When the Fortress swung back, the ship was gone in a moonslick littered with wreckage. The raider made for a cruiser, splashed three bombs into the water not a hundred feet from her, saw them hurtle to her side, watched her heel over in a spreading pool of oil after the bombs burst. A searchlight beam burst from the shore, probed high in the sky. A few A.A. guns chattered. But the Fortress was clean away. Climbing to 5,000, she dropped her last bombs on a seaplane tender in the harbor...
...those days in the Southwest Pacific, much was done by trial & error. There was no low-altitude bombsight. Bill Benn improvised one by riding in the nose of a Fortress, marking crosses on the bombardier's plexiglass windshield until he got what he wanted. Then he made a few runs against an old hulk stranded off Port Moresby, found that his marks were good enough for accurate sights...
...convoy was only 30 miles off New Britain, near Gasmata, when a B-24 Liberator on reconnaissance picked it up. A Flying Fortress escorted by eight long-range P-38 (Lightning) fighters flew in to intercept. They found that the convoy carried an umbrella of 14 Zeros. They shot down nine, probably got three more and damaged the other...