Word: harpooner
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
With Asdic the harpoon-gunners hoped to follow a sounding whale on his deep dive under the sea, and to be waiting for him when he came up to blow. But the whales, nimbler than U-boats, dove out of Asdic's sonic beam, and the gunners had to rely, as of old, on their knowledge of whale psychology. Radar was useless for spotting surfaced whales, which gave very poor "pips" on its scope. Even at locating antarctic ice it was none too useful in the hands of the whalers' semi-trained operator...
With the rise of the oil industry, the number of whalers dropped. Yet the catch swelled enormously. Romance gave way to cold, scientific slaughter, chiefly to supply soap and oleomargarine makers. Whale ships became enormous floating factories, fed by small, 150-ft. killer ships firing harpoons tipped with explosive shells. (An electric harpoon, which paralyzes whales and keeps them from sounding, is now being tried out.) The whales were jerked aboard the factory ship through a hole in the stern, cut up and rendered into whale oil in a few gory, noisome hours...
...great air ferry route was hardly used: the route via Labrador and Iceland proved more feasible. The first job of the ten Army nurses stationed at the Churchill base was to deliver an Indian baby who was promptly nicknamed "G.I. Joe." The soldiers had time to learn how to harpoon whales from canoes. Sixteen married Canadian girls...
...Judah was not busily promoting railroads or flourishing what his opponents called his "oily, plausible pertinacity" in courtrooms, he was trying to raise the best sugar in Louisiana. For recreation, Benjamin would recite from memory "a wonderful stock" of verses (he was a passionate admirer of Tennyson), play whist, harpoon devilfish. His appreciation of good food and drink was vast...
...harpoon for Pan Am came in a statement of policy: "There can be no rational basis for permitting" air transport outside the U.S. to be "left to the withering influence of monopoly." To implement the new "free" policy, the 16 airlines served notice on CAB that they will promptly file petitions for permission to operate worldwide air routes...