Word: harpooning
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Stilwell went in person to serve his ultimatum. "I handed this bundle of paprika to the Peanut and then sank back with a sigh. The harpoon hit the little - right in the solar plexus, and went right through him. It was a clean hit, but beyond turning green and losing the power of speech, he did not bat an eye. He just said to me, 'I understand.' And sat in silence, jigging one foot. At least F.D.R.'s eyes have been opened and he has thrown a good hefty punch. I came home. Pretty sight crossing...
...High Harpoon. When a tanker flies alongside a "receiver" (the plane to be refueled), the receiver lets out a slender line that floats behind in a graceful dropping curve. The tanker fires a kind of harpoon-gun, which shoots another line to tangle with the receiver's line. Clawlike devices on the two ends lock together. The receiver hauls in both lines. Next comes a fuel pipe filled with nitrogen gas to minimize danger of explosion. Then comes gasoline, flowing by gravity at 100 gallons a minute. The tanker can supply up to 2,000 gallons...
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...