Word: lifeboat
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After escorting his pregnant second wife to a lifeboat, coolly waving to her as the boat was lowered to the calm sea, jaunty, mustachioed Colonel John Jacob Astor IV went down with the unsinkable ship Titanic while the orchestra played "Hold me up, mighty waters, / Keep my eye on things above." That left a nervous, narrow-chested youth of 6 ft. 4 in., perhaps the greenest freshman at Harvard, to inherit a fortune of approximately $87.2 million, organized around vast and spreading holdings, including some of Manhattan's finest hotels-the Astoria. St. Regis, Knickerbocker. Cambridge and Astor House...
...Services, the average draftee did not dig his insistence on clean fingernails. Things were better overseas. Crossing to Guadalcanal on an Army troop transport, he took on a Caine-type commander who kept the soldiers on a near-starvation diet. One day during an alert, Paar got into a lifeboat and announced: "I've been asked to make an announcement that there was a Japanese submarine in the vicinity, but unfortunately the Navy gun crews have driven it off. I say unfortunately because the Japanese submarine was trying to bring us food." Recalls Paar sadly: "The men laughed until...
...days later, manned by a crew of 80 that included a twelve-piece band, Angelita steamed into Los Angeles harbor, sideswiped a dock and stove in a lifeboat. Registered as a naval vessel, it dodged $18.25 a day in dock fees, though the only visible armament was a line-throwing gun. Caterers began loading on such supplies as champagne and cracked crab, and the master came aboard-but in bad temper from all the publicity. "Zsa Zsa Gabor is not giving a party on my boat," Ramfis snapped. "We will entertain." an aide explained, "but the general will...
...weekend trip, the pilot will be preconditioned by eating a low-residue diet (no bulky leaf vegetables, peas, corn or beans, no fat). As Captain William Bligh noted 169 years ago after he was cast away by the Bounty mutineers, some of his lifeboat companions went weeks with no bowel movement, had no lasting ill effects. For a trip to the moon, the Air Force thinks it now has an airtight zipper-type fastening for pressure suits that will enable the pilot to function like a duck hunter opening the flap on his long-Johns; the fecal matter will...
...fire sirens wailed and choking smoke poured through the ship, a few men passengers panicked and rushed into the lifeboats ahead of sobbing women and screaming children. When they ignored orders to get out, they were knocked unconscious by crew members and dragged back on deck. But after that, the ship was. abandoned in perfect order. In 35 minutes the Skaubryn was roaring from end to end like an acetylene torch, but every passenger and seaman was in the safety of lifeboats on the calm sea. As long as they were able, the two radio operators sent out SOS signals...