Word: lull
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...preliminary submarine all-out has been threatened several times. The comparative lull of recent weeks tended to confirm the idea that U-boats were being thoroughly tuned up, that new ones were being commissioned, that a greatly intensified counter-blockade would begin soon. In London it was guessed that 600 German submarines, mostly "minnows" of 250-300 tons, would be let loose as a preliminary to invasion...
Last week, in the exultant lull after finishing off Cyrenaica, in the expectant lull before the next job, whatever it was, the boys in the Army of the Nile thought of loved ones at home. For their benefit romantic Postmaster General William Shepherd Morrison announced a numbered code of love for Near East forces and their ladies. A cable of three phrases, plus signature and address, cost two shillings sixpence (50?). Said Postmaster General Morrison: "Every degree of affection is provided for. You pay your money and take your choice." Examples...
Against this ground lull, air action grew to new vigor on both sides. The British pounded Italian bases in Rhodes seven nights in a row, firing hangars and crumpling grounded planes. The Germans attacked British motorized transport in Libya, hit at Malta over & over, dropped huge parachute bombs onto Bengasi. The R. A. F. came back with an attack on the Nazi Stuka bases in Sicily. For five hours they shuttled past overhead, wheeling and diving on gasoline stores and bomb dumps. German reconnaissance pilots returned from a flight over Suez with photographs showing two vessels sunk in the channel...
Invasion may have fizzled last summer, may look like a horrible risk for the attackers now. But Britain expects it. A lull in air attacks last week, which in London lasted seven whole days, did not decrease British vigilance. The ticking of hours-lengthening the span of days after the last Hitler-Mussolini meeting, shortening the span until fairer weather-increased it. The British expected to beat off invasion even at the cost of one half of the Royal Air Force, three quarters of the home battle fleet, 250,000 young units of man power...
From the meeting of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini last week (see p. 21) welled ominous indications that a new campaign was about to be launched-possibly in a matter of a few days. The big question was where. The war, slowing to a lull in the Balkans and in Greece, bogging down in a seven-day sandstorm at Tobruch, flaming fitfully in the ragged weather over Britain, gave little clue. But the British, sure trouble was coming, thought they knew the answer (see below). Meanwhile the important military news of the week was the story of the battle...