Word: merchantmen
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...Kwajalein, world's largest atoll, an 80-mile string of islets, is the hub of the Marshall fortifications. It has a major airfield (on Roi Island), a seaplane anchorage, submarine facilities. In its tremendous lagoon, raiding U.S. planes (TIME, Dec. 20), have caught cruisers, carriers, seagoing merchantmen and many varieties of inter-island craft...
...battle. A pack of 20 subs had attacked two adjacent convoys. Land-based U.S. planes from Iceland, British and Canadian planes from England, escort-carrier planes teamed with British destroyers and frigates. After the eighth submarine was hit, the enemy kept their distance. "Ninety nine percent" of the merchantmen got through safely. Not a British warship was scratched. The British lost three planes...
Tensely the task ships waited for word. One hour after the takeoff it came: "Enemy taken by surprise." Kwajalein's roomy lagoon (80 miles long, 20 miles at the widest) was full of shipping: sampans, inter-island craft, seagoing merchantmen, tankers, warships. Said a U.S. pilot: "It was a dive bomber's paradise, and we turned it into a Japanese hell." The score after ten minutes of concentrated attack: two light cruisers, one oiler, three cargo transports sunk; one troop transport, three cargo transports damaged; grounded planes and shore installations hard...
They man the pleasure cruisers which have been turned over to the Coast Guard Auxiliary, fill out depleted crews of regular Coast Guard cutters, squeegee paint, scrub decks, inspect buoys, board incoming merchantmen and seal their radios, run signal lights, patrol docks and beaches. In their idle time between their twelve-hour-a-week duty and their regular civilian jobs, the hottest zealots study seamanship, gunnery and navigation...
...Churchill prepared their monthly statement on U-boat warfare, which in October went swimmingly for the Allies, sinkingly for the Nazis. U-boats were out in force. They not only failed to press home their attacks but were sunk in large numbers, as planes from U.S. "baby flattops" (converted merchantmen) pounded them silly. Allied production, plus a net gain of 170,000 tons of Italian shipping, put the Allies far in the black...