Word: mortaring
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...John B. Oakes. The outpouring began earlier this week with a by-lined story from Salisbury, Rhodesia, cataloguing the murderous Rhodesian army raid on a black guerilla camp in Mozambique. More than 300 Africans were killed according to Salisbury sources quoted by The Times; this, in retaliation for a mortar attack on an army camp where four Rhodesian troops died. Following that story, in which not one Mozambican or guerrilla source was quoted, a piece appeared on the op-ed page, extolling the virtues of white-run Rhodesia and claiming that the nation is as free a state...
...when he failed to get the necessary permits. "A lot of people think it's frippery, just a fire in the sky," says Plimpton, "but I love the damn things." One thing he will not try during his Bicentennial bang is another "fat man," a two-ton monster mortar that Plimpton hoped would put him in the Guinness Book of World Records. When tested this winter, it blew up on the ground. "A very discouraging business," recalls Plimpton. "And it created an enormous man-made lake...
...anchored most of his fleet, including the flagship Bristol and the Experiment, both of 50 guns, only a few hundred yards from the fort and proceeded to pound it with broadside after broadside. At the same time, the bomb ketch Thunder anchored farther south and arched explosive 10-inch mortar shells into Moultrie's position. Three lighter vessels, the Actaeon and the Syren, both 28 guns, and the Sphinx, 20, drifted westward into the harbor, hoping to get round the fort and attack it from behind...
...besieged inside the city, hired vessels to start making raids. Within a month, one of them, the Lee, made a major catch-the ordnance brigantine Nancy, loaded with 2,000 muskets and bayonets, 3,000 rounds of 12-pound shot, a large supply of gunpowder, flints and a huge mortar...
...other, and artillery pounded away, some services continued to work almost normally. Until the very end, gutsy P.T.T. (Post, Telegraph and Telephone) officials kept telex and telephones alive, while Middle East Airlines, the country's flag carrier, flew in and out of a sandbagged airport that frequently took mortar fire, until it finally closed. Food prices soared, but cart vendors always seemed to have fresh produce for sale. Merchants who had lost their shops in downtown fighting transformed the once flashy Corniche into an open-air souk, closed only on days when the artillery thumped dangerously close. With...