Word: mortars
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Jesu Christi Filii Dei Vivi [In the faith and the strength of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God]." Continuing to intone the Latin formula, he placed lime to the right and left on the threshold, then laid three bricks-one gilt and two silvered-in the mortar. Thus, a year after he had opened it, the Pope this week symbolically sealed up the Holy Door and ended the Holy Year...
...shaken by the knowledge that all their shiny weapons and equipment, their sensational blitz tactics, their mountain of supplies, their tanks, trucks, artillery and air power could not hold back a horde that moved on foot, without air support, without armor and with hardly any weapon larger than a mortar. The American fighting man had moved a long way from the revolutionary rabble of 1775; he had become, in a manner of speaking, the British Redcoat of 1950-confident of superiority and aware of the power of a great nation behind him, but unable to cope with ragged characters firing...
...fight to Koto, six miles down the road, was the worst. The crawling vehicles ran into murderous mortar, machine-gun and small-arms fire from Communists in log and sandbag bunkers. The U.S. answering fire and air attacks killed thousands of the enemy and held the road open. When the lead vehicles reached Koto, the rearguard was still fighting near Hagaru to keep the enemy from chewing up the column from behind...
Night Attack. Up in the citadel the distant sound of mortar fire awakes the garrison commander. He snaps on a flashlight, hurriedly cranks the field telephone. But the duty officer can only guess from the direction of the noise that the attack is at Tanmai, a small fort west of Moncay manned by about 40 Vietnamese soldiers. Tanmai has no radio or telephone...
...mortar explosions come faster. Should Moncay garrison send out a relief column? Impossible! With one company away on an island-clearing operation, there's only one company of Legionnaires left to hold Moncay citadel, as the Viet Minh doubtless know. Towards morning the explosions stop. The air is warm and heavy and very still. The meteorological report forecasts a typhoon...