Word: pontoons
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...place of the barbaric hordes who in past ages surged through the Rhodope Mountain passes into the fertile plains of Grecian Thrace. Across the Danube and two-and-one-half miles of marshland that separate Rumanian Giurgiu from Bulgarian Russe, Nazi engineers began to construct a gigantic ferry and pontoon bridge capable of supporting the heaviest equipment...
...State of Washington pondered plans for spanning deep, blue Lake Washington. Because of the unstable mud bottom, State highway engineers figured that an orthodox bridge, without approaches, would cost $18,000,000. Lacey V. Murrow, Director of Highways, and Charles E. Andrew, consulting engineer, decided that a pontoon bridge, approaches and all, could be built for $8,854,400. PWA offered to chip in $3,794,400. Seattle's City Council squeezed through a 5-to-4 endorsement...
Last July, Seattle opened its floating bridge, the longest, oddest pontoon bridge in the world. Its four-lane concrete highway, one and a quarter miles long, is the deck of 25 cement pontoons. The bridge actually floats, seven feet deep, in the water. As if the engineers had not had a hard enough job, they had also to include a draw-span, to take care of lake shipping. The draw-span section is made up of two pontoons. One forms a Y, the other floats between its arms, sliding out to close the bridge, slipping in to leave 200 feet...
...open, while Army umpires with white bands around their campaign hats marked down their scores. Sweaty infantrymen slogged along country roads. Artillery rumbled through peaceful villages, tired gunners asleep in the trucks. Rednecked horse cavalrymen galloped down ravines, and forded creeks behind cased guidons. Cursing engineers built pontoon bridges across rivers while machine guns chattered and infantrymen in trucks shouted for more speed...
When the recess was over, the Blue Army went after the invader like a winning boxer out of his corner. Through the chilly night (the temperature got down to 41°) engineers hurried pontoon bridges across the Raquette. Before dawn, while the bridges were still abuilding, infantrymen paddled across in assault boats, and rifle fire bit the dark. Again Hugh Drum's fast-moving motorized column, riding a motley assortment of green, red and white trucks, turned up on the Blacks' south flank. By noon the Blues' artillery had crossed the Raquette behind the infantry. With pleased...