Word: quarterdeck
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...System. Everything considered, the admiral has presented his case with brevity, restraint and a quarterdeck command of facts now long on the record. The U.S. was unready at Pearl Harbor, says Kimmel, but not by his fault. The trouble, he says, was that Washington never told him what was cooking or where and when it might boil over. All through November, for instance, Washington was reading intercepted messages in which the Japanese consulate in Hawaii sent Tokyo pinpoint locations of Pearl Harbor warships. Says Kimmel: "The information received during the ten days preceding the attack clearly pointed to the Fleet...
...sympathy from the Somers' Queeg-like skipper. Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, U.S.N., 39, was vain and self-righteous; in 26 years at sea he had developed a fondness for quarterdeck sermons and main-deck floggings. He was aroused by the slightest threat to his position, and he soon hated Midshipman Spencer. As the cruise wore on, Spencer remained moodily aloof from his fellow middies, plied his cronies, Boatswain's Mate Sam Cromwell and Seaman Elisha Small, with illicit brandy and cigars. Soon Spencer was poring over charts of the West Indies, boasting wildly that he would take over...
...with a gold earring in his pierced right ear and gold bangles jangling at his wrists, the man who called himself Ronald Chesney looked every inch the pirate he claimed to be. He habitually arrayed his strapping, 6-ft. 1-in. frame in the generously sweeping gestures of the quarterdeck, and boasted homerically of his vast appetites for food, drink and women. When asked his profession, "Old Ches" would reply with a huge guffaw: "Smuggling." Men and women in all walks of life fell easy prey to Ches's flamboyant charms, and after failing to see him for long...
...pace-a-minute stride, and chided newsmen who fell behind. At night, he and his staff, including Administrative Assistant Donald Dawson (the man with the way in the old RFC), played "poverty" poker. Each man put up $100, could draw from the pool if he ran through that. Quarterdeck conversation frequently turned toward the President's favorite subject-U.S. history. Harry Truman got the biggest "yuck" out of telling the boys about one of Benjamin Franklin's scatological inventions...
...midnight, in absolute silence, under chilly, low-hanging skies that blotted out the stars, the Mansfield cautiously worked in toward shore. On the destroyer's quarterdeck ten men-four marines, four bluejackets and two officers-checked their weapons and adjusted packs crammed with TNT. Some carried Tommy guns, others carbines. Each man had a knife dangling on his pistol belt. A few wore sneakers. The men shifted their feet uneasily as they watched a small whaleboat being lowered into the water...