Word: raider
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Despite the forewarnings given by wary sky-watchers, no Nazi raider approached the examination hall, and English A endured its umpty-sixth mid-year exam without the ignominy of aerial competition...
...first test had been a success. When the Fortress swung back, the ship was gone in a moonslick littered with wreckage. The raider made for a cruiser, splashed three bombs into the water not a hundred feet from her, saw them hurtle to her side, watched her heel over in a spreading pool of oil after the bombs burst. A searchlight beam burst from the shore, probed high in the sky. A few A.A. guns chattered. But the Fortress was clean away. Climbing to 5,000, she dropped her last bombs on a seaplane tender in the harbor...
Ensign Willett, commander of the Navy gun crew, staggered to his feet, went to the after gun and opened fire on the smaller of the two raiders. The forward gun, under the command of the second mate, blazed away at the large raider. Other hands busied themselves with the wounded...
...nearly half an hour the battle raged, two raiders against one freighter. Heavily outgunned, the merchantman made every shell count. Ensign Willett saw the stern of the smaller raider burst into flame. Then a shell blew up the merchantman's main boiler, reduced her speed to one knot. A few seconds later another shell hit the magazine...
...after gun crew was blown off the deck by the explosion, but somehow Ensign Willett stayed at his gun. He fired his five remaining shells, watched the long, yellow flames licking the raider from stem to stern. Then he dragged himself to his boat station. He was not seen again...