Word: raids
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last fortnight across the Atlantic came details of another brand of German attack from the air: high-altitude, level-flight bombing, which the U. S. Army Air Corps uses to the exclusion of the diving attack. Returning travelers who saw the daylight raid on Paris, hundreds of other attacks through France, told of hearing raiders so high that they were out of sight in the clear sky. Yet these planes, starting out their campaign by smashing up France's airfields and pursuit resistance, methodically and unspectacularly brought a creeping paralysis to France's communications. Road junctions were reduced...
...bombing raid, a Heinkel bombardier, who is also second pilot, rides up forward in the nose ("meat-can" to U. S. Air Corps big-ship crews). There he has a machine gun, convenient in case his ship is jumped by enemy pursuit. Back of him sits the pilot, still farther back two machine-gunners to deal with pursuit attacking from behind. The top gunner rides in a wind-screened cockpit looking for attacks from above. The gunner on the bottom rides in a "dust-bin," on his belly, to range his guns on pursuits attacking from below...
...remained within reasonable bounds. But recently Duff Cooper intensified his drive until it became preposterously exaggerated. Three cinema shorts, a deluge of new colored posters, quarter-page advertisements in 108 newspapers and 72 magazines kept dinning: "Never pass on knowledge about the place or extent of air-raid damage; don't trust enemy broadcasts and don't discuss them with others; if you know somebody who makes a habit of causing worry and anxiety by passing on rumor, tell the police; if it's true, the enemy can use it-if it's not true...
...simply told that they would not be allowed to obey the Pétain Government's order to come home, on pain of being sunk by gunfire and torpedoes launched from concealed tubes on shore. While the French digested this ultimatum, over came some Italian bombers on a raid and the French ships joined the British in putting up a hot anti-aircraft barrage. A vote was taken among the French seamen, after which the ships were peacefully surrendered. The British agreed to keep them, immobilized, at Alexandria...
Whatever happened, Mussolini ordered two days of national mourning. All over the Empire Italy's armed forces half-masted their flags. In a "revenge" raid on the British base of Mersa Matruh, the late, great Balbo's men claimed the destruction of 20 British planes...