Word: scapa
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Nazi bombers raided Scapa Flow again last week and the British replied near Wilhelmshaven. Two dozen R. A. F. bombers got their tails burned (two fatally) just north of Sylt. This week more planes roared over Scapa Flow, and for the first time in the war dropped incendiary bombs on Britain. They started several small fires in the heather, did no damage to shipping...
That evening Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, with radio reports from his fliers in hand, was on his feet in the House of Commons, defending his Government. The Germans' dashing raid on the Fleet in Scapa Flow (TIME, March 25) rankled bitterly in Members' minds. Not long after 9 p. m. Mr. Chamberlain was able to announce dramatically: "Tonight the Royal Air Force attacked and severely damaged the German air base at Hornum on the island of Sylt...
...news to the world that part of the British Home Fleet was at Scapa Flow last week, because First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had said it was not there. It was bigger news that a battle squadron of 14 or more Heinkel bombers from their base 600 miles away in Germany sighted the Orkney Islands just as the Saturday sun was setting. Nazi scouts had said the Fleet was there, but the airmen were amazed by its numbers when they got overhead. They picked out the biggest ones, started down...
...higher can "guarantee" what his bombs did. But the British Admiralty was quick to admit: 1) that the Fleet was back at Scapa (each ship girt with a "hula skirt" of cables to foil magnetic mines, à la Queen Elizabeth); 2) that at least one ship was seriously hit; 3) that while some of the raiders targeted the fleet, others attacked Orkney airfields where Britain's pursuit ships sat, scoring hits on hangars, planes, civilians (one killed, seven wounded, in addition to seven Jack-tars admitted dead). The Germans said they bombed the airfields because they would not make...
...several respects the raid was a World War II first: numbers, timing, effect. It coincided perfectly with Adolf Hitler's visit to Benito Mussolini: as much as to say, if we can do this to you boys at Scapa, how about Gibraltar and Alexandria...