Word: signalman
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...another day, the rising sun was just beginning to shimmer over the Long Tau when Chief Signalman Bob Monzingo clamped on the black beret worn by U.S. Navymen in Viet Nam, stepped aboard PBR (Patrol Boat River) 756 and headed for a rendezvous with the fully loaded U.S. tanker Kalydon. So did the Viet Cong. Three hours later, the battle exploded. From the Long Tau's east bank, ambushers fired five Communist-made B40 rockets at the tanker. All five missed, and Monzingo's two-boat force foamed toward the attackers, blasting away with M-60 machine guns...
...never far beneath the surface among Africans in the land of apartheid. As the scratched and bloodied survivors tumbled from the wreckage, one black shouted: "It's the Europeans who planned this murder of our brothers." The first white man to come to the aid of the wounded-signalman Walter Hartslief, 25, who ran to the scene from his trackside station-was surrounded by the furious mob, beaten, knifed and trampled to death in the dust...
...aboard her royal yacht, Queen Victoria herself waited to present the "100 Guineas Cup" to the winner. Finally, a hail from the bridge: "Sail ho!" "Which boat is it?" demanded the Queen. "The America, Madam." Said Victoria: "Oh, indeed! And which is second?" There was a pause, while the signalman's glass swept the horizon. "I regret to report," came the halting reply, "that there is no second." "Yankee trickery," charged the British yachtsmen, hinting darkly that black-hulled America was powered by some sort of "infernal machine." In the bitterness of that moment, one of sport...
Toland's meticulous investigation provides some fascinating footnotes. Major James Devereux, the gallant U.S. Marine Corps defender of Wake, did not send the famed message: SEND US MORE JAPS. The message was idly tapped out by an unknown signalman. Nor did the U.S.S. Houston sink four Japanese transports off Java's Bantam Bay. They were actually torpedoed in error by the Japanese cruiser Mikuma, Toland reveals. General Imamura assumed that the Houston was responsible, and his chief of staff was too embarrassed to contradict...