Word: spunk
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Miss Mitchell has no quarrel with the British people, having more than a touch of their own spunk herself, but she cringes at the pious hypocrisy and old-school stupidity which British rule has clamped over India for 150 years. To her, the British Raj hasn't changed since Kipling left the Punjab. To the Raj, India is still the cornerstone of the Empire and must be held at all costs. The timeworn clichés with which excesses and failings have been shrouded Miss Mitchell attacks with a Bryn-Mawrian vigor implemented with the background of nine years...
...like that at Sidi Barrani, Bardia and Tobruch. There were no rigid, prepared defenses around Dérna (see map), no circles of wire and ditch. But the natural defense was rugged: a deep, wide wadi, the eroded path of an ancient stream. With more spunk than they had shown in seven weeks' war, 10,000 Italians fought to keep many more attackers from swarming into the wadi. Italian aircraft were active, tanks gave fight, artillery answered stubbornly. But numbers and more efficient supply told in the end. The town capitulated...
Finland, which last fall showed more spunk than the rest of the Baltic countries put together, was in line for more trouble last week. A gang from the Association-for-Peace-&-Friendship-Between-Finland-and-the-Soviet-Union (for which Moscow claims 20,000 members, Helsinki 200) started a fire in a public square in Helsinki. A Canadian volunteer who had fought in the Russo-Finnish War shot one of the Peace-&-Friendship boys. In Moscow, Tass began blustering against Finland and an incident appeared to be in the making...