Word: sterne
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...insisted, a torpedo from a German submarine whose periscope had been observed? International complications from this might be so grave that British admiralty officials "suggested," even before a committee of inquiry was constituted, that the Hunter had hit a mine. With great secrecy the Hunter, bow awash, was towed stern foremost into Gibraltar, locked in a closely-guarded drydock, where gold-visored staff officers prepared to go over her plate by plate...
...trained squad of Navy men grabbed one, a squad of civilians the other. Gently the two groups began coaxing the big bag to the mooring mast. The breeze teasing the tail made it more difficult than usual. Captain Pruss put the two Mercedes-Benz Diesel engines in the stern gondolas into reverse to keep from overshooting the mast. Witnesses noticed that the port motor was backfiring...
Suddenly a stab of flame gashed the airship's flank near the port stern gondola. So swiftly that to many it seemed instantaneous the flame engulfed the whole rear half of the ship. There was a muffled, booming WHOOSH and a huge belch of white fire and smoke mushroomed skyward...
With a Cra-a-a-ack! the ship buckled. Down on the ground went the stern with a peculiarly gentle crash amid clouds of dust and smoke. As the still undamaged bow tilted up at 45°, the flame rushed through the middle and geysered in a long bright plume from the nose. For an instant the Hindenburg seemed a rearing reptile darting its tongue in anger. Then it was a gigantic halfback tackled behind the knees and falling forward on its face. The huge bag settled slowly to earth with fire roaring over it 50 yd. a second. Last...
Professor Otto Stern of Carnegie Institute of Technology observed that hydrogen Drotons escaping through a small aperture become ionized, or build up a small positive electric charge, through the friction of their escape. Hydrogen burns on contact with oxygen. The presence of a slight negative charge of static electricity in the airship fabric or in the air might thus cause a spark sufficient to start the fire. Zeppelin men scouted this idea, however, pointing out that many a German airship came back from bombing London shot full of holes which caused no hydrogen fire...