Word: terraine
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From the air, by night or day or through the thickest cloud, it lays open the terrain below like a relief map, showing coastlines, ships, harbors, jetties, mountains, lakes, rivers, bridges, cities. At close range, with the narrowest radar beam, it is possible to see a city's river fronts, avenues, even buildings...
Echoes from the earth are affected by the angle at which the radar beam strikes its irregularities, and by "shadows" cast by raised objects. Thus mountain tops and ridges are easily distinguishable from the surrounding terrain...
...ship, radar is insurance against collision with icebergs, rocks or other ships; it can take a vessel at full speed through a crowded harbor and dock it in the foggiest weather. In the air, radar, supplemented by a map of the terrain, would keep a pilot as well oriented as if he were flying over his living-room rug, would ward off collisions with mountains and other planes. It would, of course, prevent such accidents as the Army bomber's crash into the Empire State Building last month...
Worse than Burma. The Cagayan Valley drive was the culmination of fighting in terrain so cruel that General Joseph W. Stilwell said it was worse than Burma. Major General Innis P. ("Bull") Swift, corps commander, had sent his divisions driving through backbreaking country that was all gorges and razor-backed ridges and mountain peaks that prodded the clouds. One division had advanced only 1,000 yards in four weeks, lost and retook one hill four times. The world may never have seen steeper fighting...
Paced by tanks, 38th Division infantrymen were storming a narrow gorge, its 500-ft. walls honeycombed with Japanese caves, leading to Wawa Dam east of Manila. The tanks stalled in the bouldered terrain. So they called up lanky Charles R. Oliver Jr., who a year ago was a Wortham, Tex. high-school student, gave him a bazooka and appointed him spearhead...