Word: torch
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Plans were made, altered, restored. Work men were hired, laid off, hired again. Official wrangling over the sailing date was cut short only on the afternoon of Feb. 9, when sparks from an acetylene torch ignited kapok life preservers piled carelessly near by in the ship's grand salon, sent fire roaring through her topsides...
...young Hindu who starred in Elephant Boy). The ominous supporting cast includes some 2,000 animals, birds and reptiles-notably a slinky black panther (Bagheera) with a sinister propensity for sharpening his lethal claws on tree limbs, an enormous python (Kaa, who had to be controlled with a blow torch), and a very unpleasant cobra...
Gertrude Niesen's $2,000,000 marble palace in Newport (bought for the torch-singer by Mama Niesen for $20,000) was visited by a man from the water department when the meter had run up a $600 bill. He walked in on a 50-room skating rink, on floors buried under half a foot of ice, to see the grand staircase a magnificent frozen waterfall. The pipes had frozen and burst...
Already aboard were 400 U.S. Naval officers, sailors, 300 Coast Guards. Working on her were 1,500 civilians. In the grand salon on the promenade deck, a workman with an acetylene torch cut through the last of four ornamental steel stanchions. So close to him that his back touched them as he worked were piled kapok life preservers, wrapped in tar paper and burlap...
Sparks from his torch must have shot into the pile. Smoke puffed up. Flames spurted. Only two buckets of water were at hand. Workmen had to flee. From the deck outside they poked a hose through a window. A feeble stream had no effect. Fire licked along ceilings, cabin walls, panelings...