Word: torpedos
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Torpedoes played a greater part than shellfire in crippling and sinking the Bismarck. At Taranto, at Matapan and in this conflict, the British have shown great skill in using the torpedo-carrying aircraft, which was invented by a U.S. naval officer in 1912, which has surprisingly not been adopted by the Germans in the Battle of the Atlantic...
...stood up under punishment. Bismarck's crew were convinced she was unsinkable, and they were almost right. She absorbed at least 20 16-in. shells from the Rodney, 15-in. shells from the Hood, and 14-in. shells from the Prince of Wales and King George V; three torpedoes launched from aircraft, two from destroyers, one from a battleship and three from cruisers; and about three hundred 8-in. shells, 4.7-in. shells and other small stuff. PArtly this wonderful shock-worthiness was due to her thick, modern alloy-steel armor, partly to an intricate system of cellular compartments...
...This second torpedo," said First Lord of the Admiralty A. V. Alexander, "apparently affected the steering of the ship, for not only was she reduced to very low speed but she continued making uncontrollable circles in the sea, in which condition she was attacked by our flotillas with two more torpedoes which brought her virtually to a standstill, far from help and far outside the range within which enemy bomber aircraft from the French coast could come upon the scene...
...Prince of Wales. Even in her crippled condition, the British battleships apparently had trouble sinking her with shell fire, for it was not until some 7 or 8 hours later that the coup de grace was delivered. If (as was at first reported) this was given by a torpedo plane, the Bismarck was the first modern battleship sunk from...
From Britain also came reports that twenty firms in Unoccupied France were making aircraft, tank parts and other war materials for the Nazis, that Nazi torpedo boats were using the lower Rhone River, in "Unoccupied" France, to reach the Mediterranean...