Word: upwind
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Joan isn't much good at keeping her mind on her business; whenever a man stands upwind from her, she tends to go buttery-eyed (a trick for which Miss Caulfield has a pretty talent). Veronica has to be coldhearted enough for both of them; but as it turns out, she is vulnerable, too. Both fall for an earnest, shabby oaf (well played by George Reeves) who dreams of modernizing his community with a power plant. Both help raise the money which will make his dream come true. And both plan to make off with it, love...
...biggest trouble was the weather over Japan. At 30,000 feet the wind often blew 200 miles an hour. This meant that the B-29s had to drop their bombs while traveling upwind at a ground speed of 50 or 100 m.p.h. (making fat targets for fighters and ack-ack) or downwind at 500 m.p.h. with doubtful accuracy or no accuracy at all. Japanese fighters apparently could go as high as the B-29s could-and their suicidal pilots did not hesitate to ram the big planes...
With these doubts in mind, some of the observers, while there was still 15 minutes to go, high-tailed it for the wardroom and coffee. The rest waited. Upwind from the loudspeaker came ripped fragments of speech: "five minutes"-"one minute." Everybody stood up, tamped the cotton tighter in his ears, cupped his hands over them in the bargain, spread his feet wide apart...