Word: vanderkloot
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...flight to Egypt found Churchill in "the office" (control cabin) of the four-motored American B-24 bomber, chattering with Pilot William Vanderkloot of Sarasota, Fla., winner of the Order of the British Empire for his Ferry Command radio-beam installations on the North Atlantic, and with Co-Pilot Jack Ruggles of San Francisco, once-wounded, four-year veteran of the Chinese Air Force...
Bagdad to Teheran. Back again in "the office" as the bomber flew northeast over the Persian mountains from Bagdad to Teheran, Churchill saw jagged peaks reaching up hungrily in the clear air. "Say, aren't we flying rather close?" he asked. Vanderkloot answered: "About a thousand feet." "Those peaks," said Churchill, "would look better from higher up." The bomber picked up another thousand feet...
...Then Vanderkloot asked: "Are you a short-snorter, sir?" The rules of that august fraternity provide that if a short-snorter is unable to produce his card immediately, he must give a dollar bill to all short-snorters present. Leland Stowe's Moscow interview with the two flyers revealed that Churchill then & there made up a new rule-that he had five minutes to produce his card. He distressed Sawyers by pawing through his luggage, finally found the dollar bill inscribed with the term "short-snorter" and the date of his induction into the fraternity of transocean flyers...
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