Word: windshields
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...those days in the Southwest Pacific, much was done by trial & error. There was no low-altitude bombsight. Bill Benn improvised one by riding in the nose of a Fortress, marking crosses on the bombardier's plexiglass windshield until he got what he wanted. Then he made a few runs against an old hulk stranded off Port Moresby, found that his marks were good enough for accurate sights...
...some stragglers tried to dogfight Zeros with P-39s. Four of them were shot down. Four Japs were also shot down, three of them by Buzz Wagner, who knew better than to dogfight except when he had to. Buzz was bucking orders that day-a Jap bullet had splintered windshield glass into his left eye in the Philippines-but the chance to kill more Japs was too tempting...
...third Zero came right up under the belly of my plane, sowing bullets up & down the fuselage. I dropped the nose of my plane and came at him headon. One of his bullets hit my windshield right in front of my nose, but it missed me. My own bullets were tearing him apart. We tore past each other less than 15 feet apart. When I looked over my shoulder, he had lost control and was spinning down...
...like the Grand National except that there were no falls. It was like flying over England, only more beautiful. People on the ground seemed stunned by the great flock of Lancasters and the noise. We saw no fighters on the way, but a duck came through the windshield with a wallop. My front gunner's turret was filled with feathers and the hole in the windshield let in an awful draft." And so precise was the R.A.F. timing that the first planes hit Le Creusot at 6:09 and the last dumped its load seven minutes later...
...Vehicle Maintenance Section, snorted that after World War II smart fleet operators will demand a general sacrifice of "looks" and "streamlining" to efficiency, will insist on trucks with cabs "which a full-sized driver can enter easily-in which he can sit up straight, look out the windshield, get his knees under the steering wheel and operate the controls...