Word: attack
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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Terrified, many people jumped into the cold heaving sea, some holding babies in their arms. Lifeboats and rafts capsized. The numbed and the injured lost their precarious hold on the overturned boats, were swept away. Within half an hour of the attack the ship itself heeled over and disappeared, its captain standing at the stern, shouting: "Get into the boats and look after yourselves." Many went down with it, still more were sucked into the whirlpool. House-high waves twisted and filled the boats, swamped several. Rain and hail and wind tortured the survivors to unconsciousness and death...
...defenders-perhaps 70,000 Britons, Australians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians, Indians-had been braced for the attack for some time. They were reported to have captured confidential plans for such a drive from the First Libyan Army many weeks ago, and were amazed to find the plans nevertheless followed to a T last week. Against the plans the British defense was apparently: to fall back, harassing the invaders, to well-watered Mersa Matrûh, the terminus of a narrow-gauge railroad from Alexandria, thus avoiding serious action until the British were in an area with good supply lines...
When the Italians reached Salûm, they found the town apparently bristling with tanks and guns. But their attack brought only a ghostly defense; the tanks and guns were all dummies made of wood. The column pushed on until it reached Bagbag, 25 miles from Libya, and finally Sûdi Barrani, 55 miles in. The British hit and ran with tanks, armored cars and planes. They dynamited and salted a dozen Roman wells in the neighborhood. But the attackers were supplied with water trucks and apparatus to condense fresh from salt water...
Brusquely they issued an ultimatum demanding air and naval stations in French Indo-China and the right to transport more troops across the peninsula for a backdoor attack on China. There were rumors that they wanted to subdivide the country into a northern, Japanese-controlled state, a central buffer, and a southern, French-controlled section...
...danger today is that patriotic fervor seeking a release in action may lead us to pay a disastrously and unnecessarily high price. Today we are asked to aid England with supplies, and that is right. Tomorrow the German attack may shift to the outposts of Britain's Empire, and many will feel that the time has come to send men and ships. But it is there that we must steel ourselves to say no. If lives are to be lost in defense of our nation, we must not meet the enemy on his own terms and send...