Word: fleetly
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...last week the Eastern Division of Britain's Mediterranean Fleet had been powerfully reinforced. Three new battleships (King George V, Prince of Wales, Jellicoe) had recently gone into the western Mediterranean, and the Repulse into the eastern. It appeared last week that some of the ships based on Gibraltar had joined the eastern squadron. All went out with lookouts alert-hunting for the will-o'-the-wisp Italian Fleet...
Closing in on the islands, the Fleet Air Arm, operating from the carrier Furious, bombed airfields at Marizza and Calato on Rhodes. The cruisers Sydney and Orion rained shells on the island of Scarpanto, blasting an airfield at Makri Yalo and pounding Pegadia...
...main base in the eastern Mediterranean. The U.S. destroyer deal had opened the way for a new and bolder British strategy in the Mediterranean: to harass, with the help of reinforcements, Italian bases and communications to such an extent that Mussolini would be forced to bring his main fleet into play to protect the vital line to Libya. Then, at last, His Majesty's Navy might be able to work up something more exciting than a game of drop the handkerchief...
Last week I Disperati had not yet shown their sacrificial heads, but for the first time Italy employed a new dive-bomber formation. Near Valletta Harbor, Malta, and later the same day about 30 miles to the southeast of Malta, Italian dive bombers engaged units of the British Fleet. Said the Italian communique: "Violent anti-aircraft reaction and bitter combat with enemy chasers could not prevent our formations of bombers in horizontal flight and Picchiatelli-new formations of dive bombers-from achieving with dash and daring the obvious results...
Britain's Navy proudly calls itself the silent service, but last week First Lord of the Admiralty Albert Victor Alexander let slip a significant phrase: "The strain upon our destroyer fleet has been very great." Silent facts bore out this admission. Many destroyers have been at sea an average of over 25 days a month. One cruised 111 days with only 19 days in port. Another traveled 52,248 miles - more than twice the earth's circumference - in nine months...