Word: fleetly
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Mare Nostrum. When the British Home Fleet's flagship Nelson left Portland for Gibraltar this departure was officially described as "for one day's maneuver." Previously the Renown and the Hood and three smaller ships had slipped away so unobtrusively that those of their 6,000 officers & crew who happened to be ashore were recalled on a few hours' notice spread by flashing the order on cinema screens at Portland and circulating it among the pubs. In strict technicality the Admiralty's knowledge of exactly where the Home Fleet might be was locked in the resolute bosom of the fleet...
...Fleet movements as they occurred were not reported in British papers, by request of the Admiralty. Alien news services were encouraged to transmit via London every fact they could glean about the sudden, sensational and unannounced dispatching of the British Home Fleet, which was scheduled last week to be maneuvering off Scotland, to join the British Mediterranean Fleet. With charm and polish, Admiralty officials said that they "really did not know" the whereabouts of Britain's famed super-warboats, the Hood, the Rodney and the Nelson...
...fall against the red-hot kitchen stove. "Fire!'" screamed his wife as the paper blazed. Waking up with a start, the mate rammed the family cat into the oven, banged the door and roared, "Ready, Sir." Though the United Kingdom never heard last week that whimsical Admiral Backhouse & Home Fleet had sailed for Gibraltar, the fact of their arrival finally appeared tucked quietly away in London papers, while world headlines were screaming "WAR!" from Chicago to Canton...
Thus doubly bullied by the world's most powerful fleet and most plausible statesmen, Big Bully Benito Mussolini raged in Rome: "We find it monstrous that the nation which dominates the world refuses us a small bit of land under the African sun! Many times I have given Britain assurance that her interests in Ethiopia would be scrupulously respected. Her attitude, I repeat, is monstrous! The real reasons why Britain so strongly opposes Italy she does not mention...
Meeting in agitation last week, Britain's Cabinet considered their position in view of the fact that Continental air forces have long been deemed able to bomb Britain's Home Fleet handily at its present bases in the North Sea and the English Channel. Admiralty experts advised His Majesty's Government to remove the Home Fleet to the extreme southern tip of Wales where Milford Haven affords the refuge of a strongly fortified harbor extending some ten miles inland. Forehanded as usual, the Admiralty announced that it has already bought lands at Milford Haven and is ready to launch...