Word: signal
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...lingerie factories began making them. Instead of sandbags, the lawyers of Gray's Inn protected their windows with heavy legal tomes. A rabbi banned the sounding of Shophar ram's horn on the Jewish New Year for fear the populace would take it for an air-raid signal. Stores sold luminous paint for switches and doorknobs, "gas costumes" guaranteed to resist mustard gas 45 minutes, furniture suitable for cellars, empty flashlights (batteries long since sold...
Unlike the solid, continuous Maginot Line, the Siegfried Position carries on the old Lossberg concept of defense in depth and swift counterattack from a protected rear. A break-through would be the signal for the great rear fortifications to open up with heavy artillery fire (spare gun-barrels as well as a large supply of munitions are cached in deep caverns connected by tunnel railways). Mobile troops, hitherto protected, would thrust out at the invading flanks. The cushion-&-spring force would be terrific...
...report said: "No witness heard a shell in the air; no witness heard a shell strike the ship ... no splash of the projectile was seen." But (according to one quartermaster): "The submarine conning tower [unmarked] broke surface about 800 yards on the port quarter. ... A gun or explosive signal was fired. . . . The smoke from this discharge blew down over the Athenia and a distinct smell of cordite was recognized...
...said, "As we expected"; a few shouted, "Long live Smigly-Rydz!" but most just read and walked on. Since most reserves had already been called up, the decree was only a signal: the button had been pressed...
...borders, for example, are reported about 100 small, telegraphic transmitters, some of which have lately been suspected of sending off streams of dashes to hedge off U. S. short-wave radio transmissions to Italy. Each such transmitter, radio engineers know, could be operated to transmit a "sawtooth" signal which could affect all broadcasting on a band 300 kilocycles wide (as much air space as 30 U. S. stations occupy...