World Battlefronts: Ducks & Men

Warmly bundled up against the winter wind, an amateur ornithologist snooped around the shore line of Long Island last week to see what the scum of oil from torpedoed tankers was doing to the wild fowl. Oil is bad for ducks. It gets into their feathers and feed, makes them sick, keeps them from flying. The birdman was relieved to see only one miserable, oil-smeared duck.

Oil on the sea is bad for men, too, especially when it catches fire. There were stones last week of intolerable exposure, of hunger and thirst in lifeboats,...

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