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Updated: June 4, 2025
There are dead lines in the air, no less than on the earth. Archibald, the anti-aircraft gun, sets the dead line. He watches over it as a cat watches a mouse. The trick of sneaking up under cover of a noonday cloud and all the other man-bird tricks he knows. A couple of seconds after that crack a tiny puff of smoke breaks about a hundred yards behind the Taube.
They know that anti-aircraft preparations are likely to increase rather than decrease, and while, for the sake of saving the nation's "face," it will be necessary that Zeppelins be further used, the people who are directing the war know that, so far as land warfare is concerned, they are not a factor.
I had been walking parallel to it for some distance when a British aeroplane dropped some bombs too close to be pleasant, causing quite a stir in the wood, shortly followed by an anti-aircraft gun opening fire not far away. To what was it due?
These last fly high; in the clear blue of the early morning they look exactly like gnats; some trail a little smoke in the sunshine; they take their machine guns in pursuit over the German lines, and the German anti-aircraft guns, the Archibalds, begin to pattern the sky about them with little balls of black smoke.
It was now quite daylight; our aeroplanes were flitting across the sky, diving low to obtain better observation of the enemy, and incidentally getting "strafed" by his anti-aircraft guns which did not interest them in the least. "What time is zero-hour?" I asked. "Twelve-thirty," was the reply.
Just above us is hanging a German taube, obviously watching us and the automobile which we had left below in the road, while the British huge anti-aircraft guns near by are feeling for it, shot after shot. We duck into our little Y M C A dugout, just under the crest of the ridge.
They had no targets there to seek, steered by their compasses, and were entirely indifferent to the prospect beneath them. Moreover anti-aircraft guns, hard to train effectively from an immovable mount, were particularly untrustworthy when fired from the deck of a rolling and tossing ship in the turbulent Channel.
There is a romance about the work of both that attracts adventurous youth, and neither is as dangerous as it appears to a layman. In the element of the airman he is a difficult target to hit, and it is estimated that it takes thirty thousand anti-aircraft shells to bring him down. And his machine is now so perfect that peace flying will be much safer than motoring.
The American Escadrille was sent to Luxeuil primarily to acquire the team work necessary to a flying unit. Then, too, the new pilots needed a taste of anti-aircraft artillery to familiarize them with the business of aviation over a battlefield. They shot well in that sector, too. Thaw's machine was hit at an altitude of 13,000 feet.
The bird kept on his downward plunge until he reached his objective, and as he dove into the vultures, our anti-aircraft guns, which had been endeavoring to wing the German birds, ceased fire and all eyes were turned heavenward. With bated breath we watched and waited the outcome. The Fritzies spread out in circle formation, with a view to surrounding it, each a little higher than the other.
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