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Updated: July 4, 2025
One night during a heavy raid in Paris, when the French were safely hidden in the "abris," because they had sense enough to protect themselves, I saw about twenty sober but hilarious American soldiers marching down the middle of the boulevard, arm in arm, singing "Sweet Adelaide" at the top of their voices, while the bombs were dropping all over Paris, and a continuous barrage from the anti-aircraft guns was cannonading until it sounded like a great front-line battle.
But during the first spring of the War I know of at least one enthusiast who did his utmost, metaphorically speaking, to beat his sword into a plowshare, and to turn aside at every opportunity from the duty of killing Germans to the pleasures of growing potatoes. He was a gunner in the detachment of the Blue Marines, which ran a couple of armored motor-cars carrying anti-aircraft guns.
Only too soon the anti-aircraft started their harassing fire, throwing up a startling number of nerve-racking, high explosive shells, each one a curling black sausage of hate and steel splinters. When we were some way over my machine lagged behind the rest. The engine spluttered intermittently and could not be induced to go at all well.
All I know is that they entertained us from time to time, with no apparent damage. Archie quickly distracted our attention from the phantom pillar. We had been drifted to just south of Lille, possibly the hottest spot on the whole western front as regards anti-aircraft fire. Seeing one machine four to five thousand feet below its companions, the gunners very naturally concentrated on it.
Looking down he saw fifty stabbing pencils of flame flickering from fifty A-A guns. Every available piece of anti-aircraft artillery was turned upon the fleecy mass. As Tam circled he saw white specks rising swiftly from the direction of the aerodrome and knew that the fighting squadron, full of fury, was on its way up.
More enemy planes came over, one even after dark, a most unusual thing, flying very low indeed, under a heavy fire of anti-aircraft Batteries and machine guns from the ground. Our planes had been very scarce all day. They had nearly all gone north. For the time being we had quite lost the command of the air in this sector.
Beside the flying defences there were the floating defences. Anti-aircraft guns were mounted on different types of ships stationed far out from the shore and ever on the watch. But these latter were of comparatively little avail, for flying over the Channel or the North Sea the invaders naturally flew at a great height.
And, thanks to this, Tom saw that, if nothing else happened, he would soon be in comparative safety with the unconscious form of Jack. The anti-aircraft batteries were firing in vain, as he was beyond their range, and, far away, he could see the lines of the French armies, behind which he soon hoped to be.
The two other machines had vanished in the darkness, doubtless cleaving the higher air strata in a backward flight to the home aerodrome, which was now the goal of all. Meantime searchlights were flashing here, there, yonder through the inky sky. The swift reports of anti-aircraft guns split the night's silence in a most disconcerting manner. Erwin groaned and twisted his body. "Stay still, Orry!
This arrangement enables the arm to cover a wide range, while it also admits of training through an extensive angle of elevation. The Allied forces improvised travelling anti-aircraft offences by mounting the latest types of Vickers, Hotchkiss, and other machine guns in armoured motor cars.
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