Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 4, 2025
If one German plane could descend to an altitude of a thousand feet, its photographs would reveal the location of a hundred batteries to German gunners and show the plan of concentration clearly enough to leave no doubt of the line of attack; but the anti-aircraft guns, plentiful now as other British material, would have caught it going, if not coming, provided it escaped being jockeyed to death by half a dozen British planes with their machine guns rattling.
With a look of contempt he further informed us that the allied anti-aircraft shells when exploding emitted white smoke while the German shells gave forth black smoke, and, as he expressed it, "It must be an Allemand because our pom-poms are shelling, and I know our batteries are not off their bally nappers and are certainly not strafeing our own planes, and another piece of advice don't chuck your weight about until you've been up the line and learnt something."
They came again at midnight and because there were no anti-aircraft guns near by the allies until those August and September German raids never had dreamed that hospitals would be raided they came again swooping low and turned their machine guns on the doctors and the nurses in the compound who were taking the wounded out of the burning building.
Another aeroplane scare; town emptied itself once more. Dr. MacLaren and I rushed off to the anti-aircraft guns, hoping to get some photos; but nothing occurred. Got the Rudnik car running by taking Mr. McBlack's useless car to pieces. In the evening two sisters went to Uskub. One of the sisters went to get her bag, and I took what I thought to be a short cut to help her.
A German attack developed, and the airman likens the enemy's advance formation to a "large human tadpole" a long dense column with the head spread out in front. Evidently the anti-aircraft guns, though rather terrifying, do very little damage. Airmen have had shells burst all round them for a long time without being hurt. Of course they are careful to fly at a high altitude.
The skipper thought we'd better get another anti-aircraft battery up this way, and I was superintendin' the job. He's afraid of the Hun gettin' over your lines and spying out the nakedness of the land. For, you know, we're uncommon naked, sir. Also, and Archie's face became grave, 'the Hun's pourin' divisions down on this sector.
By effect of the enemy's shells you judge what the effect of yours must be. Months of experience have done away with all theories and practice has become much the same by either adversary. For example, let a German or a British airman be winged by anti-aircraft gun-fire and the guns instantly loosen up on the point over his own lines, if he regains them, where he is seen to fall.
We are looking at one far up seemingly soaring in peace like a graceful bird poised in the air, when suddenly we see it surrounded by a dozen little white patches of smoke which show that it has come within range of the enemy's anti-aircraft guns and the clouds of shrapnel are bursting about it. Most of them break wide of the mark and it sails on unscathed over the enemy's lines.
That morning the anti-aircraft gunners seemed unusually accurate. The third shell burst not far below the plane, and two bits of the projectile punctured the canvas with an odd "zipp." Some shells came so close that the explosions gave the machine a distinct airshock, though no other shell struck the plane.
At the beginning of the war the R.N.A.S. assumed responsibility for the defence of Great Britain against attacks by hostile aircraft, and a scheme for the defence of London and other large towns was entrusted to an anti-aircraft section of the Admiralty Air Department.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking