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Updated: June 29, 2025
Lieutenant Bridgeman went out over the German line and "strafed" a depot. He stayed a while to locate a new gun position and was caught between three strong batteries of Archies. "Reports?" said the wing commander. "Well, Bridgeman isn't back and Tam said he saw him nose-dive behind the German trenches."
In spite of his wound, which was increasingly painful and made him fight hard to retain consciousness until he got home with his plane, he made a fine nose-dive that gave him a clear road to his own lines, and managed to dodge cleverly once on his way back when the German Archies began to place shells unpleasantly close.
At last directly over the front train, with machine guns, Archies, and rifles peppering away at him, he let go with one side of his bomb rack. With the sound of the resultant explosion he wheeled and let go the other. Both racks landed directly upon the leading train loaded, as Blaine suspected, with all sorts of ammunition.
But the sight of their own planes pursuing, and at the same time signaling to their friends below, caused Erwin at once to become the target for a continuous line of Archies, extending from the front line German trenches way back to the unknown distances in their rear.
Our flying scouts, however low they flew, risking the Archies and machine-gun bullets, often mistook khaki for field gray, and came back with false reports which led to tragedy. People who read my war despatches will remember my first descriptions of the tanks and those of other correspondents.
Archie swung his plane now this way now that to render the aim of the "Archies" below ineffective, smiling to himself, to think that the nickname given to the anti-aircraft guns was his own given name. "We are providing amusement for a pretty big audience, below there," thought Archie.
Being cut off from retreat towards his own lines, he struck straight across towards No-Man's-Land with the big biplane full pursuit and still firing. Meantime Bangs took after the other, bringing it down under a detached fire from the Archies who were naturally more cautious now in firing, owing to the fear of hitting one of their own planes.
When it is remembered that a single machine crossing the line is heavily shelled it may be conceived what an immense concentration of "Archies" is made on the raiders on their return. It is remarkable what feeble results are obtained considering the intensity of the bombardment, but rarely is a machine brought down, though casualties naturally occur occasionally.
The moment that a German flier takes the air, half a dozen Allied airmen rise to meet and engage him, and, in the rare event of his being able to elude them and get over the Allied lines, the "Archies," as the anti-aircraft guns are called on the British front, get into noisy action.
The guns did not see him until too late. Away to his right, two Archies crashed and missed him by the length of a street. He slowly flattened before he came over a gun which stood upon a big motor-trolley screened by canvas and reeds, and he was not fifty yards from the ground when he released, with almost one motion, every bomb he carried.
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