five-nine's

Updated: May 6, 2025

Then about two hundred yards to our left in a large field, four columns of black earth and smoke rose into the air, and the ground trembled from the report, the explosion of four German five-nine's, or "coal-boxes." A sharp whistle blast, immediately followed by two short ones, rang out from the head of our column. This was to take up "artillery formation."

Arthur Guy Empey - Over the Top