The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1918-03-07

4
s9o1 - man can enxse whom he
Safeee Atmself.". ''stopare!" he
Anaseea ana took on his tin hat and
tleAgeA q down onto the compound
pavement and went and picked It up
and jerked Il onto his head again.
90 they laid on that rag OF cloud.
II bearing. sir!"
'.0unfre!"
Z bang! And the terrific refrain Of
Zee yah vi bang shook itself out
again. For twelve minutes they rip
oea and tore that rag Of cloud to
pieces.
Later on. control spoke to the tele-
phonist and the telephonist spoke to
the second lieutenant and another
parrage was put up. Now II you
have any notion that London's air
raid barrage consists Of continuous
vertical curtain of steel circling the
metropolis. forget it. Four or I'VE
bafrages may be put up in a single
each nuing small and evry definite
arc OF sky with bursting shells at the
elevation and in the path which the
sigat and sound OF oGthas indicate.
Yet. despite the swift and nice ef-
fectiveness with which 1t Is employ
"a the barrage isn't q nice thing to
think about. To throw away all the
beautiful eyes and nerves of q beau
uful gun (and none Is q finer organ
tsE thEn Archibald) and to prosti-
tute 1t to the pumping Of shells at
blank area Of empty sky, is enough
to make born gunnery officer turn
pacinst, However. the barrage will
be best appreciated when one first
understands that there is something
new under the moon. It is this
whole science Of anti-aircraft gunnery
OF which the latest phase is this de-
tense against night Gotha raids. it
ts toward the solution of this brand
new problem in gunnery that the
sample blind barrage is one of the
original guesses and still one Of the
staple and old reliables.
OF course. fresh ideas have been
pouring into the problem and today
The barrage is merely one letter out
OF the alphabet Of A-A gunnery (but
sthis is neither the time nor the
place, 1t will be understood, to go
INTO the others). 1t may be noted,
however. by way of showing the as
stounding progress A-A gunnery has
made. that the night Zeppelin men
zee has been overcome, and the day
Light Gotha menace. One Is justified
m concluding that before long no
night Gotha raider who is caught
over the London defense area will
emerge alive.
At 1910 p. m. the electric gong
split the silence again.
1t was all over as abruptly as if
had begun. The sky was empty
SagRin. The birds had flown.
The second lieutenant took his
eyes of the beam. blinked and rub
bed his aching neck.
"Close down and replace stores"
called the sergeant. and the junior
N. G. @. unfastened his numb fingers
from the traversing arm. and No. 2
ran out of focus enthusiastically.
Zone could imagine the all clear
bugles in LondonD Darkness ran
down the miles of the beams length
almost instantly. and we stood in the
dumb. blank starlight.
One coughed then at suddenly
finding the night full of acrid pow
der smoke, and one suddenly found
the night was cold. So we left the
night to the moon and the mangold
wurzels and returned to the white
warmth of the second lieutenant's
room, where an orderly was restor-
ing order aut of the chaos occasion
ed by the conclusions, where our
two trays of dinner were waiting and
wher the second lieutenant said
eavagely that that was that.
1t was ultimately discovered that
later In the night q broken propeller