German soldiers arriving one morning at Cambrai by train found
themselves under the fire of a single airplane which flew very low and
dropped bombs. They exploded with heavy crashes, and one bomb hit the
first carriage behind the engine, killing and wounding several men. A
second bomb hit the station buildings, and there was a clatter of
broken glass, the rending of wood, and the fall of bricks. All lights
went out, and the German soldiers groped about in the darkness amid
the splinters of glass and the fallen bricks, searching for the
wounded by the sound of their groans. It was but one scene along the
way to that blood-bath through which they had to wade to the trenches
of the Somme.
Flights of British airplanes circled over the villages on the way. At
Grevilliers, in August, eleven 112-16 bombs fell in the market square,
so that the center of the village collapsed in a state of ruin,
burying soldiers billeted there. Every day the British airmen paid
these visits, meeting the Germans far up the roads on their way to the
Somme, and swooping over them like a flying death.
Pages:
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752