"Howitzer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hallett,—this being by far the largest vessel, and carrying most of the men. Major Strong was in command upon the "John Adams," an army gunboat, carrying a thirty-pound Parrott gun, two ten-pound Parrotts, and an eight-inch howitzer Captain Trowbridge (since promoted Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment) had charge of the famous "Planter," brought away from the Rebels by Robert Small; she carried a ten-pound Parrott gun, and two howitzers. The John Adams was our main reliance. She was an old East-Boston ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... comparatively narrow front poured in a great volume of fire. From the right came the roar of the British batteries, from the left the rolling thunder of the soixante-quinze, and every now and then above the turmoil rose a dull boom as a huge howitzer shell burst in the vicinity of Ypres. On the right our infantry stormed the German trenches close to St. Julien, and in the evening gained the southern outskirts of the village. In the centre they captured ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Johnson'd wander round to the back of the house and pretty soon come front again with a dog bigger'n any four decent dogs ought to be. And then s'posin' Johnson'd let go of that dog and set him on you, and he'd come at you like a sixteen-inch shell out of a howitzer, and you'd get scary about it and try to hold the dog with your eye, and couldn't. And s'posin' you'd suddenly conclude that maybe your kind of an eye wasn't calculated to hold that kind of a dog, and ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and let off a heavy howitzer; which I did, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... rumour is fear. The famous concrete emplacement at Maubeuge will serve as an instance. We had the most elaborate details of how the property was acquired by German agents, how in secret the concrete platform was laid down, and how the great 42-cm. howitzer shelled Maubeuge from it. And instantly we heard of concrete emplacements in this country—at Willesden, Edinburgh, and elsewhere. We began to suspect every one who had a garage or a machine shop with a concrete foundation of being ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... said a Hoxton man in the Royal Fusiliers. "Reminds me of our howitzer shells in the Boer War; they used to let off a lot of stuff that turned yellow. I've seen Boers—hairy men, you know, sir—with their beards turned all yellow by them. Regular hair-restorers, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Here we spent the night in huts. Before daybreak we were shelled and had one man killed. Day showed an extraordinary sight. Bouzincourt stands on the hill, the battle area stretched out like a map below. Near the Crucifix on the Aveluy road a long naval gun barked. Just behind us was a 15 inch howitzer. Its shells could easily be watched in their flight overhead. In front were an infinite number of guns all in action. A long line of observation balloons made a crescent round Albert. One could count over ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... accommodations, from the ordinary arrangements of vessels of war of the same description and force as the "Rover;" but Wilder had not failed to remark that the bulkheads which separated the cabins from the birth-deck, or the part occupied by the crew, were far stouter than common, and that a small howitzer was at hand, to be used, as a physician might say, internally, should occasion require. The doors were of extraordinary strength, and the means of barricadoing them resembled more a preparation for battle, than the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... orders to haul down the State flag from this building." ... As soon as the two officers left the room Mr. Monroe also went out. Descending the front steps he walked out into the street, and placed himself immediately in front of the howitzer pointing down St. Charles Street. There, folding his arms, he fixed his eyes upon the gunner who stood, lanyard in hand, ready for action. Here he remained without once looking up or moving, until the flag had been hauled down ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... indicated this, and a scattering fire was opened. This, however, was at once checked by the shout of the officer to dash forward with all speed after the enemy. As the mass of Russians rushed from the village, the howitzer in the bows of the launch poured a volley of grape into them, and checked their advance. However, from along the bushes on either side fresh assailants ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... here and there at angles of the covert. Steady! Steady! Here they are, following the lead of yon fine old cock; with a whirr and a rush the bouquet is upon us. The shikari, mad with excitement, presses the second Gatling and the light Howitzer into our hands as he screams: 'Bear to right, sahib!—Bear over!!—Bear ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... Morena's dusky height Sustains aloft the battery's iron load, And, far as mortal eye can compass sight, The mountain-howitzer, the broken road, The bristling palisade, the foss o'erflowed, The stationed band, the never-vacant watch, The magazine in rocky durance stand, The holster'd steed beneath the shed of thatch, The ball-piled pyramid, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... was in the German woman's, as in every German's, nature. It had been in the Frenchwoman's in Napoleon's time. Many racial hates the war has developed; but that of the German is a seventeen-inch-howitzer, asphyxiating-gas hate. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... overboard every thing movable on the brig. Not all these petty encounters ended so favorably for the enemy. Off New York a cutting-out party of volunteers surprised and captured the British tender "Eagle," a small craft carrying one thirty-two-pound howitzer, and fourteen men. Ten days later, the frigate "Tenedos," which had done such good service on the blockade, suffered the loss of her tender, which was gallantly carried away by the crew of a Yankee ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... inn, took the head of the horses from the coachman, and, limping along with his club-foot, led them to the door of the "Lion d'Or", where a number of peasants collected to look at the carriage. The drum beat, the howitzer thundered, and the gentlemen one by one mounted the platform, where they sat down in red utrecht velvet arm-chairs that had been lent ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... the brakemen who permitted passengers from these suburbs to straggle leisurely aboard instead of flogging them in with knotted whips. When the express stopped at Trenton, Aubrey could easily have turned a howitzer upon that innocent city and blasted it into rubble. An unexpected stop at Princeton Junction was the last straw. Aubrey addressed the conductor in terms that were highly treasonable, considering that this official was ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... from the fort and 3 miles from the Lower Agency. A second detachment under Colonel McPhail, consisting of the Hickory Guards (Company B), Sigel Guards (Company E), Young Men's Guard (Company G), of the Sixth Regiment, under Major McLaren, also some cavalry and one howitzer under Captain Mark Hendricks, was at once sent forward to their relief. When within three miles of the beleaguered force, the demonstrations of the Indians became so threatening—coming near enough to shoot one of the horses—that the commander of the relieving party, not daring to fight his way ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... the castle. The troops then advanced towards the fortress, which is described to have had walls fourteen feet thick, pierced with loop holes, and only one entrance through a small gate, well cased with iron bars and bolts, in the strongest manner. With a howitzer taken for the occasion, it was intended to have blown this gate open, and to have taken the place by storm; but on reaching it while the ranks opened, and the men sought to surround the castle to seek for ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... June, our armies concentrated a very great number of guns behind the front of the battle. The guns were of every kind, from the field gun to the heaviest howitzer. Together they made what was at that time by far the most terrible concentration of artillery ever known upon a battlefield. Vast stores of shells of every known kind were made ready, and ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield
... invested with any considerable Revolutionary romance. In 1779, the British forces holding Savannah sent two hundred troops with a howitzer and two field-pieces to Beaufort. Four companies of militia from Charleston with two field-pieces, reinforced by a few volunteers from Beaufort, repulsed and drove them off. The British made marauding incursions from Charleston ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in order to give them practical experience. Of the four that were attached to this gun two had already been wounded. It was glorious to see these lads of fifteen and sixteen daily withstanding the onslaught of the mighty naval guns. The rocks around their howitzer were torn by lyddite, and the ground strewn with ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... the enemy endeavored to make use of his immense cavalry corps; but the incessant volleys of musketry, the blasting canister, the terrible bayonets, stopped short the charge. Murat was manoeuvring on the flank with two light-battery guns and a howitzer, which dealt death to ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... of trunnions to mount them like long guns; these trunnions, however, were, contrary to the usual practice, placed so that their centre intersected a line through the centre of the bore of the gun. They were mounted on ten-inch howitzer carriages, which answered the purpose admirably. The shells used were generally strapped to wooden bottoms; but they were more than once employed without any precaution, except that of putting them in the gun with the fusees towards the muzzle. The hot shot were heated in the engine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... staff, quarter staff; bat, cane, stick, knuckle duster; billy, blackjack, sandbag, waddy[obs3]. gun, piece[Fr]; firearms; artillery, ordnance; siege train, battering train; park, battery; cannon, gun of position, heavy gun, field piece[Fr], mortar, howitzer, carronade[obs3], culverin[obs3], basilisk; falconet, jingal[obs3], swivel, pederero[obs3], bouche a feu[Fr]; petard, torpedo; mitrailleur[Fr], mitrailleuse[Fr]; infernal machine; smooth bore, rifled cannon, Armstrong gun[obs3], Lancaster gun, Paixhan gun, Whitworth ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... aviation, and tanks. In order to meet our requirements as rapidly as possible, we accepted the offer of the French Government to provide us with the necessary artillery equipment of seventy-fives, one fifty-five millimeter howitzer, and one fifty-five G. P. F. gun, from their own factories for each of the thirty divisions. The wisdom of this course is fully demonstrated by the fact that, although we soon began the manufacture of these classes ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... with certain well-known words. Is it understood, for instance, why the word "Sword" is always poetical and in "the grand style," while the word "Zeppelin" or "Submarine" or "Gatling gun" or "Howitzer" can only be introduced by Free Versifiers, who let the "grand style" go to the Devil? The word "Sword" like the word "Plough," has gathered about it the human associations of innumerable centuries, and it is impossible to utter it without feeling something of their pressure ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... approach to the island was blocked by the American expedition. The winding of the river placed her present anchorage within gunshot of the lake; but as she could not be seen through the brush, Sinclair borrowed from the army a howitzer, with which, mounted in the open beyond, he succeeded in firing both the "Nancy" and the blockhouse defending the position. The British were thus deprived of their last resource for transportation in bulk upon the lake. What this meant to Mackinac may be inferred from the fact that flour ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... one platoon of "C" Company actually advanced on Oppy to capture it, but were themselves taken prisoners after severe fighting. During this advance one 77mm., two field guns, and one 4.2 howitzer were captured, and whilst moving forward, at the Colonel's side, to the railway embankment, the Adjutant of the Battalion, Captain Lissaman, was killed by an ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... the flagship, so to speak, was to be the "Ben De Ford," Captain Hallet,—this being by far the largest vessel, and carrying most of the men. Major Strong was in command upon the "John Adams," an army gunboat, carrying a thirty-pound Parrott gun, two ten-pound Parrotts, and an eight-inch howitzer. Captain Trowbridge (since promoted Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment) had charge of the famous "Planter," brought away from the Rebels by Robert Small; she carried a ten-pound Parrott gun, and two howitzers. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... announced his submission to the inevitable, and Captain Bailey hoisted the flag on the mint. The next day it was hauled down by a party of four citizens; in consequence of which act, the flag-officer, on the 29th, sent ashore a battalion of 250 marines, accompanied by a howitzer battery in charge of two midshipmen, the whole under command of the fleet-captain. By them the flags were rehoisted and the buildings guarded, until General Butler arrived on the evening of May 1st, when the city was turned ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... boatswain among them—are toiling on the wet deck to give a last signal from the little brass howitzer on the forecastle. As the sharp crack breaks on the air,—a miniature sound in that howl of the storm,—the red flash of the gun gives Reuben, as the boat lurches toward the wreck again, a last glance of Madam Maverick,—her hands clasped, her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... flinging over large numbers of shells, of all sizes and types, which caused a heavy toll in casualties to us; while our gunners were strictly limited to a few rounds a day, and cursed bitterly because they could not "answer back." In March of 1915 I saw the first fifteen-inch howitzer open fire. We called this monster "grandma," and there was a little group of generals on the Scherpenberg, near Kemmel, to see the effect of the first shell. Its target was on the lower slope of the ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the warbrig Carnation. Though he was in neutral water, they paid no heed to this but determined to destroy a Yankee schooner which had played havoc with their shipping. Four hundred men in twelve boats, with a howitzer in the bow of each boat, were sent against the General Armstrong in one flotilla. But not a man of the four hundred gained her deck. Said an eyewitness: "The Americans fought with great firmness but more ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... feet long over all, not quite half the length of Johnson's Colorado. Amidships she was open, but the bow was decked, and at the stern was a cabin, seven by eight feet, the top of which formed an outlook. For armament, she was supplied on the bow with a four-pound howitzer, though this weapon was not likely to be of much service. When the anticipated flood arrived on the night of December 30th, steam was turned on at the critical moment, the engines worked the stern-wheel, and Lieutenant Ives had the satisfaction of seeing the Explorer, under the bright ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... 19th of April he left the armory-door of the Seventh, with his hand upon a howitzer; on the 21st of June his body lay upon the same howitzer at the same door, wrapped in the flag for which he gladly died, as the symbol of human freedom. And so, drawn by the hands of young men lately strangers to him, but of whose bravery and loyalty ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... would not so far disobey the governor as to throw open the gates. On the other hand no argument could prevail on them to fire on the advancing party. In the teeth of all the batteries, Buonaparte calmly planted a howitzer or two, and blew the gates open, and then, as if the spell of discipline were at once dissolved, the garrison broke from their lines, and he in an instant found himself dragged from his horse, and borne aloft on these men's shoulders towards the principal inn of the place, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... worth, a lot of fearful creatures came rushing up the mountain and said there was a war and that he was an alien enemy and that he was making signals and that his big telescope was a new sort of howitzer; and they pushed him down the mountain, and broke his telescope and all his lenses, and tore up his note-books, and shook their fists at him and used such language that he said for the first time in his life he was sorry he was such a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... catch her!" says the pilot. A wave of the hand, and the Spitfire is alongside, running up like a dog to its master. Lieutenant Bishop, Pilot Bixby, and a gun crew jump on board the tug, which carries a boat howitzer. Away they go, the tug puffing and wheezing, as ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... 15 pr. and a 4-inch howitzer fired at intervals of five minutes from 8 till 4; most of them within 500 or 600 yards—a very tiresome procedure; much of it is on registered roads. In the morning I walked out to Le Touret to the wagon lines, got Bonfire, and rode to the headquarters ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... trade. Why not? His son went to the war—and he lost him. His speech on the Military Service Act was in many respects the best of all in that debate, not in rhetoric, but in logical virility. It was a howitzer broadside, slow, deliberate, but every shot a hit. His old leader had already declined a belated offer of Coalition and was now opposing conscription and arguing for amendment by Referendum. In all his life ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... get my twenty-four pound howitzer in a good position I will make the place so hot in a dozen hours that the blackguards will curse their unlucky stars that caused them to unlimber for action in such an owl's nest as that," put in another of the party, an artillery officer, attached ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... an intermittent fire, and waited for reinforcements. For almost two hours this desultory firing continued. With the cessation of the storm and arrival of broad daylight, six more boats attempted to reach the Queenston landing. One boat was sunk by a discharge of grape from Dennis's howitzer; another, with Colonel Fenwick, of the U.S. artillery, was swept below the landing to a cove where, in the attack by Cameron's volunteers that followed, Fenwick, terribly wounded, was, with most of ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... says John Tom, 'what are you gunning for with that howitzer? You might hit somebody in the eye. Come out, Jeff, and mind the steak. Don't let it burn, while I investigate this demon ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... mainsail when Leary happened to look over his shoulder. With the wind of the frequently recurring squalls taking hold of the great sail, they had a hard task to get it up; but at last it was set; and then they trimmed in the main-sheet, while Leary ran forward to the howitzer. ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... light 32-pounders and nine-inch pivot gun; the steamer Jackson (Captain Renshaw), with two pivoted smooth bore 32-pounders; the small ironplated "Ram" Manassas (Captain Warley), carrying one 32-pounder carronade in the bow; and two launches, each carrying a howitzer and a crew of twenty men. There were also present, at the time the passage was forced by the U. S. fleet, two Louisiana State gunboats, viz., the "Governor Moore," Captain Kennon, carrying two 32-pounder rifled guns, and the "General Quitman," with a similar battery. These were converted ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... field gun and the howitzer is that the latter can be pointed at a high angle, to assail infantry protected by intrenchments, or for ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... time for my first day in the trenches. It was always said that the Germans got a fresh supply of ammunition at the week-end, and Sunday was scarcely ever a day of rest. However that may be, this Sunday was the worst day I had for some time. After sending over a few small howitzer shells, the German field-guns sent periodical showers of shells, 'whizz-bangs' we called them, on to the support trench ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... was the howitzer, or mortar, of its day and could throw a hundred-pound stone 600 yards in a high arc to strike the enemy behind his wall or batter down his defenses. "In the middle of the ropes a wooden arm rises like a chariot pole," wrote the historian Marcellinus. "At the top of the arm hangs ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... for example, if one knows that a howitzer gun drops its shells, while an ordinary field gun fires them to all intents ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... which was extended over the whole length of the boat, was a conning tower. In the after portion of the boat, and beneath the upper deck, were cabins for officers. Each boat carried a twelve-pounder quick-firing gun forward, a howitzer, and four Maxims. The craft were a hundred and thirty-five feet long, with a beam of twenty-four feet, and drew only three feet and a half of water. They were ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... Trevino, situated between Vittoria and the Ebro, and at only three or four hours' march from the cantonments of Valdes's army, fell into the hands of the Carlists. Assembling thirteen battalions at the Venta of Armentia, Zumalacarregui brought up his artillery, consisting of one cannon and one howitzer, with which in two days he forced the place to capitulate. Although Valdes, from where he was, could hear the sound of the guns, he did not venture to show himself till the Carlists had destroyed the fortifications, and effected ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... the Vindictive's foremost 7.5-inch howitzer's marine crew. Many were killed or wounded. A naval crew from a 6-inch gun took their places ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... Tom's Cabin, after biting the triggers off all the guns, and pulling his wig well down over his eyes"—imitating the action—"will sally forth into the limpid limelights, and after he has been shot once in the face by a 16-inch howitzer and has been played upon in the rear by a battery of machine guns, he will limp on with the regular limp of the old Virginia servant and die at your feet, but not until I have whispered their secret into the ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... immediately reported to the commanding officer and informed him of all that had happened. The commandant at once ordered a company of cavalry and one of infantry to proceed to Plum Creek on a forced march—taking a howitzer with them—to endeavor to recapture ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... reserve ammunition. Brewster came upon two powder tumbrils of the Nassau division, and succeeded, after menacing the drivers with his musket, in inducing them to convey their powder to Hougoumont. In his absence, however, the hedges surrounding the position had been set on fire by a howitzer battery of the French, and the passage of the carts full of powder became a most hazardous matter. The first tumbril exploded, blowing the driver to fragments. Daunted by the fate of his comrade, the second driver turned his horses, but Corporal Brewster, springing upon his seat, hurled the man ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Robinson and Colonel Lane were appointed to command. Four or five small redoubts, connected by rifle-pits, were hastily thrown up; and by a clever artifice they succeeded in bringing a twelve-pound brass howitzer from its storage at Kansas City. Meantime the committee of safety, earnestly denying any wrongful act or purpose, sent an urgent appeal for protection to the commander of the United States forces at Fort Leavenworth, another to Congress, and ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... command, had, however, a howitzer and a small gun, and eighty French troops, but he gave orders that these should not reply to the fire of the gun-boats, and that not a musket should be discharged until he gave the word. The two small ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... all directions, the infantry on whom devolved the honor of capturing the village, waited. One saw them standing out in the open, laughing and cracking jokes amid the terrific din made by the huge howitzer shells screeching overhead and bursting in the village, the rattle of machine guns all along the line, and the popping of rifles. Over to the right where the Garhwalis had been working with the bayonet, men were shouting hoarsely and wounded were groaning ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... "Oh, we have one howitzer, and small-arms for the men, and we will have to get along the best way we can with these; but the owners ought never to send us here ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... open the trenches of both sides, and buried one of the British magazines which was filled with hand grenades and killed several British bomb throwers. At about the same moment another supply of British bombs was exploded when it was struck by a shell from a German howitzer. This occurred at a place on the line called Duck's Bill, and resulted in the British being without an adequate supply of hand grenades. The British troops in this action were the soldiers of a British division and a Canadian brigade. The latter included the First Ontario Regiment, the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... Of all sights to be seen in this place, however, the reclamation "plant" is the most wonderful. It covers acres. Everything which is broken in war, from a pair of officer's field-glasses to a nine-inch howitzer carriage is mended here —if it can be mended. Here, when a battle-field is cleared, every article that can possibly be used again is brought; and the manager pointed with pride to the furnaces in his power-house, which formerly burned coal and now are fed with refuse—broken ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Happy, and get us a few. You've got your howitzer buckled on," fleered Andy Green. Andy it was whose fertile imagination had so christened ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... to bring our 12-pounders into action. The drift over the Tugela, about half-a-mile to our right front, had been seized by Dundonald, and a howitzer battery had been pushed across some 2,000 yards nearer than ourselves, supported by the King's Royal Rifles, the Scottish Rifles, the Durhams, and the Borderers; to our right front was also to be seen the Engineer balloon, under ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... the force I possess," he said doubtfully. "It seems impossible to dislodge those rascals back yonder. What we need is a field howitzer." ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... "As I see the situation, one of us—presumably you—will presently be the central figure in a court-martial or police court on a charge of abducting an innocent female. The remaining reels in the film will be devoted to Teddy chasing you with a 5.9 howitzer for jeopardizing his connubial happiness. But these unhappy concluding incidents may be averted if you return the wrongful lady to her rightful owner before Teddy gets back. So we'll take the necessary ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... are terrific. At the present moment a howitzer is going strong behind this, and the concussion is tremendous. The noise is like dropping a traction-engine on a huge tin tray. A shell passing away from you over your head is like the loud crackling of a newspaper close to your ear. It makes a sort of deep reverberating crackle ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... and the loud clang of the trumpet. Perhaps the acute pain of my swollen and suffering arm gave the character to my mental aberration; for I have more than once observed among the wounded in battle, that even when torn and mangled by grape from a howitzer, their ravings have partaken of a high feature of enthusiasm,—shouts of triumph and exclamations of pleasure, even songs have I heard, but never once the low muttering of despair or the half-stifled ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... a number of attacks had been launched by the British against the village of St. Julien. The stalwart Irish and Highland Regiments had forced their way a number of times into the blood-soaked streets of the village, only to be driven out again with a murderous machine gun and howitzer fire. There was not much of the place left. Every house had been set on fire and the pavements were a shambles. Highlanders, Irish Fusiliers, Canadians and Huns had fought it out in the crooked streets hand to hand. As the shades of evening fell over the scene the German still ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... morning of 22nd July, a large number of officers assembled at the Abbassieh ranges to watch the result of the experiments of the sham bombardment. Lieutenant-General Sir Francis Grenfell and staff, Major-General Lyttelton, and many others were present. It was arranged that the new 5-inch howitzer battery, with the "Lyddite" or high explosive shells, was to make the first attempt to breach or throw down the wall. There were six of these new howitzers, and they were worked by the 37th Field Battery, commanded ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... even play good poker, are powerful only on dress parade. We have a few militia companies, scattered from Sunrise to Lake Chance, composed chiefly of boys and commanded by home-made colonels, who couldn't hit a flock o' barns with a howitzer loaded to scatter; who show up at state encampments attired in gaudy uniforms that would make Solomon ashamed, and armed with so-called swords that wouldn't cut hot butter or perforate a rubber boot. And that's ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... A howitzer battery was shelling the enemy from the wood on the left, and the Germans were replying with "crumps," which luckily all ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... Lieutenant Cushing replied. His reply was not in words, however, but in a howitzer load of canister which drove across the Albemarle's deck. The next minute the bow of the launch struck the logs. As had been expected, the light craft slid up on their slippery surfaces, forcing them down into the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... he said, "went off very well last night. All the models performed their duty, and were duly applauded for doing so. My new equatorial was approved of by astronomers and by instrument-makers. The last gun I fired was a howitzer, but mounted swivel-gun fashion; on a sort of revolving platform, or something like a turn-table proper —the gunner at the side of the carriage. Do you know anything of the kind? Bang! Invented by one Nasmyth. Bang! The observer is sitting at ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... near him to shoot "that —— ——," calling him a fearfully hard name. But the private's gun was not in working order, and the fellow escaped for the time. Before he reached the woods, whither he was going to hurry up the "boys," a Howitzer let fly at him, and at the shock of the bullet's stroke he threw his arms up in the air, and his horse bore him into the ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... see men who tell us that they despair of democracy; that at any rate, whatever its advantages, democracy can never be "efficient." Efficient for what? Efficiency is a relative quality, not absolute. A big German howitzer would be about as inefficient a tool as could be imagined, for serving an apple-pie. Beside, democracy is a goal; we have not reached it yet; we shall never reach it if we decide that it is undesirable. The path toward it is the path of Nature, ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... could see all about me dead and wounded men, wounded men who would surely "go West," for, once down, the chance of escape from that hell-hole was slight. Here and there were great W.D. waggons, G.S. waggons, ammunition mules bearing 6-inch howitzer and the smaller 18-pounder equipment—in fact, everything that was in any way connected with the grim business that was being carried on. Here and there, too, through this chaos of war, ration parties wended their way to and from ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... six men and running off a hundred or more horses and mules. The news was brought to the commanding officer, who immediately ordered Major Arms, of the Tenth Cavalry, to go in pursuit of the raiders. The Tenth Cavalry was a negro regiment. Arms took a company, with one mountain howitzer, and I was ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... lighting fires in the stunted pine growth a short distance ahead, which lit with a red flickering light the overhanging clay cliffs of Table Top rising sharply at the farther side of the defile. Then the cold white glare of a searchlight settled on its flat top, and in a few minutes heavy howitzer, 18-pounder and naval shells, shrieked overhead and burst, flashing and roaring, on the crest. The overhanging crag, her summit rent by an inferno of shell fire, her inaccessible escarpment lit by the lurid glow ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... high wall extended an entire block, but in the centre a howitzer shell had made a breach as large as a barn door. Through this I had a view of an old and beautiful garden, on which oasis nothing had been disturbed. Hanging from the walls, on diamond- shaped lattices, roses were still in bloom, and ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... themselves intelligent, like those golden automata of old that Hephaestus made, to run and wait upon the gods of Olympus. Down drops the punch. There is a burst of flame, as though the molten steel rebelled, and out comes the shell or the howitzer in the rough, nosed and hollowed, and ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Alfred, "that they would send the shell from the howitzer anywhere near them, and that it would destroy the submarine even though it didn't ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... from their numerous and strong positions; and our troops mounted the Huft Kothul, giving three cheers when they reached the summit. Here Lieutenant-colonel Cunningham, with a party of sappers, pressed the enemy so hard, that they left in their precipitation a twenty-four pound howitzer and limber, carrying off the draft-bullocks. Having heard that another gun had been seen, and concluding that it could not have gone very far, I detached a squadron of dragoons, under Captain Tritton, and two horse-artillery guns, under Major Delafosse, in pursuit; the gun, a twelve-pound howitzer, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... four small ones. They were armed with two guns of 15 centimetres, four of 12, two howitzers of 21, and three or four guns of 5'7, ten more of 5'7 flanking the ditches. The little forts counted upon four large and three or four small cupolas. They were armed with two pieces of 15, two of 12, a howitzer of 21, three or four guns, without cupola, of 5'7, and of seven or eight commanding the ditches. The forts are arranged around Liege in the following order:—On the left bank of the Meuse: Flemalle, Hollogne, Loncin, Lantin, and ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... direction of the butte. They are seen urging the animals into a rapid pace. The waggon, no longer loaded, leaps lightly over the smooth sward. The horses are spurred into a gallop; and amidst the shouts of the savage drivers, drag the huge vehicle after them with the rough rapidity of a mountain howitzer. In a few minutes, it advances to the ground occupied by the dismounted band, who surround it upon ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Percival and 30 volunteers of the New York flotilla [Footnote: Letter of Com. J. Lewis, July 6, 1814.] concealed themselves on board a fishing-smack, and carried by surprise the Eagle tender, which contained a 32-pound howitzer and 14 men, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... could only be done if the English had a Howitzer. But I did not add that this was a sort of gun which the columns now pursuing me ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... flotilla moored in the front of Boulogne, I directed the attack to be made in four divisions of boats for boarding, under the command of Captains Somerville, Parker, Cotgrave, and Jones, and a division of howitzer-boats under the command of Captain Conor, of his majesty's ship Discovery. The boats put off from the Medusa, at half past eleven last night, in the best possible order; and, before one o'clock this morning, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... in the afternoon of Friday, April 19th, we took our peacemaker, a neat twelve-pound brass howitzer, down from the Seventh Regiment Armory, and stationed it in the rear of the building. The twin peacemaker is somewhere near us, but entirely hidden by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... fire is not good. It is more than good; it is excellent. But the British soldier is a difficult person to impress or depress, even by immense shells filled with high explosives which detonate with terrific violence and form craters large enough to act as graves for five horses. The German howitzer shells are 8 to 9 inches in caliber, and on impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke. On account of this they are irreverently dubbed 'Coal-boxes,' 'Black Marias,' or 'Jack Johnsons' by the soldiers. Men who take things in this spirit, are, it seems, likely to throw out the calculations ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick |
