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Use barrage in a sentence

Definition of barrage:

  • (noun) onslaught, outpouring, bombardment
  • (verb) address with continuously or persistently | bombard

Sentence Examples:

October 20 a short American barrage brought an immediate response from the nervous Teutons, and they laid a box barrage around the sector occupied by the Division, evidently believing an attack was coming.

Stable machines, equipped with wireless transmitters and Klaxon horns, flew at a low height over detailed sectors, observed all developments, signalled back guidance for the barrage, and by means of message bags supplied headquarters with valuable information.

Repudiation of the Free Trade, group-governed, National Progressives by Michael Clark, the farmer and the apostle of Canadian Free Trade, is the first truly emancipating note that has been struck in all this pre-election barrage of group against group.

These were most successful, the enemy becoming completely demoralized, vacating his rifle-pits and running from one place to another, undoubtedly suffering many casualties, as the number of stretcher parties seen at work after each barrage had lifted proved.

The artillery was in consequence switched right to put down a barrage against this attack, and later to support the highly successful counter-attack of the 40th Division and some dismounted cavalry squadrons, which more than restored the original line.

In both years a strong patrol of monitors, destroyers, minesweepers, drifters for net repairs, and other vessels was maintained in position to the westward of the barrage to prevent interference with the nets by enemy vessels and to keep them effective.

Indeed, the majority of the reactionaries and the procrastinators are only concealing their own selfish interests under a barrage of idle words, and confusing the minds of the helpless masses with public statements which bear no relation to their well-concealed objectives.

It was all of no avail, however; after twelve hours of raging battle orders were received from Corps Headquarters to evacuate the captured ground, and this was done in the evening under a protective barrage from the guns of the 33rd Divisional Artillery.

It was now that there took place in the intervening ground between the enemy's barrage and our own a thousand struggles between brave men palpitating with health and life and hundreds of merciless hidden machines belching forth fragments of insensate metal.

First, of battalions of men marching in the darkness, steadily and in step, towards the roar of the guns; destined in the next twelve hours to charge as one man, without hesitation or doubt, through barrages of cruel shell and storms of murderous bullets.

At dawn the two tanks under Jacobs crawled forward into the gas and smoke, and, passing through the enemy barrage, dumped their loads of machine-gun ammunition among the advanced posts and returned with the crews slightly gassed but otherwise unharmed.

Here stiff opposition was met, for the enemy machine gunners in their dug-outs in the embankment escaped unscathed from the barrage, and succeeded in bringing heavy fire to bear upon the attacking troops before the latter were able to get to grips with them.

The effects on defending Marines were two-fold: heavy incoming either physically trapped them in their bunkers, or the Chinese, having overrun our positions through their own barrages, took the defenders by surprise as they left their bunkers to man their fighting holes.

The blasting fire of our artillery had been well maintained on the German second and third line trenches, and it was supposed that this barrage had proved effective in preventing any considerable force of the enemy reaching through to their own front line.

The extraordinary strength of the German machine-gun posts was such that the most intense barrage which the excellent Corps and Divisional artillery was capable of producing passed harmlessly over them, and only a direct hit was sufficient to disturb the occupants.

The orders to that portion of the Field Artillery which was to become mobile in pursuance of this plan, accordingly, were that immediately upon the completion of their original tasks, by the capture of the green line, they were to "pull out of the barrage."

The engineers had hardly begun work before the Germans laid a barrage upon the village, and almost before the Americans realized what was happening German infantry entered the outskirts of the place while low-flying German planes peppered our men with machine-gun fire.

The leading companies, following the barrage, reached their objectives in most cases, but were involved in desperate fighting at the points already mentioned, which were connected by cross-cuts with the main German line, from which there flowed an endless supply of reinforcements.

Repeatedly they overran their immediate objectives and several times walked into their own barrage so determinedly that officers, unable to halt the troops so hungry for revenge, had to call off the barrage to save them from being destroyed by our own guns.

The anti-submarine barrage, however, consists of an enormous number of mines, laid at a considerable depth below the surface and in such formation as to ensure that a submarine attempting to pass through the cordon while submerged would inevitably collide with one or more of them.

When all were safe in the trench, the lieutenant called off the barrage and the enemy in our front was doubtless wondering what it was all about, until the sniper, who, as the lieutenant surmised, was hidden in the camouflaged carcass, returned no more.

It was thus difficult to maintain cohesion in the attack, while every dug-out contained machine gun crews who had been unharmed by the barrage, and who, owing to the delay in getting ahead, had been able to come out and man their positions without interruption.

No steadily advancing barrage gave warning of the approach of the German assault columns, whose secret assembly was assisted by the many deep folds and hollows typical of a chalk formation, and shielded from observation from the air by an early morning mist.

The Diggers, having fought with their splendid American comrades, dared the tremendous task of war under the same barrage and shared the same risks and dangers on the field, have come to know the new Ally, and that knowledge is filled with appreciation.

There were numbers of German soldiers who lay about in shell-holes after our barrage had passed over their lines and their blockhouses, and sniped our officers and men as they swarmed forward, though they knew that by not surrendering they were bound to die.

Hours of quiet passed, while the men silently lay in their burrows in the ravine, listening to the cheerful chirp of the crickets, and trying to relax their nerves which had been tautened almost to breaking by the terrific barrage of the early afternoon.

Test barrages were carried out on the corps' front each morning to ascertain the enemy's strength and attitude, and on October 17, 1918, the enemy was found extremely quiet and did not retaliate to the artillery fire on the front of the First Canadian Division.

This clear statement that the main duty of the artillery has become the engagement of tanks is noteworthy, especially when compared with previous orders which stated that the allotment of artillery to tank defenses must not interfere with defensive barrages and counter-battery work.

In a few minutes the ground behind the German trench was strewn with bodies in field gray, and it was with some difficulty that Dennis and the corporal could check the victorious company from penetrating into the zone of their own artillery barrage fire.

At the same instant I ordered the girls to cease sharp-shooting, and lay their barrages down in the valleys, with their long-guns set for maximum automatic advance, and to feed the reservoirs as fast as possible, while the bayonet-gunners leaped along close behind this barrage.

Gunners and Trench Mortar people carried out shoots on various occasions, and our machine gunners, who were now formed into one Battalion for the Division, made the most horrible noise every night with their "barrages," but we were let off with nothing more serious than patrolling.

In particular, reports were rendered dealing with the density of the barrage, whether all batteries opened fire simultaneously, whether there were any gaps or rounds falling short, whether the average height of the shrapnel bursts was correct and whether the barrage crept forward uniformly.

The men were marched silently in platoons along the road, and then re-formed into line on the far side of the enemy's barrage, a maneuver which in the darkness called for great steadiness and discipline, the line being dressed on a shaded lamp in the wood.

The gallantry and steadiness of the 153rd Infantry Brigade were most marked, the artillery barrage was all that could be desired, and the work on this and previous days in bridging the river under heavy shell-fire and difficult circumstances was beyond all praise.

In spite of the punishment which the Germans had been receiving from our barrage, the assaulting wave encountered a sturdy resistance when it reached its objective, and for a few minutes the enemy trench was a pandemonium of savage hand-to-hand struggles with bomb and bayonet.

Two of the signallers (Dickey and West) did noble work in repairing our telephone line, nearly a mile, through a regular barrage of high explosive and gas, their job being made more difficult by some defensive wire entanglements which had been recently placed over our line.

Since the Americans, not knowing the exact location of the Han outer line, had shot their barrage over it, and the Hans had fired at unknown American positions, this first exchange of fire had done little more than to churn up vast areas of mountain and valley.

The 42nd Battery, having kept their three forward guns in action after our infantry had fallen back behind them, succeeded in bringing the two that were not destroyed away, under the very noses of the enemy and through a heavy barrage and machine-gun fire.

When the attack is directed against a position the defense of which is known to have been elaborately organized, a pre-arranged covering fire in the form of an artillery barrage, lifted in successive stages as the attack advances, may require to be organized some time before the attack is launched.

For a time the hostile bombardment was vague and uncertain, though on occasion a barrage would be placed before our advancing men, the enemy's gunners appearing to be supremely indifferent to the scattered parties of their own troops who were still holding out bravely enough before the Canadians.

Hardly had they pierced the barrage, however, before the periscope of a hostile submarine made its appearance; and, considering that the majority of the crews of the sub-chasers had never before been under fire, the coolness and decision of their tactics could hardly have been excelled.

The forces assigned to secure the openings in the tunnel and to "mop up," straggling over the uneven ground and raked by machine-gun fire, could not advance against the stubborn resistance developed by the enemy emerging from his hiding-places after our barrage had lifted.

It was also considered useful that the men should have some experience with shell fire before they heard guns fired in anger, and so it was arranged that a sham battle should take place in which the French would fire a barrage over the heads of the American troops.

This day again a good deal of difficulty seems to have been experienced by the advancing troops in identifying their objectives, which had become almost entirely obliterated by our long-continued bombardments, while the dust raised by the barrage rendered the recognition of surrounding physical features almost impossible.

As soon as the enemy perceives the assaulting waves, every effort is made to scatter them by means of artillery barrage and machine-gun fire, asphyxiating gas, grenades and liquid fire, so that generally the storming troops cross "no man's land" through a veritable screen of fire.

The Germans attempted to ambush a patrol on the 19th and failed, and on the next night a sizable raid broke down under a barrage which was promptly furnished by the American batteries in response to signals from the trench which the Germans were attempting to isolate.

Private Kelley ran through our own barrage a hundred yards in advance of the front line and attacked an enemy machine-gun nest, killing the gunner with a grenade, shooting another member of the crew with his pistol, and returned through the barrage with eight prisoners.

He is really rather wonderful, for he has borne the brunt of heavy fighting for more than three years, and behind him is no warm barrage of organized care, of solicitude for his welfare, or public ministration to shield him from the devils of depression and despair.

A Stokes-gun crew found their weapon very useful in open warfare, and at one place where machine guns had got on to a large party of Turks and enclosed them in a box barrage, the Stokes gun searched every corner of the area and finished the whole party.

Far distant, shimmering in a silvery haze and stretching away into the dimness of the horizon, lies the boundless desert, now being rapidly reclaimed, consequent upon the great barrage experiments for the supplying of the many winding canals with the fertile waters of the parent river.

We may certainly reckon that, within three or four hours of a declaration of war between France and England, huge bombs of high explosive, or poison gas, or incendiary stuff, will have got through the always ineffectual barrage and be livening up the streets of Paris and London.

It was only here and there that small bodies of German troops, caught in our barrage and nerve-broken by the long agony of lying in water under a ceaseless shell-fire, ran forward to our men as soon as the first brown lines appeared out of the mud and surrendered.

If the barrage was far away, no sound would be heard, though if you entered a dug-out facing in that direction you would be conscious of a dull rumbling that warned you this was no mere pyrotechnic display, but the most nerve-wracking feature of modern war, an intense bombardment.

On the days preceding the action a number of bridges had been thrown across the canal, and the attacking brigades had been passed over this impediment, so that they were able to deploy rapidly and escape the German barrage which fell, for the most part, behind them.

He debouches in extended order on the doomed house; gets his range and has the barrage well in hand (the quantity and quality of Madame's gesticulations furnish the key to this) before Colin drifts off the horizon and shows a peaked face with haunting eyes over George's shoulder.

A properly directed machine-gun barrage is far more difficult to traverse than anything the artillery can put down and the combination of artillery and machine guns, working together, whether on the offensive or defensive, represents the highest point ever attained in the effective use of fire in battle.

Immediately prior to zero hour there was no bombardment; it was hoped to start the attack simultaneously along the whole front, and the best means of achieving this was considered to be an opening of the barrage at zero itself, without any bombardment during the preceding five minutes.

This barrage was not sufficient to subdue the gunners, who dashed forward and established their pieces at the moment of the assault upon the various parapets and points of vantage, from which, regardless of their own losses, they poured a withering fire upon the infantry in the open.

It makes great demands upon the iron resolution of the Infantryman to push on vigorously against all obstacles, and to put forth his utmost physical powers to keep up with the barrage, especially when the ground is wet and sticky, or when uncut wire has to be crawled through.

The 15th Welsh Fusiliers on the left had in the meanwhile a severe ordeal, for so heavy a fire poured upon them from the clump of trees known as Battery Copse that they were left with hardly an officer and with their protective barrage rapidly receding into the distance.

Rushing again to the assault in the evening, the French, in a few minutes, drove the Bavarians from all their positions, and the enemy's numerous attempts during the night and throughout the next day to regain a footing in the village broke down before the French barrage fire.

Barrages can also be controlled very efficiently from the air, so, considering the comparatively short time that airplanes have been used in this work and the wonderful results that have been obtained, it does not take much imagination to see the necessity for all future artillery officers to be trained as aviators.

The General was awakened by the first tea-tray bang-banging on adjacent tin roofs, and, without pausing to think, rolled out of bed and bumped on to the floor just as a couple of strays from the outside edge of the barrage banged, ripped, and cracked through his roof and walls.

That was impossible, as I was observing for my brigade, so I lay on the parapet till the bullets began to fall too close for comfort, then I dodged out into a shell-hole with the German barrage bursting all around me, and had a most gorgeous view of a modern attack.

They did not want for shields; and their confidence in the accuracy of their veteran artillery led them to keep close behind the smothering fire of the barrage with a speed and agility in the systematic advance of their units which made a record even for the race-horse division.

As soon as our troops moved off from their forming-up positions to close up to the barrage, the enemy covered his front with a deadly and accurate screen of bullets, fired from numerous carefully-sighted machine-guns, which were so well protected that our field-gun barrage had little or no effect upon them.

Under a heavy barrage the infantry rushed to grips with the enemy, but no sooner had our guns started than the enemy opened a heavy concentrated machine-gun fire all along the front, while his guns put down a dense barrage within thirty seconds of the beginning of the attack.

German "substitute" tobacco looks better than it smokes; in fact, the only way in which the Workmen's and Soldiers' guards attached to our parties were in the least obnoxious was through putting up "smoke barrages," and even these were avoidable except in turrets, magazines, shaft tunnels, and other enclosed spaces.

It was thus to be the task of the Vindictive and her consorts to lay themselves alongside the Mole, land storming and demolition-parties, and protect these by a barrage as they advanced down the Mole; and, in order to make this attack more effective, yet a third operation was designed.

Just as all hope had been given up, and it had been arranged to restart the barrage, a brave runner got through with the news that the leading South Africans were right through the town and engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand fight in the deep cutting on the farther side.

Their discipline, that immense power of discipline which dominates men in the mass, was strong enough to make them obey the order to rush through that barrage of ours, that advancing wall of explosion and, if they lived through it, to face our men in the open with massed machine-gun fire.

There was practically no case in which a submarine crossed the barrage without being bombed in consequence; the moral of the German crews steadily went to pieces, until, in the last month of the war, their officers were obliged to force them into the submarines at the point of a pistol.

Later that same day, when the enemy barrage behind and bombardment in front became hotter, so that the supports we wanted could not come up easily, one brave officer, Lieutenant Richardson, who had received his promotion from the ranks, took charge, with only three men, of a whole line of trenches.

About six o'clock the German machine-guns in Hey Wood held up the line for a time, and the 2nd Brigade had the chagrin of seeing some German guns limbering up and withdrawing in front of them, while their own barrage fell as an invisible steel curtain which covered them from seizure.

And so, in a matter of seconds, we found ourselves in the front rank, thrusting, cutting, dodging, leaping along behind that blinding and deafening barrage in a veritable whirlwind of fury, until it seemed to me that we were exulting in a consciousness of excelling even that tide of destruction in our merciless efficiency.

Their second device is to put up a barrage of facts which merely show that all countries, and indeed the earth itself, would have been overpopulated long ago if the increase of population had not been limited by certain factors, ranging from celibacy and late marriages to famines, diseases, wars, and infanticide.

For a solid twenty minutes the hail of high explosive projectiles continued, while simultaneously shrapnel put up a barrage in the rear of the hostile trenches with a two-fold purpose: to prevent the Huns running away and also to make it almost impossible for reinforcements to be brought up to the firing line.

To be in time for this morning's barrage, gunners, already worn, craving sleep and silence, dog-weary of mud and noise after weeks and months of great battles, had to work like Trojans divinely inspired to win another day's victory, and they spurred themselves harder than their horses in this endeavor.

To protect the infantry from this fate creeping barrages were arranged wherever possible, and even when this form of attack was not considered advisable or was impracticable, sections of field-guns and howitzers were invariably detailed, as far as the crossings of the river allowed, to accompany the infantry in close support.

In another few seconds the two machines were flying through the thinning fog, gradually lowering their altitude and nearing at a rate of a mile and a half a minute the advancing lines of the enemy, revealed only to these fliers by the close barrage fire maintained by their artillery in the rear.

They cheerfully gave legs and arms and lives to serve this foreigner, who took them a thousand miles away from their homes and marched them into a barrage of Russian or English or Spanish or Italian or Austrian cannon and stared quietly into space while they were rolling in the agony of death.

Nine minutes later our field artillery, supported by heavy guns and heavy trench mortars, opened up with a slow bombardment, which gradually increased in intensity, until, forty minutes later, the enemy positions were swept with a short, intensive, creeping barrage, which raked his forward and rear areas with high explosive.

The first indeterminate signs of direction to-day were towards the beech woods behind the cottage, but with the aid of a syringe we put up a barrage of water in that direction, and headed them off towards a row of chestnuts and limes at the end of the paddock beyond the orchard.

The ground quaked to the roll of the guns like jelly in a shaken mold; out in front of them the barrage was dropping into regular line, spouting in vivid flame that rent the twisting smoke veil quick instant after instant, flinging fountains of water and mud and smoke into the air.

The enemy barrage was heavy and fell, as it so often had in the Somme battles, between the assaulting columns and their starting-point, thus cutting them off from supplies and reinforcement, while the accurate intensity of their machine-gun fire from their positions in the Quadrilateral made advance an utter impossibility.

When the creeping barrage, which had remained stationary during this period, went forward once more, the infantry encountered stronger opposition, but by this time the Tanks were well up in support, and were instrumental in breaking up the machine-gun nests and thus enabling the men to proceed up to schedule time.

As soon as the first wave topped the ridge between our front line and the German trench, it was obvious that the latter had never been adequately dealt with, and had apparently escaped the barrage, as it was full of infantry standing shoulder to shoulder, and waiting for our men to come on.

Of late the enemy had developed a mischievous habit of keeping very close indeed to our front line, making his way inside our barrage at the moment of its inception, and so being enabled to meet our attacking troops with a volume of fire quite unmitigated by the curtain of lead designed to eliminate such resistance.

The two tanks which arrived here went forward through our own protective barrage, rolled flat the wire and attacked the ruins by opening fire at very close range, with the result that the enemy was driven into his dug-outs and was a little later on taken prisoner by our infantry.

There had been no flinching anywhere, and the military virtue shown had been of the highest possible quality; but the losses from the machine-guns and from the barrage were so heavy that they deprived the attack of the weight and momentum necessary to win their way through the enemy's position.

Various groups of the enemy attempted to push through to our posts when their barrage lifted, but it was evident that they had lost direction, and got very disorganized, and we had no difficulty in driving them off with rifle and Lewis gun fire and bombs, and eventually things quietened down.

This fact was important, for it was realized that the bad state of the ground to be attacked over would force the infantry to advance very slowly, and that therefore a great deal depended upon the barrage to keep enemy machine-gun fire down until our infantry could get to grips with their assailants.

The telescopic-looking weapon stood on a revolving iron base at such a height as to be within zone of the enemy's fire when the gun was being used; and though it took but an instant to elevate, aim and shoot with accuracy under ordinary conditions, it now was likely to be pelted thoroughly by the barrage.

Almost obliterated, the route of the Company was blocked by barbed wire, shell holes and destroyed trenches, but in a comparatively short time the path was cleared, and the advance proceeded to a point where the rolling barrage following the first concentration of fire had stopped and then travelling was easy.

Shortly after midnight, the enemy put down an intense barrage of trench mortars, wing bombs, and shells of all calibers, along the whole of the Brigade front and support lines, forward communication trenches, Battalion Headquarters, the Village Line, and extending even to roads, villages, and batteries far behind the line.

The ancient barrages, the canals, the systems of irrigation were all allowed to silt up and become useless; and at the end of the nineteenth century you would not find in all Mesopotamia an agricultural implement that was in any way superior to the plows and the flails of more than two thousand years ago.

Then, as a sudden flight of rockets spat forth from the Greek first line to warn that the enemy infantry was on the way, all the Allied artillery that could be brought to bear opened up and began dropping shells just behind where the murky mist-clouds marked the swath of the Bulgar barrage.

To this hostile bombardment the batteries had, at the request of the infantry, energetically replied at intervals during the night, but the opening rounds of the barrage at six o'clock in the morning smashed their way into the beginnings of an enemy counter-attack which was concentrating on the front of our own attack.

Strangely above this hammering and thundering of two thousand guns or more of ours, answered by the enemy's barrage, railway whistles screamed from trains taking up more shells, and always more shells, to the very edge of the fighting-lines, and in between the massed batteries, using them as hard as they could be unloaded.

Lines of mined nets laid across the expected track of enemy vessels was a device frequently employed; submarines, as has been stated, were used on the cross-Channel barrage to watch for the passage of enemy submarines and destroyers, and everything that ingenuity could suggest was done to catch the German craft if they came out.