大象传媒

CRACK AND THUMP

In my story about when I thought I was being shot at in the Reichswald Forest, I should say that I was then relatively inexperienced; later, .I learnt all about 鈥渃rack and thump鈥�. Bullets fired from rifles and machine guns, as well as the shells from some bigger guns, travelled faster than the speed of sound, so that the first thing that told you that you were under fire was the 鈥渃rack鈥� made by the sound wave of the projectile as it went past you. Later, the distant 鈥渢hump鈥� made by the firing of the gun which sent it off caught up with you, indicating where it might be, and the time lapse between the crack and the thump gave you an idea as to how far it was away from you.. Only heavy things like mortars and field guns fired shells which were slower that the speed of sound and you got an advance warning that something might be coming your way because they whistled or moaned or make some other sort of noise as they passed through the air and you had time to try and take cover.

Of course, if you heard the crack, that meant that at least you hadn鈥檛 been hit; However, if you hadn鈥檛 heard the crack, you would probably have never heard anything else again. On that fateful day in the Reichswald, a knowledge of crack and thump would have told me that I wasn鈥檛 really being shot at and jumping into the ditch was entirely unnecessary! This explains why I now scoff at films and television programmes which invariably get the sound shots wrong 鈥� as I do when I see pistols and submachine guns being fired about two hundred times without being reloaded.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.