Some of the separate episodes illustrate the advantage of unopposed
aerial operations. On March 25, for instance, a German artillery
column moving along the road between Guiscard and Noyon, was attacked
by French airmen and entirely dispersed. The machine gunners in the
airplanes killed or wounded many horses which either fell down in
their harness and blocked the road, or, panic-stricken, bolted in
all directions, leaving the roads and adjoining fields covered with
dead men and animals, wrecked guns, caissons, and wagons. Bodies of
infantry were similarly broken up, dispersed, or demoralized. Showers
of bombs from the airplanes created a barrage, and entire companies
of German infantry were annihilated. In addition, railroad stations
were damaged, transports blocked, and military works and depots of
all kinds destroyed or put out of commission. At no previous time in
the war did armies suffer so severely as did the German forces during
the five days, March 24-29, 1918. The allied airmen did not come out
unscathed. Many were killed by rifle fire, and many machines were lost.
But the Allies held the mastery of the air and turned it to the fullest
advantage, while the Germans were organizing new aerial squadrons.
On the fifth day of this period of allied air supremacy German
airplanes began to appear once more, and with the organization of new
enemy squadrons, the Allies' ascendency was no longer uncontested.
Richthofen and other German air commanders came on the scene with their
squadrons, and from March 30 onward there was continued fighting in the
air between the opposing forces.