And now as German troops, and their swiftly striking Panzer division were rushing across pontoon bridges to strike more blows at the Belgians, hundreds of Stuka dive bombers were blasting death and destruction into the ranks of the enemy.
Gee, there must be a million pontoon bridges thrown across that canal.
Henry and I, having no alternative, were obliged to walk from the station to the pontoon bridge, made, Henry said, in one night.
We crossed the Chickahomony, I was told, near its junction with the James, on a pontoon bridge, I should think one-eighth of a mile in length.
Tuesday when we were withdrawn, and silently made our way to the city, and through it, and to the pontoon bridge we crossed the Friday before.
I do not know of any of our troops following us, and it is my belief that we were the last of the Army of the Potomac to go over this road, as we were, the following December to cross the pontoon bridge at Fredericksburg.
The effort was to clean the enemy out from the neighborhood of the river bank, so that we could lay our pontoon bridges.
The basal pontoon rose twelve feet above their heads; beyond this towered the thick side walls spanned by the bridge.
Out into the darkness to the forwardpontoon rushed the howling mob.
The two other swimmers followed example, then all three dived off the twelve foot pontoon toward their floats.
Leonard and his new friend lowered themselves on a swinging platform over the twelve-foot pontoon and joined in the work.
On my way back to the pontoon bridge I had time to say a few words to my comrades in the regiment as I passed them.
A few minor accidents occurred, but in the main the crossing was successfully although slowly made, as these canvas pontoon boats could carry but little at each trip.
On the morning of the eleventh, before daybreak we heard the booming of cannon in the direction of Fredericksburg, three miles away, where the engineer troops were preparing to lay pontoon bridges across the river.
The pontoon bridges were immediately taken up under the menacing protection of our batteries on the hills, and for the third time the army marched back to its old camps.
Some time during the forenoon of the next day we reached the Chickahominy, and crossing it by a pontoon bridge about a thousand feet long, went into bivouac.
The Fifth Army Corps left Sharpsburg on the thirtieth and crossed the Potomac next day at Harper's Ferry, while the train crossed on a pontoon bridge at Berlin, some distance further south.
I went on foot, past the Lacey house (which was Burnside's headquarters during the battle and was also used as a hospital) down the hill to the river and across a pontoon bridge.
General Lee retreated rapidly by the shortest route to Williamsport on the Potomac, where he found his pontoon bridges destroyed and the river so high from recent rains as to be unfordable.
We passed Leesburg on our way to Edwards Ferry, where we crossed the Potomac on a pontoon bridge into Maryland and arrived near Frederick City about the twenty-seventh of June.
It was after the shelling ceased that the Nineteenth Massachusetts and the Seventh Michigan regiments, which were at the river-front, volunteered to cross the river in pontoon boats and drive away the sharp-shooters.
The Fifth Army Corps crossed the river on a pontoon bridge at a place called Culpeper Mine Ford on the same day, all of the supply trains, except some ammunition wagons, remaining on the north side of the river.
On the fifteenth of June the Army of the Potomac crossed the James on a pontoon bridge at Wilcox's Landing, just six weeks after crossing the Rapidan.
They crossed the Save in boats and by pontoon bridges; there were about 3,000 of them.
The pontoon bridges and boats were sunk; then they had a hand-to-hand fight in the streets, knives being principally used, and we heard that even the women joined in.
Pontoon bridges have been passing most of the afternoon on the road by our camp.
The pontoon bridges and the regiments pass our camp every day.
Time and time again the Germans succeeded in getting a pontoon bridge completed and came down to the river bank in solid masses to cross it.
Similar destructions of pontoon bridges burdened with their living freight of men and horses and guns have occurred on all the many rivers which this war has brought into the terrible limelight of battle.
Limbers and cookers joined us about nine, A Company's cooker having fallen overboard in crossing the pontoon bridge but having been extricated without damage.
The Turkish advance was made after night had set in, the Twenty-fifth Division, with pontoon companies and engineers of the Fourth and Fifth Army Corps, being first to reach the canal.
Under cover of darkness the Italian sappers built a pontoon bridge, and the Bersaglieri crossed and carried the town and the surrounding heights at the point of the bayonet.
Also, in preparation of a crossing of the canal, the Turks brought a supply of ready-assembled pontoon bridges, running on wheels and similar to those used by the German army in Europe, except that they were much lighter.
For this purpose, one end of the pontoon is so formed as to enable it to fit around the cylinder, and to be held to it as to a center or fulcrum, about which the pontoon can be swung.
When the ship is in place, the pontoon with her is then lifted above the level of the berth in which it has to be placed, and then swung round into the berth.
The pontoon may also be made available for lifting heavy weights, by fitting a pair of compound levers or other apparatus at one end, the lifting power being in the pontoon itself.
In this case, the pivot end of the pontoon would be a fixture, so to speak, to the cylinder.
The pontoon is of special construction, and has air-chambers at the sides placed near the center, so as to balance it.
At B, is shown the pontoon with the ship raised and swung round on to a low level quay.
Considerable attention has been given for some years past to the subject of floating pontoon docks by Mr. Robert Turnbull, naval architect, of South Shields, Eng.
The cylinder is in deep water, and, when the pontoon is swung and sunk to the desired depth by letting in the necessary amount of water, a vessel can be floated in and then secured.
Having received hispontoon bridges, General Burnside prepared to throw his grand army across the river.
They were waiting forpontoon bridges, and did not cross the river.
The roads were found so bad in this direction that no further attempt was made, and the troops being recalled, the pontoon bridge was removed to Grenade, a town below Bayonne, and there laid down on the 4th of April.
Soon after we overtook the pontoon train and halted for the night.
Firing was heard up the river this morning, and a pontoon bridge was thrown across here and troops hurried across and gotten into position.
We are detailed to guard the pontoon train on the trip and have nothing to do but keep up with it unless it is attacked.
The army was not accompanied by a pontoon train, and at that time the troops were not instructed in bridge building.
Sherman reached Bridgeport about noon of the 17th and found Blair with the pontoon train already there.
This, if my memory serves me correctly, broke through the only pontoon bridge we had in all our march across the peninsula.
Blair was ordered to join him there with the pontoon train as early as possible.
We left our transport and got into little steam trawlers, which were out at the Dardanelles as mine-sweepers and so on, and these took us to the pontoon bridges.
A big ship had been run aground there--the River Clyde--and pontoon bridges had been made at the side of her, connecting with the shore.
December 11th and 12th were spent in crossing the river on pontoon bridges.
A pontoon and trestle bridge three miles long was thrown across the Savannah, and miles of corduroy road were built through continuous swamps.
The enemy had built eight pontoonbridges over the Yser canal, but all of them had been destroyed.
This valuable time was made use of by thepontoon train at the rate of four miles per day.
Darkness was just setting in when our turn came upon the pontoon bridge, and it was quite dark when we prepared ourselves, in a pelting rain, for rest for the night, as we thought, in a meadow half a mile distant from the road.
With a steady tramp the troops crossed, scarcely the slightest motion being perceptible upon the firm double pontoon bridge.
Before night our advance had crossed upon the pontoon bridges, notwithstanding a galling fire of the Rebel sharpshooters under cover of the buildings along the river, and was firmly established in the town.
The same evening the battery was crossing a pontoon bridge when a mule became frightened at the oscillation of the wooden structure, reared wildly, and pitched its rider over the canvas screen into the river.
The bridge was composed, not of pontoon boats, but of large barges, which had been used on the river for the freight of merchandise.
This piece of excitement over, I went to the pontoon bridge, where the stream of soldiers continued to pour across.
And before returning, we inspected the pontoon bridge which the Prussians had thrown across the Meuse upon the evening of the 31st.
It was the construction of a pontoon bridge across the Loire, for the more speedy passage of troops.
Now it was that the whole French army commenced their hurried march across the Loire, by the pontoon bridge, and the two permanent ones.
Some twenty minutes later Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer were seated in a pontoon fitted, Bristol Pegasus engined Fairey "Swordfish" mounted on the starboard launching arm of Number Three catapult.
Besides, the pontoon was filling fast, and it wouldn't be long before the craft would be three quarters submerged and a menace to navigation in those waters.
However, the Engineers soon appeared, and the rest of the Battalion crossed by a pontoon bridge.
At Beaulieu we had dinners and rested while parties reconnoitred the Canal crossings and discovered various pontoon bridges built by the Engineers soon after the attack.
At last we reached the hill commanding the pontoon bridge over the Tugela.
He is sitting by the river bank to await the first wagon across the pontoon on which a conductor will give him a lift.
The actual road above the pontoon was the very steepest declivity I have ever seen negotiated by structures on wheels.
The scene is on the north bank of the Great Tugela below the waterfall, and close to the pontoon bridge by which the troops had crossed on their victorious march.
We got the dogs and sledges from one piece of ice to another--the whole forming a sort of pontoon bridge.
We drew a long breath, and, reaching the solid ice on the other side of this pontoon bridge, plunged on to the north.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "pontoon" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
