A Company of Tanks

3,

returns and reports had been forwarded to the next higher authority, and all the wise questions from t

ed on us were decorative and amusing, the cooking was magnificent, and the Chambertin was satisfying. Coming from the desolate country we could not want more. We tarried as long as decorum allowed, and then went out reluctantly into the rain to shop. We bought immense quantities

to blooth" under the maternal solicitude of my orderly-room sergeant. The piano, which for several days was ten miles nearer the line than any other piano in the district, was rarely silent in the evenings. Only a 6-inch gun, two hundred yards from the camp, interrupted our rest and broke some of our glasses. It was fine healthful country of downs and rough pasture. We commandeered horses f

Canadians left nothing to chance. Trial "barrages" were put down, carefully watched and "thickened up" where necessary. Every possible plan, device, or scheme was tried?-?every possible p

ccessful. The ground was impossible and the tanks "ditched." They were dug out, hauled out, pulled out, one way or another under a cruel shelling,

ompany, and deserved its luck, until the end of the war. In sections and in pairs the tanks had helped the infantry day after day. At Telegraph Hill they had clear

ght by the enemy from other parts of the front, and the German line became almost as strong as it had been before the battle, while we were naturally handicapped by the difficulty of bringing up ammunition and supplies over two trench systems and a battlefield. In the second phase we att

r left flank withdrew down the Hindenburg Line, until, at the end of April, it rested on the Hindenburg

e Division which was planning to attack Fontaine itself. At first it was decided to clear the Hindenburg Line in front of Fontaine by a preliminary operation, but the picture of two lone tanks workin

the days before the first battle, when we were attacking Croisilles and Ecoust. We visited Haigh's section, who had come up overnight from Behagnies,?-?they were snugly hidden under the railway embankment,?-?then, putting on our war-paint, we strolled up the h

stroy utterly and without question. Instead of shelling it for a morning with one or two guns, you concentrate on it every gun and howitzer that will bear, and carefully arrange the timing, so that all the shells arrive together. It is extravagant but effective?-?like loosing off a ship's b

. The enemy, however, suddenly conceived a violent dislike to their old trenches and some batteries near. So we dropped first into a shell-hole, and then, jumping in

t little near, and returned alo

ine. We pushed forward to the ridge above Chérisy and Fontaine, but we could see little of the enemy lines on account of

average soldier. A limbered waggon was coming along a rough track when a small shell burst on the bank a few yards behind the wagg

large clump of "stink" bombs, Very lights, and similar ammunition. Just as the first tanks were passing a shell exploded the dump. It was a magnificent display of deadly fireworks, and the enemy, as usual, continued to shell the blaze. There is no spot on earth quite so unpleasant as the edge of an exploding dump. Boxes of bombs were hurtling th

bonfire was just smouldering. Mac's tank came carefully past, when suddenly there was a loud crackling report. A box of bombs had explo

Haigh, the mechanics were just completing their work, and Mac's ta

was to work with the division detailed to attack the stronghold of Bullecourt. The front of the grand attacks had widened. On the 3rd of May the Br

ached, and, not wishing to interfere with his little command, I determined to remain at Beh

he trenches and clearing up centres of too obstinate resistance. I endeavoured to make it quite clear to the divisional commander

ed feelings of awe, horror, and anxiety that troubled me; but my action in this battle was essentially unheroic. Knowing tha

lians had taken their first objective?-?the front trench of the Hindenburg system. We had entered the trenches west of Bullecourt. Soon aeroplane repor

flames at L. 6. d. 5. 4." That might be Jimmy's tank. No, it must be David's! Pray God the airman has made a mistake! We, who had set the stage, had only to

orking up and down the trenches on either side of Bullecourt. One tank had found the Australians and was fighting with them. Tanks went on, returned, and went forward again

s offered breakfast or a whisky-and-soda, and having chosen both, told us how he had found himself in front of the infantry, how the majority of his crew had

ay. We were still using the old Mark I. Tank, which had fou

embankment. The attack had not been brilliant. It required another division to reach the outskirts of the village, but the division which failed

crew had been killed or wounded. The majority of his tanks rallied, and only one, the tank which had fought with the Aus

The situation was not clear. The air reports gave us scant help, for the airmen, unaccustomed to work with tanks, were optimistic beyond our wildest dreams, and reported tanks where no tank could possibly have been.

at the same moment an ambulance and a D.R. came round the corner in front of us together. Organ, my driver?-?I had hired his car at Oxford in more peaceful days?-?was, as always, quit

heir "best" was a "dud" as I passed, and I slipped down, cheerfully enough, into the gloom. Haigh was aw

the tank commanders, despite continual and deadly machine-gun fire and some shelling, had been compelled to lead their t

at once, and so concentrated was their fire that it seemed the tank could not survive. Twice large shells burs

ed themselves fearlessly, and threw bombs at the tank in a wild effort to destroy it. The gunners in the

ter they had started. The strain and the atmosphere were

ning at right angles to the main Hindenburg Line. The tank hesitated for a moment. That moment a brave German seized to fire a trench-mortar point-blank. He was killed a second lat

icer in command refused their assistance and ordered them back, thinking, perhaps, that they had fought enough. They returned wearily to their headquarters without further loss, but by the time I had arrived, Mac had gone out again to see if the attack had p

ight have overshot his mark. Perhaps the infantry were being held up behind him. He turned back to look for them, and met them advancing slowly. He swung again, but in the deceptive light the driver made a mistake, and the tank slipped sideways into a trench at an impossible angle. Most tanks ca

d long bursts at it from their machine-guns. They had been issued with armour-piercing bullets, and the crew found to their dismay that the armour was not proof against them. Both gunners in one sponson were hit. The corporal of the tank dragged them out of the way?-?no easy

ession on the enemy defences. When attacking troops are reduced to bombing down a trench, the attack is as good as over, and our attack had by now degenerated int

le. It would have been a desperate and foolhardy undertaking for one tank to attack in broad daylight, and I instructed Haigh strongly to urge this v

praising the skill and labour of the enemy, I crawled along the gallery, which runs

cers a lift in my car. They belonged to battalions which had attacked north of Fontaine. At first, they told me, the attack went well, but apparently the enemy had retired to counter-attack the more effectiv

Line, and there they remained with a magnificent obstinacy which it is difficult to match in all the records of the war. Whether our attack, in spite of its failure, was successful in occupyi

sible to do. At Fontaine, Haigh's section killed more than their share of Germans. We were satisfied that we had shown our usefulness. We prayed no