This more formal account of the action on 25th April 1915 comes from The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) History of the European War from Official Sources.
By one o'clock on the morning of Sunday, April 25, 1915, the allied expeditionary force had arrived within five miles of the Gallipoli shore. Under cover of darkness the final dispositions were made and the ships maneuvered so that the timing of the several landings would be accurately synchronized. Shortly after one o'clock the landing boats were lowered from the transports.
Strung in lines of four and five the boats were slowly towed toward shore by steam pinnaces. Not a sound was heard but the panting of the engines of the little boats. The speed was accurately calculated to bring the parties close in shore with the first break of the dawn.
Accompanying the Australian and New Zealand troops, were a number of destroyers. Just as they reached the shallow water in front of the cliffs of Gaba Tepe, a Turkish lookout spied them in the hazy light of the morning. Instantly he gave the alarm and a flaring searchlight flashed its rays on the little flotilla.
The need for silence had disappeared. With a cheer the British troops leaped from their boats into the shoal water and splashed their way ashore. While many of them were still in their boats, however, the Turks opened fired. The whole ground had been carefully prepared and from every cover on the shore and the cliffs beyond a deadly fire was poured upon the Colonial troops.
Without faltering, however, the Australian and New Zealand troops, supported by a squadron of battleships and destroyers, came on straight at the strongly intrenched Turks. The first of the Australians to reach the shore were the Third Brigade under Colonel Sinclair Maglagan. With a rush they charged the first Turkish lines, bayoneted the defenders, and scrambled up the steep cliffs that rise a hundred feet in the air.
Fortunately for the British troops, as these and subsequent events proved, there had been a slight miscalculation in the landing, and the men had actually gone ashore a mile and a half northeast of Gaba Tepe, instead of at that point. Gaba Tepe is so rugged and uninviting that it was believed that the Turks would not trouble to intrench it. Actually the Turks appeared to have intrenched and prepared every inch of the coast. But at Sari Bair, where the Australian and New Zealand troops actually landed, the character of the ground, although not so advantageous at first, afforded much more protection once the men were ashore. Sir Ian Hamilton, in his graphic account of the operations, subsequently said:
"Owing to the tows having failed to maintain their exact direction, the actual point of disembarkation was rather more than a mile north of that which I had selected, and was more closely overhung by steeper cliffs. Although this accident increased the initial difficulty of driving the enemy off the heights inland, it has since proved itself to have been a blessing in disguise, inasmuch as the actual base of the force of occupation had been much better defiladed from shell fire.
"The beach on which the landing was actually effected is a very narrow strip of sand about 1,000 yards in length, bounded on the north and the south by two small promontories. At its (p. 442) southern extremity, a deep ravine with exceedingly deep, scrub-clad sides, runs inland in a northeasterly direction. Near the northern end of the beach a small but steep gully runs up into the hills at right angles to the shore. Between the ravine and the gully the whole of the beach is baked by the seaward face of the spur which forms the northwestern side of the ravine. From the top of the spur the ground falls almost sheer, except near the southern limit of the beach where gentler slopes give access to the mouth of the ravine behind. Farther inland lie in a tangled knot the under-features of Sari Bair separated by deep ravines which take a most confusing diversity of direction. Sharp spurs, covered with dense scrub and falling away in many places in precipitous sandy cliffs, radiate from the principal mass of the mountain, from which they run northwest, west, southwest and south to the coast."
As fresh British troops came ashore they cast aside their heavy packs and followed their comrades across the forty feet of open beach and into the scrub that covered the side of the cliffs. Halfway up the Turks had prepared a second position. Attacking it in open formation the Third Brigade succeeded in clearing it within fifteen minutes of the time they came ashore, despite the desperate and brave defense of the Turks.
Meanwhile some of the landing boats, subjected to the terrible fire of the Turkish guns, were having a bad time. The towing ropes of three of them were cut by the fire and the boats drifted helplessly about under the withering rain of bullets that rapidly wiped out their cargoes of men. But despite these mishaps the First and Second Brigades were hurried ashore to support the Third. Soon, in the face of terrible difficulties including the narrowness of the beach, there were between 3,000 and 4,000 allied troops ashore.
By this time the Turks, by means of the mobile carriages prepared for them by the Germans, had maneuvered some heavy artillery into position on the heights inland. Also some of their warships, moored in the Narrows, began throwing heavy shells across the peninsula into the allied fleet standing close inshore. So dangerous and accurate became this fire that the transports (had to be ordered out to sea and this delayed the operations seriously.
At Gaba Tepe and on the heights to the north of the beach the Turks posted guns and enfiladed the Narrows beach. Thus the troops, as they landed, had to make their way through a rain of shrapnel, machine gun and rifle fire that wiped out hundreds. Despite the success of the Australian Brigades in clearing the beach and the face of the cliff, the Turkish fire never seemed to slacken.
Because of the nature of the country there could be no central control over the advance fighting and no continued communications between the several forces making their way to the top of the cliffs. The battle resolved itself into a series of fights between small parties, or even individual soldiers, whose one object was to kill as many of the enemy as possible and make their way as far inland as possible in the first rush.
By two o'clock about twelve British regiments had been landed and the ground gained consolidated and prepared against counterattack. Thousands of Turkish troops were by this time pouring along the road from Maidos and by the middle of the afternoon it was calculated that there were fully 20,000 of them before the Australian and New Zealand troops. The latter, in the meantime, had been further reenforced by two batteries of Indian Mountain Artillery. The pressure of the constantly increasing Turkish force compelled General Birdwood, who came ashore about this time, to contract his lines and to reach a decision that, at that time at least and until the arrival of more troops, no further advance could be made. The Gaba Tepe landing had not been the surprise that was expected and the Turks had proved to be in unexpected strength.
About three o'clock the Turkish counterattacks began. Absolutely regardless of human life, they threw themselves in dense masses against the Second and Third Brigades. The British battleships, the Queen, the London, the Prince of Wales, the Triumph and the Majestic, posted close inshore, poured a devastating fire on the advancing Turkish troops as they came into the open.
About five o'clock the Turks, after repeated assaults upon the British lines, massed for a final attempt to drive the invaders into the sea. On and on they came, concentrating on the hard-pressed Third Brigade as the weak spot in the British defense. Fighting gamely against heavy odds, this Australian Brigade which had borne the brunt of the landing attack and which had been almost continually counterattacked all afternoon, gave way slowly, selling every inch of ground dearly. Hundreds of the brave Turkish troops were mown down by the machine guns which the Australians had by this time brought ashore. At nightfall, however, General Birdwood, as a consequence of the persistence of the enemy, had to contract his lines further.
As night settled on the battle field on the ridge above Gaba Tepe and Sari Bair, and the two forces rested from sheer exhaustion, the British troops, who once were well inland toward Maidos, their objective, were barely hanging onto the ridge overlooking the shore of the Gulf of Saros. All their water and food and munitions and reenforcements had to be brought ashore across the exposed beach, while the landing of the necessary artillery in the face of the Turkish fire was a feat to appal the bravest. But though their hold on their position was precarious it was tenacious and, in the end, effective. If they had not won all they expected to win they had at least won a foothold in the face of terrific difficulties.
While the Australians and New Zealanders were fighting desperately beyond Gaba Tepe, the other forces of the allied army were accomplishing similar deeds of heroism at the tip of the peninsula.
Coming down the coast of the peninsula from Gaba Tepe, about three miles from the extreme southwestern tip, was what was known as Beach Y. It was almost due west of the important town of Krithia, and the landing was intended primarily to protect the left flank of the British landing forces from attack by the considerable forces believed to be concentrated there.
The actual landing seems to have been somewhat of a surprise to the Turks. Indeed, subsequent events showed that they were correct in their estimate that a landing at the so-called Beach Y would be a mistake. A narrow strip of sandy beach led to the cliffs, two hundred feet high, that were believed to be almost unscalable. It is easy to be wise after the event, but military writers subsequently declared that if the Turks had been prepared to defend the position, the force that landed at Beach Y would have been wiped out in the preliminary attempt to establish a footing.
The force assigned to this point of attack consisted of the First King's Own Scottish Borderers, and the Plymouth Battalion of the Royal Naval Division, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Koe. The latter was under orders, if the landing proved successful, to work his way south to effect a junction with the force landing at Beach X, some two miles away.
About five o'clock, Koe's force appeared off Beach Y, on the transports Braemar Castle and Southland, and escorted by the battleship Goliath, and the cruisers Amethyst and Sapphire. The Turks had posted a large force at Beach Y 2, between Beach Y and Beach X, but half of the Scottish Borderers were ashore before the Turkish command had realized what was happening. As a result Colonel Koe's force was partly established on the cliffs before the Turks had begun to arrive.
But if the initial stages were unexpectedly easy for this force, difficulties soon developed. Once on the heights, Colonel Koe ordered an advance to link up with the force at Beach X. The British troops had not gone far when they ran into the Turkish troops from Beach Y. So large was this force and so determined an opposition did it offer to the British troops that Colonel Koe soon decided it would be impossible, with the two battalions at his disposal, to accomplish the task assigned him.
Early in the afternoon the little British force was dismayed by the approach on its left flank of a large force of Turks from Krithia, which threatened to cut it off from the landing beach. Reluctantly Colonel Koe, just before he received a fatal wound, gave the order to intrench
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Gallipoli Landing - THE LANDING THAT COULD NOT SUCCEED—BUT DID
Yesterday 25th April 2011 was the 96th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings.
In the excellent book “Over There" with the Australians by R. Hugh Knyvett, there is a fantastic description of that day and the achievement of the ANZAC’s.
THE LANDING THAT COULD NOT SUCCEED—BUT DID
Picture yourself on a ship that was more crowded with men than ever ship had been before, in a harbor more crowded with ships than ever harbor had been crowded before, with more fears in your mind than had ever crowded into it before, knowing that in a few hours you would see battle for the first time. Having comrades crowding round, bidding you good-bye and informing you that as your regimental number added up to thirteen, you would be the first to die, remembering that you hadn't said your prayers for years, and then comforting yourself with the realization that what is going to happen will happen, and that an appeal to the general will not stop the battle, anyway, and you may as well die like a man, and you will feel as did many of those young lads, on the eve of the 25th of April, 1915. There was some premonition of death in those congregations of khaki-clad men who gathered round the padres on each ship and sang "God be with you till we meet again." You could see in men's faces that they knew they were "going west" on the morrow—but it was a swan-song that could not paralyze the arm or daunt the heart of these young Greathearts, who intended that on this morrow they would do deeds that would make their mothers proud of them.
"For if you 'as to die,
As it sometimes 'appens, why,
Far better die a 'ero than a skunk;
A' doin' of yer bit."
As soon as church-parade was dismissed, another song was on the boards, no hymn, maybe not fine poetry, but the song that will be always associated with the story of Australia's doings in the great war, Australia's battle-song—"Australia Will Be There"—immortalized on the Southland and Ballarat, as it was sung by the soldiers thereon, when they stood in the sea-water that was covering the decks of those torpedoed troop-ships. It was now sung by every Australian voice, and as those crowded troop-ships moved out from Lemnos they truly carried "Australia," eager, untried Australia—where?
The next day showed to the world that "Australia would always be there!" where the fight raged thickest. Her sons might sometimes penetrate the enemy's territory too far, but hereafter, and till the war's end, they would always be in the front line, storming with the foremost for freedom and democracy.
The landing could not possibly be a surprise to the Turks; the British and French warships had advertised our coming by a preliminary bombardment weeks previously—the Greeks knew all about our concentration in their waters—and wasn't the Queen of Greece sister to the Kaiser?
There were only about two places where we could possibly land, and the Turks were not merely warned of our intentions, but they were warned in plenty of time for them to prepare for us a warm reception. The schooling and method of the Germans had united with the ingenuity of the Turks to make those beaches the unhealthiest spots on the globe. The Germans plainly believed that a landing was impossible.
Think of those beaches, with land and sea mines, densely strewn with barbed wire (even into deep water), with machine-guns arranged so that every yard of sand and water would be swept, by direct, indirect, and cross fire, with a hose-like stream of bullets; think of thousands of field-pieces and howitzers ready, ranged, and set, so that they would spray the sand and whip the sea, merely by the pulling of triggers. Think of a force larger than the intended landing-party entrenched, with their rifles loaded and their range known, behind all manner of overhead cover and wire entanglements, and then remember that you are one of a party that has to step ashore there from an open boat, and kill, or drive far enough inland, these enemy soldiers to enable your stores to be landed so that when you have defeated him, you may not perish of starvation. Far more than at Balaclava did these young men from "down under" walk "right into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell!" And the Turks waited till they were well within the jaws before they opened fire. No one in the landing force knew where the Turks were, and the Turks did not fire on us until we got to the zone which they had so prepared that all might perish that entered there. They could see us clearly, the crowded open boats were targets of naked flesh that could not be missed. Was there ever a more favorable setting for a massacre? The Turks in burning Armenian villages with their women and children had not easier tasks than that entrenched army. Our men in the boats were too crowded to use their rifles, and the boats were too close in for the supporting war-ships to keep down the fire from those trenches. How was any one left alive? By calculation of the odds not one man should have set foot on that shore. Make a successful landing, enabling us to occupy a portion of that soil! What an impossible task!
To the men in those boats and the men watching from the ships, it appeared as if not merely the expedition had failed, but that not a man of the landing force would survive. Boats were riddled with bullets and sunk—other boats drifted helplessly as there were not enough alive to row them—men jumped into the bullet-formed spray to swim ashore but were caught in the barbed wire and drowned. Who could expect success, but it nevertheless happened! The Turks were sure that we could not land, yet we did. Not only did those boys set foot on those beaches, but the remnant of that landing-party drove the Turks out of their entrenchments up cliffs five hundred feet high, and entrenched themselves on the summit. How did they do it? No one knows; the men who were there don't know themselves. Did heaven intervene? Perhaps spiritual forces may sometimes paralyze material. It must be that right has physical might, else why didn't the Kaiser get to Paris? Mathematics and preparedness were on his side; by all reasoning Germany ought to have overwhelmed the world in a few months, with the superiority of her armament, but she didn't. The Turks ought to have kept us off the Peninsula, by all laws of logic and arithmetic, and they didn't. I really think the landing succeeded because those boys thought they had failed.
They must have believed themselves doomed—they could see that there were too few to accomplish what was even doubtful when the force was intact. When they were on the shore they must have felt that it was impossible that they could be taken off again. All the time more were falling, and soon it seemed that every last man must be massacred. They made up their minds that, at any rate, they would get a few of the swine before they went.
Every man believed that in the end he must be killed, but determined to sell his life as dearly as possible, and that made them the supermen that could not be "held back." A whole platoon would be cut down, but somehow one or two would manage to get into the trench, where, of necessity, it was hand-to-hand work, and with laughing disregard of the odds would lay out a score of the enemy and send the others fleeing before them, who would yell out that they were fighting demons from hell. After the confusion in the boats, and from the fact that in most cases companies were entirely without officers, there was no forming up for charges—indeed, there were no orders at all, but every man knew that he could not but be doing the right thing every time he killed a Turk, so they just took their rifle and bayonet in their naked hands and went to it. There was no line of battle, it was just here, there, and everywhere, khaki-clad, laughing demons, seeking Turks to kill.
Never was there fighting like this. All that day it went on. On the beach, up the cliff, in the gullies, miles inland were men fighting. It was not a battle; it would have made a master of tactics weep and tear his hair, but these man-to-man fights kept on. Many were shot from behind, many were wounded and fell in places where no one would find them—some, fighting on, went in a circle and found themselves back on the beach again. However, at nightfall some had begun to dig a shallow line of trenches, well inland across the cliff. Single men and small groups of them, not finding any more Turks where they were, fell back into this ditch and helped deepen it.
Fresh Turks were massing for counter-attack, and soon came on with fury, but we were something like an army now, and although the line had to be shortened it never broke. The landing had been made good, the impossible had been achieved. But there were many who died strange deaths, many left way in, helpless, who could not be succored—many whom the fighting lust led so far that when they thought of seeking their comrades they found the barrier of a Turkish army now intervening. Strange, unknown duels and combats were fought that day. Unknown are the "Bill-Jims" who killed scores with naked hand—there were many such. Though we beat the Turk with the odds in his favor, yet this day and afterward he earned our respect as a fighting man.
"East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat.
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the Earth."
The Australian had proved himself the fiercest fighter of the world… As one naval officer remarked, they fought not as men but devils. Many have said that much of the loss of life was needless, that had the Australians kept together and waited for orders not so many would have been cut off in the bush. It was true that the impetuosity of many took them too far to return, but it was that very quality that won the day. They did not return, but they drove the Turk before them and enabled others to dig in before he could re-form. You would have to go back to mediaeval times to parallel this fighting. There were impetuosity, dash, initiative, berserker rage, fierce hand-to-hand fighting, every man his own general.
These were not the only qualities of the Australian fighting men, but these alone could have succeeded on that day. When the time came for evacuation of those hardly won and held trenches, these same troops gave evidence of the possession of the opposite attributes of coolness, silence, patience, co-ordination; every man acting as part of a single unit, under control of a single will—which is discipline!
In the excellent book “Over There" with the Australians by R. Hugh Knyvett, there is a fantastic description of that day and the achievement of the ANZAC’s.
THE LANDING THAT COULD NOT SUCCEED—BUT DID
Picture yourself on a ship that was more crowded with men than ever ship had been before, in a harbor more crowded with ships than ever harbor had been crowded before, with more fears in your mind than had ever crowded into it before, knowing that in a few hours you would see battle for the first time. Having comrades crowding round, bidding you good-bye and informing you that as your regimental number added up to thirteen, you would be the first to die, remembering that you hadn't said your prayers for years, and then comforting yourself with the realization that what is going to happen will happen, and that an appeal to the general will not stop the battle, anyway, and you may as well die like a man, and you will feel as did many of those young lads, on the eve of the 25th of April, 1915. There was some premonition of death in those congregations of khaki-clad men who gathered round the padres on each ship and sang "God be with you till we meet again." You could see in men's faces that they knew they were "going west" on the morrow—but it was a swan-song that could not paralyze the arm or daunt the heart of these young Greathearts, who intended that on this morrow they would do deeds that would make their mothers proud of them.
"For if you 'as to die,
As it sometimes 'appens, why,
Far better die a 'ero than a skunk;
A' doin' of yer bit."
As soon as church-parade was dismissed, another song was on the boards, no hymn, maybe not fine poetry, but the song that will be always associated with the story of Australia's doings in the great war, Australia's battle-song—"Australia Will Be There"—immortalized on the Southland and Ballarat, as it was sung by the soldiers thereon, when they stood in the sea-water that was covering the decks of those torpedoed troop-ships. It was now sung by every Australian voice, and as those crowded troop-ships moved out from Lemnos they truly carried "Australia," eager, untried Australia—where?
The next day showed to the world that "Australia would always be there!" where the fight raged thickest. Her sons might sometimes penetrate the enemy's territory too far, but hereafter, and till the war's end, they would always be in the front line, storming with the foremost for freedom and democracy.
The landing could not possibly be a surprise to the Turks; the British and French warships had advertised our coming by a preliminary bombardment weeks previously—the Greeks knew all about our concentration in their waters—and wasn't the Queen of Greece sister to the Kaiser?
There were only about two places where we could possibly land, and the Turks were not merely warned of our intentions, but they were warned in plenty of time for them to prepare for us a warm reception. The schooling and method of the Germans had united with the ingenuity of the Turks to make those beaches the unhealthiest spots on the globe. The Germans plainly believed that a landing was impossible.
Think of those beaches, with land and sea mines, densely strewn with barbed wire (even into deep water), with machine-guns arranged so that every yard of sand and water would be swept, by direct, indirect, and cross fire, with a hose-like stream of bullets; think of thousands of field-pieces and howitzers ready, ranged, and set, so that they would spray the sand and whip the sea, merely by the pulling of triggers. Think of a force larger than the intended landing-party entrenched, with their rifles loaded and their range known, behind all manner of overhead cover and wire entanglements, and then remember that you are one of a party that has to step ashore there from an open boat, and kill, or drive far enough inland, these enemy soldiers to enable your stores to be landed so that when you have defeated him, you may not perish of starvation. Far more than at Balaclava did these young men from "down under" walk "right into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell!" And the Turks waited till they were well within the jaws before they opened fire. No one in the landing force knew where the Turks were, and the Turks did not fire on us until we got to the zone which they had so prepared that all might perish that entered there. They could see us clearly, the crowded open boats were targets of naked flesh that could not be missed. Was there ever a more favorable setting for a massacre? The Turks in burning Armenian villages with their women and children had not easier tasks than that entrenched army. Our men in the boats were too crowded to use their rifles, and the boats were too close in for the supporting war-ships to keep down the fire from those trenches. How was any one left alive? By calculation of the odds not one man should have set foot on that shore. Make a successful landing, enabling us to occupy a portion of that soil! What an impossible task!
To the men in those boats and the men watching from the ships, it appeared as if not merely the expedition had failed, but that not a man of the landing force would survive. Boats were riddled with bullets and sunk—other boats drifted helplessly as there were not enough alive to row them—men jumped into the bullet-formed spray to swim ashore but were caught in the barbed wire and drowned. Who could expect success, but it nevertheless happened! The Turks were sure that we could not land, yet we did. Not only did those boys set foot on those beaches, but the remnant of that landing-party drove the Turks out of their entrenchments up cliffs five hundred feet high, and entrenched themselves on the summit. How did they do it? No one knows; the men who were there don't know themselves. Did heaven intervene? Perhaps spiritual forces may sometimes paralyze material. It must be that right has physical might, else why didn't the Kaiser get to Paris? Mathematics and preparedness were on his side; by all reasoning Germany ought to have overwhelmed the world in a few months, with the superiority of her armament, but she didn't. The Turks ought to have kept us off the Peninsula, by all laws of logic and arithmetic, and they didn't. I really think the landing succeeded because those boys thought they had failed.
They must have believed themselves doomed—they could see that there were too few to accomplish what was even doubtful when the force was intact. When they were on the shore they must have felt that it was impossible that they could be taken off again. All the time more were falling, and soon it seemed that every last man must be massacred. They made up their minds that, at any rate, they would get a few of the swine before they went.
Every man believed that in the end he must be killed, but determined to sell his life as dearly as possible, and that made them the supermen that could not be "held back." A whole platoon would be cut down, but somehow one or two would manage to get into the trench, where, of necessity, it was hand-to-hand work, and with laughing disregard of the odds would lay out a score of the enemy and send the others fleeing before them, who would yell out that they were fighting demons from hell. After the confusion in the boats, and from the fact that in most cases companies were entirely without officers, there was no forming up for charges—indeed, there were no orders at all, but every man knew that he could not but be doing the right thing every time he killed a Turk, so they just took their rifle and bayonet in their naked hands and went to it. There was no line of battle, it was just here, there, and everywhere, khaki-clad, laughing demons, seeking Turks to kill.
Never was there fighting like this. All that day it went on. On the beach, up the cliff, in the gullies, miles inland were men fighting. It was not a battle; it would have made a master of tactics weep and tear his hair, but these man-to-man fights kept on. Many were shot from behind, many were wounded and fell in places where no one would find them—some, fighting on, went in a circle and found themselves back on the beach again. However, at nightfall some had begun to dig a shallow line of trenches, well inland across the cliff. Single men and small groups of them, not finding any more Turks where they were, fell back into this ditch and helped deepen it.
Fresh Turks were massing for counter-attack, and soon came on with fury, but we were something like an army now, and although the line had to be shortened it never broke. The landing had been made good, the impossible had been achieved. But there were many who died strange deaths, many left way in, helpless, who could not be succored—many whom the fighting lust led so far that when they thought of seeking their comrades they found the barrier of a Turkish army now intervening. Strange, unknown duels and combats were fought that day. Unknown are the "Bill-Jims" who killed scores with naked hand—there were many such. Though we beat the Turk with the odds in his favor, yet this day and afterward he earned our respect as a fighting man.
"East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat.
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the Earth."
The Australian had proved himself the fiercest fighter of the world… As one naval officer remarked, they fought not as men but devils. Many have said that much of the loss of life was needless, that had the Australians kept together and waited for orders not so many would have been cut off in the bush. It was true that the impetuosity of many took them too far to return, but it was that very quality that won the day. They did not return, but they drove the Turk before them and enabled others to dig in before he could re-form. You would have to go back to mediaeval times to parallel this fighting. There were impetuosity, dash, initiative, berserker rage, fierce hand-to-hand fighting, every man his own general.
These were not the only qualities of the Australian fighting men, but these alone could have succeeded on that day. When the time came for evacuation of those hardly won and held trenches, these same troops gave evidence of the possession of the opposite attributes of coolness, silence, patience, co-ordination; every man acting as part of a single unit, under control of a single will—which is discipline!
Friday, April 22, 2011
Cake Shower a Success
This update on the original interesting article from the British Nursing Journal on March 4th, 1916 giving the reade an update on the ‘Cake Shower’.
The “Cake Shower” was quite a success.
Eight competitors sent beautiful cakes, and the prize of 5s. was divided between Miss Boge, Superintendent Q.V. J. District Nurses’ Home, Shoreditch, who brought a beautifully iced cake made by herself, decorated with a bunch of pink and white carnations, with angelica stalks, and tied with green ribbons. On a miniature French flag was inscribed ‘From the Shoreditch Queen’s
Nurses.’
The second prize cake was given by Miss M. Harvey, R.N.S.; it was iced, and in national colours the British and French flags were realistically presented. This cake was dedicated “Pour nos saeurs de F.F.N.C.” A beautiful ‘Bristol Cake’ was sent anonymously, and others were received from Miss Hessee, Miss Breay, Miss Metherell, R.N.S., and Misses Thompson and Scudamore, and Mrs. Scroggie, Birkenhead, also sent 2s. 6d. to buy a cake. Miss Hawkins kindly packed the consignment addressed to Miss Ellison, and Miss Brockie took charge of the box, so we may hope it arrived safely at headquarters in Paris. By and by, when we are less busy over the Registration question, we hope to have some other interesting “ Showers ” for the F.F.N.C.
The “Cake Shower” was quite a success.
Eight competitors sent beautiful cakes, and the prize of 5s. was divided between Miss Boge, Superintendent Q.V. J. District Nurses’ Home, Shoreditch, who brought a beautifully iced cake made by herself, decorated with a bunch of pink and white carnations, with angelica stalks, and tied with green ribbons. On a miniature French flag was inscribed ‘From the Shoreditch Queen’s
Nurses.’
The second prize cake was given by Miss M. Harvey, R.N.S.; it was iced, and in national colours the British and French flags were realistically presented. This cake was dedicated “Pour nos saeurs de F.F.N.C.” A beautiful ‘Bristol Cake’ was sent anonymously, and others were received from Miss Hessee, Miss Breay, Miss Metherell, R.N.S., and Misses Thompson and Scudamore, and Mrs. Scroggie, Birkenhead, also sent 2s. 6d. to buy a cake. Miss Hawkins kindly packed the consignment addressed to Miss Ellison, and Miss Brockie took charge of the box, so we may hope it arrived safely at headquarters in Paris. By and by, when we are less busy over the Registration question, we hope to have some other interesting “ Showers ” for the F.F.N.C.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Kangeroo Feathers
This cartoon appeared in "The Punch" during the war. 
FIRST LADY: "That's one of them Australian soldiers." SECOND LADY: "How do you know?" FIRST LADY: "Why, can't you see the Kangaroo feathers in his hat?"
FIRST LADY: "That's one of them Australian soldiers." SECOND LADY: "How do you know?" FIRST LADY: "Why, can't you see the Kangaroo feathers in his hat?"
Friday, April 08, 2011
With the Tanks
This article from ‘The Great War in a Different Light’ entitled 'With the Tanks,” by Harold Littledale
Steel Monsters on the Western Front
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, December 1918
We were not always with the Tanks. We came from the infantry, from the cavalry, from the artillery, from the Machine-Gun Corps, the Motor Machine guns, the Flying Corps, the Army Service Corps, and even from the navy. We came at first in the varied uniforms of our various regiments, and a motley crowd we were - the British infantry man in his turned-over trousers, the Scotsman in his kilt, the artillery boys in riding breeches and jaunty bandoliers, and he of the senior service in regulation navy blue. Some of us came with the mud of the trenches on our boots and the stains of war on our clothing; others, who had not been overseas, were more presentable in clean khaki.
We were not always known as the Tanks. At first, a great deal of secrecy was thrown about us, and we were called the Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps, wearing the crossed-machine-gun insignia of that service. Later, in the summer of 1917, after we had cut our teeth and done a little biting on our own account, we became the Tank Corps, and the insignia was changed to a tank surrounded by laurel leaves, surmounted by a crown, By that time we had grown, and four original companies had become many battalions, the first handful of tanks had been multiplied and were legion, and we had established a depot in France in addition to depots in England, schools for gunnery and for driving, great workshops and stores behind the line, and advanced workshops and stores near the line. Also, we had taken part in many battles, and done a little toward winning some of them, perhaps, learning how most effectively to use our new engine of war, and improving upon it so much that, when the enemy used tanks against us, we were able to outdistance and outmanoeuvre his machines to his very great astonishment and dismay.
The spirit of adventure called most of us to the Tanks. This was not because we were any braver than our comrades-in-arms, but because our natures demanded a change. And so the call for volunteers found us ready, and when the word of acceptance came, our hearts beat quickly and our hopes rose high; for we were tired of the monotony of the trenches and the monotony of the guns. And yet, when we came together, we wondered why many of us were there; for while some of us were selected because we were machine-gunners, and others because we were motor-drivers, there were many of us to whom the machine-gun and the motor were incomprehensible things. But in the end we did not find this lack of knowledge any handicap; for the army authorities, who were wiser than we, knew that to men of average intelligence and education these things were easy to learn; and to our very great amazement, we found that a week was all that was necessary thoroughly to master any machine-gun and to qualify with it at the range, and that was necessary to grasp the principle of the internal-combustion engine and the mechanism of the tank.
All that, however, was only the preliminary training and there followed weeks and often months of instruction and of drill until we became letterperfect. In those later weeks, of course, some of us fell by the wayside and were returned to the infantry or the cavalry or the guns.
There were times when the spirit of adventure within us received a severe jolt. That was when we had to haul about cases of petrol, drums of oil, and tins of grease; for with every move-and we were constantly moving-it was necessary to form a 'dump' of such things as were necessary for the beast to move and have its being; and our minds will always turn back to nights of rain, and to roads of mud along which we struggled bitterly, bearing upon our shoulders or our backs great loads, the petrol leaking from its tins against our heads and so into our eyes, the thick oil escaping from its drums and trickling down our backs. All this was sheer navying and not at all what we expected, but it was most necessary.
Later, when we converted obsolete tanks into supply-tanks, much of this work was done by them and it became so organized that supply-tanks brought petrol, oil and grease up to us in action, or established dumps at certain designated points to which we turned back during the course of the battle, so that we could refill, return, and carry on. Thus the beast of prey did not altogether lose its usefulness with old age, but became a beast of burden and, as such, took no small part in making the fighting tank an efficient and formidable weapon.
Not all tanks were to survive for this service, however, for many went into action never to return; others sank from view in the Flanders mud, and our men dug down to them and converted them into bomb-proofs; and six of the first ever to be used lie along the Arras-Albert highroad, some on their sides, some on their backs, others still head-on toward the enemy's line, all of them broken and black with rust; for time and battle have shown them little mercy and left them merely unattractive hulks on the high tide of the German trenches.
Our first impression of the tank was one of disappointment. So much had been printed, after their first appearance in battle, of their freakish appearance and their great size, that we expected something far more strange in design, more monstrous, more dragon-like, and twice as big. However, when we came to go into action with them and to see some of them lurch clumsily when they were struck by armor-piercing shells, we inclined to the belief that they were quite large enough, and we even came to cherish a secret feeling that it would be much nicer and more comfortable and safer and healthier all round, if the tank could be made smaller and less conspicuous. Later it was made smaller; but the small tank was for special work and the large tank remained as large as ever, although certain internal improvements made it easier to handle and thereby increasingly difficult to hit. How increasingly difficult to hit they became may be appreciated when it is known that the first time the improved tanks were used in battle, not one of them was lost. That action took place during the merciful shelter of the darkness of a morning in the early summer of 1918; and while sixty tanks were used, the German official statement gave the number as eight hundred!
We were disappointed, too, to find that the tank could not do all that we had heard it could do. We had quite expected to climb to the housetops, or, failing that, to go right through houses, to uproot great trees, and to waddle through wide rivers. The newspapers had depicted the tanks doing all those things; but we were to learn that roofs have a habit of giving way under the weight Of 35 tons, which is the weight of a large tank, and that it was easier to go round houses than to go straight through them; and we were to learn that large trees, deeply rooted, successfully resist great force, and that the rivers of France are so muddy in the bed, that to cross them, as indeed once we had to in action, it was necessary to lay down a causeway of barrels filled with cement.
But, in spite of these early disappointments, there was much about the tank that satisfied the spirit of adventure, and there is not one of us who will ever forget his first ride-the crawling in at the sides, the discovery that the height did not permit a man of medium stature to stand erect, the sudden starting of the engine, the roar of it all when the throttle opened, the jolt forward, and the sliding through the mud that followed, until at last we came to the 'jump' which had been prepared. Then came the downward motion, which suddenly threw us off our feet and caused us to stretch trusting hands toward the nearest object-usually, at first, a hot pipe through which the water from the cylinder jackets flowed to the condenser. So, down and down and down, the throttle almost closed, the engine just 'ticking over,' until at last the bottom was reached, and as the power was turned full on, the tank raised herself to the incline, like a ship rising on a wave, and we were all jolted the other way, only to clutch again frantically for things which were hot and burned, until at last, with a swing over the top, we regained level ground. And in that moment we discovered that the trenches and the mud and the rain and the shells and the daily curse of bully beef had not killed everything within, for there came to us a thrill of happiness in that we were to sail over stranger seas than man had ever crossed, and set out on a great adventure. And some of us were to do great deeds, and others were to do simple things; some of us were to win great glory, and others of us were to crumple up against the engine or the guns, never again to stir; but all of us were to learn that it is not life that matters, but the courage which one brings to life.
Each one of us who transferred in France came to the reinforcement and training depot with a secret hope that he might he sent to Blighty for instruction. (Blighty is the soldiers' name for England. It is a corruption of the Indian word for home.) But in the first five minutes at the depot, that hope disappeared, and we knew that we should not see Blighty except in the ordinary routine of leave and wounds. As leave is granted only about every fifteen months, and even wounds are frequently difficult to get, the prospect of going home was soon dispelled.
In those days the depot was only in its infancy. It consisted of a score of tents for the men, and half a dozen small Armstrong huts for the officers.
But each week it grew, and after we left and went to various battalions, it was moved elsewhere, and huts such as are used in the British camps were erected.
On our arrival at the depot we were classified in two lots-drivers and gunners-the sheep and the goats, as it turned out to be later, for the better pay fell to the drivers and the dirtier work to the gunners. We were all given the rank of gunner, however. This was a relief. In the infantry we had been privates, but the term private soldier had ever been a source of mystery to us, for we had never discovered anything private in our lives to warrant the title. Even our private letters were not sealed, and had to be censored before they could be dispatched. Also, we were not permitted to have any private property; for a soldier belongs, body, soul, and belongings, to the army, at least theoretically, for of course we did have private property. This consisted mostly of the photographs of our wives, our children, and our sweethearts. The rest was what we bought in the way of soap and polish; for the one piece of soap and the single tin of blacking which the army issues to each recruit upon joining can scarcely be expected to last through a campaign, be the soldier ever so economical in washing his body or in cleaning his boots!
Just what was the mode of procedure in selecting some men to be drivers and other men to be gunners, we never knew. Perhaps it was gauged by the size of one's boots or the color of one's eyes. At any rate, quite frequently a skilled motor-mechanic would be sent to the gunners' company, while an expert machine-gunner, who knew nothing about internal combustion engines, would find himself among the drivers. In the long run, however, it did not matter much, for each driver had to qualify as a gunner, and each gunner was given an elementary tank course and taught how to drive.
The reasons for so complete a training were obvious. In case a tank was knocked out or developed serious engine-trouble, the entire crew could carry on in the trenches or the field with the guns; whereas, if all the drivers were killed, any gunner could bring the tank back. But to the average Tommy this dual instruction boded ill, for the soldier believes that the less you know, the better off you are. For instance, if you are a machine-gunner, a bomber, and a signaller, you will probably come in for more shows' than if you are simply a rifleman; wherefore a little knowledge is considered a dangerous thing. But later each one of us thanked his lucky stars that he was gunner and driver too; for there came a time when we did have to carry on in the trenches or the field with the guns, and there came a time, too, when the drivers all 'went West,' and the gunners had to bring back the tanks.
With the rank of gunner we drew slightly higher pay. In the infantry our rate of pay had been one shilling a day, half of which we turned over toward the support of our dependents, the government supplementing the allowance. As the Tanks were classified as artillery, and the daily rate of pay in the artillery was one shilling and twopence halfpenny, we drew this additional twopence halfpenny. Later, when the Tank Corps was established and pay in the army generally increased, we drew as much as two shillings and eightpence a day as first drivers, plus war-pay of a penny a day extra for each year we had been in the army; and the government relieved us of compulsorily contributing to the support of our dependents and itself undertook their entire support, which however, we were permitted to increase by voluntary contributions from our pay.
The depot was in a back area.
The site was ideal, a valley with woods on either side, making it difficult to observe from the air. Not infrequently hostile aircraft sailed overhead as if in search of us; but they failed to find us, for we were never subjected to aerial attack.
The camp was in a large field. The field itself was used as a parade and sports ground. Along either side were two rows of tents in which the men were housed. At one end was the mess-hall and at the other end the officers' quarters. The entire camp was surrounded by a hedge and poplar trees so that little could be seen from the road which bordered the eastern side. Along the western side ran a double-track, wide-gauge railway, and a spur of this led into Central Workshops, less than a quarter of a mile away. In a sense, Central Workshops was a tank hospital, for it was there that tanks which had been damaged in action went for overhauling and repair, and there at any time one could see tanks with great wounds in their sides, and, searching among the heap of cartridges on the floor, find some button or shred of clothing which told only too clearly what had happened. Later we were to see much of Central Works, for it was here, too, that all new tanks arriving from England were first tested before being turned over to the men who were to take them into battle; and it was upon flat cars moved into this siding that we were to drive our tanks, and so move to within striking distance of the fighting line.
It was to a tent on the side-lines that the new arrival was sent. If he was lucky, he found himself in one occupied mostly by cooks. The luck manifested itself after 'Lights Out,' when tins of sardines and jam, pieces of bread and cheese would mysteriously appear and be passed around; for while the army ration is sufficient, manna from the soldiers' heaven, which is the cookhouse, is always welcome. And almost nightly this manna rained upon this tent, and from the beginning the new arrival got a portion, for soldiers always share.
For the most part the men at the depot were recruits from England sent out to reinforce battalions which had suffered losses in action. A few battalion men were there, though, and these could be distinguished by the colors on their shoulder-straps. In those days the battalions were designated by the letters of the alphabet: A Battalion, B Battalion, C Battalion, and so on, and the colors of A Battalion were red, of B Battalion yellow, of C Battalion green, of D Battalion blue. Later, the lettering system was discontinued-why, we never knew-and A Battalion became the First Battalion, B the Second, C the Third, and so on.
At that time those of us who had only had instruction on tanks in England, and those of us who had never seen a tank, looked with awe upon these battalion men; for most of them had seen action in the tanks, and many of them had been wounded, gone to hospital, and subsequently been dispatched to the depot for return to their respective units. And because so much mystery was attached to the tanks, we came to think that their risks had been greater than any we ourselves had run, and we often tried to get them to talk of it all; but found them strangely silent. Later, we were to learn how ridiculous this sense of awe had been, for we in turn were to suffer from much the same sort of thing and were to hear people murmur hoarsely to each other, 'He's with the Tanks,' as if we were the pick of the army, undergoing greater hardships than anyone else.
The officers at the depot were there under circumstances similar to our own. Some of them were battalion officers who had been wounded; others were reinforcements sent from England, and others were officers who had transferred in France from as many different units as ourselves.
Usually the routine of the day included physical training, squad-drill. gas-drill machine-gun instruction, preliminary tank instruction, and fatigues. Fatigues were doing any odd job around the camp, from peeling potatoes for the cooks to unloading quartermasters' stores. And, the day finally ended, there were still pickets and guards to be done in turn. The fire picket was a more or less informed affair which we did not mind; but guard had to be mounted in full marching order, and so searching was the inspection that a spot of grease on your pack might cause you to lose three days' pay and be confined to camp as well. Guard-mounting in steel hats some thirty miles behind the line seemed to us only a ceremonial instituted purposely to aggravate the soldier, and we groused a great deal about it until we heard the reason, which may or may not be the true one. It was said that, in the first few weeks after the depot was started, and when there was one tank there, guard was mounted in the usual manner, the men wearing the soft field-service cap. A sentry was posted at the tank, and that night, when the corporal of the guard marched the relief to that point, he fell over the prostate body of the sentry. He picked him up and carried him to the guard-house and later had him removed to a hospital, for he had been struck over the head with some blunt weapon. Why or how he had been struck, he never knew, nor how long he had been unconscious; but the affair was put down to espionage and resulted in an order to wear our shrapnel helmets when on guard. Color was lent to the theory of espionage by a later incident; for through papers found on a man arrested in England the intelligence officers traced a German spy, and caught him on that spur of the railway track leading to Central Workshops.
It was while marching to the baths that many of us saw our first tank. For two days rain had been falling and the parade-ground was camouflaged by two inches of water and four inches of mud. Of the two the water was probably thicker than the mud; so, because we could not do squad-drill, we were warned for the baths. These were shower-baths, two kilometres distant, but they were more like an anaemic fire-sprinkler system than anything else. They were housed in a dilapidated old barn, the roof of which leaked more water than came through the sprinklers.
With towels over our left shoulders we were lined up and marched off, grousing a good deal, for it was still raining and the road was in a wretched condition. We had just passed Central Workshops when the tank appeared, moving along the road slowly, making less noise than we expected, for we were to learn that most of the noise is internal and little except the exhaust can be heard from without.
We marched to the side of the road to let Behemoth pass, and in that moment forgot the mud and the rain, and laughed as it slid past, much as the infantry are said to have laughed on that summer morning which marked the beginning of the Battle of the Somme. But our merriment lasted only a moment, for a sharp order brought us to a realization that we were marching to attention; so we set our faces and trudged on.
It has been printed that the tanks were called 'Willies.' We ourselves never used the name. At first they were known as landships, and H. M. S. Campania comes to mind. In those days all the tanks were named. There were Explorer and Explosive, for instance; and when the Germans came to use tanks we found that they had named theirs, too; for one of the first German tank-commanders called the tank Elfreda, probably after his sweetheart. But Elfreda turned out to be fickle and quickly deserted to our side, and we made much of her, for she was the first of her type to be captured. With us, however, names quickly fell into disfavor, and in the end were discontinued, and tanks fell to the military routine of carrying regimental numbers.
In those early days a tank always to be relied upon to create more than usual interest was one presented to the British army by a councilor of the Malay States.
In front of the tank, on either side, was painted a large staring eye, such as may be seen on the bows of Chinese junks; and the idea probably was the same, for the Chinese say, if a ship has not got eyes, how in the world can it possibly see to go?
To-day tanks are largely of four types: the male tank, the female tank, the gun-carrier (or supply) tank, and the 'whippet.' The male and female tanks are of the heavy type, and are identical in size. They differ only in armament, for the male tank carries two large cannons and five machine guns, whereas the female variety is armed with seven machine-guns, reversing the poet's assertion that the female of the species is deadlier than the male.
While male and female work together and probably would have entered the Ark side by side had they existed in those days, they are used for entirely different work. Generally speaking, the male tank is used first to pass over barbed wire and flatten it. so that infantry may walk through, and then goes on to the more important work of destroying 'pill-boxes', machine-gun emplacements-so called because of their appearance. It is for this work that the cannons are used and armor-piercing shells are fired, and not infrequently what remains of the emplacement is sat upon by the tank itself. That, however, is a dangerous undertaking, for the tank might be hoist with its own petard and ditched in its own destruction.
The female tank, moving in the wake of the male, passes over the wire in the same spot, effectively flattening it, and acts as 'mopper-up' of the infantry, with the exception of those who come into direct observation of the male; for while the male is pounding the 'pill-boxes' with her guns, the female is going across the enemy's trenches and moving along the tops of them, firing her machine-guns at the infantry there.
In shape male and female, as they are to-day, are identical with that first tank used at the Battle of the Somme. One attachment that was immediately discarded, however, was the trailer of wheels. These great wheels were used to assist in steering the tank, and were so devised that, when it went into a shell-hole or a trench, they could be lifted clear by internal mechanism. They were found to be of little value. however, and were discarded without delay. That was the first improvement, and later, when certain other internal changes were made, the tank manoeuvred so much better and went so much faster that, when those which had been captured from us were patched up and used against us, we found that we were able to run circles around them and defeat them at each encounter.
Of all our tanks the least successful was the gun-carrier. This was of greater length than the fighting tank; and was designed to carry a piece of ordinance of large calibre into advanced positions, newly captured; and the arrangement was such that the gun could either be fired from the tank or be dismounted and put on wheels. For some reason, however, this plan did not work out as well as was expected, and many of the gun-carrier tanks were used to bring up supplies, and as such did highly efficient work, more than making up for their early failure,
Of all our tanks the 'whippet' was the big surprise. This was a small tank, built for the purpose of pursuit on ground which could not be traversed by an armored car. The surprise came when the whippet, built much along the lines of the gun-carrier, succeeded in traversing ground which invariably ditched the bigger supply-tank.
With the failure of the gun-carrier, we of the heavy fighting tanks came to the belief that to have the tracks-or caterpillar tread-pass completely round the bull was an essential to success,; for in the gun-carriers this was not done and they found difficulty in getting out of holes. But when the whippet, whose tracks, like those of the gun-carrier, did not pass completely round the hull, proved a success, we came to change our views and to lay the blame to incorrect balance.
While whippets were first used in the early part of igi8, it was not until the second defeat of the German army on the Marne and the Somme that this type came to be generally known. The enemy's forced retreat to the old Hindenburg line was an ideal condition for the whippet, and these little tanks, which have a greater speed than their bigger brothers and sisters, were able to harass the foe and to break up the rear-guard machine-gun fighting which he attempted to put up. This they did so effectively that, in the late summer of that year, civilians seemed to talk in terms of whippets, not realizing that the preliminary work of the male and female tanks in flattening down wire, breaking 'pill-boxes,' and causing the enemy to give up his lines of defense, was needed before the whippet's effectiveness could he complete.
These, then, were the tanks which our men took into action. In the beginning none of us knew anything about tanks. We had learned the engine and the mechanism, and had driven them over holes and trenches; but battle conditions are found to be entirely different. And because this engine of war was new, our high command had to learn tank tactics; and not before all of us had made many mistakes, did we learn how tanks should be handled and where they should be used. Those mistakes cost us dear, both in men and in tanks, and there was a time when, although we ourselves knew the tank to be a valuable instrument, we quite understood that the confidence of the public had been shaken by our failures.
How near the Tank Corps came to being abandoned, few persons know. Its fate was decided by one single engagement, and only a minor operation at that.
At one point on our line there was a German position of seven machine-gun emplacements or 'pill-boxes,' which was forever causing trouble. It was planned to take that position, and the commander there was ordered to draw up a plan of attack and an estimate of casualties; for in the British army no attack is made without an estimate of casualties, and if they are out of proportion to the zenith of success, the attack is never made. In this instance the number was placed between 400 and 500. This figure the high command thought too high, and the Tanks were asked if they could capture the position. Officers of our corps looked over the ground and examined aeroplane maps. Then they announced that they could take the position, and that, as the infantry would be used only to consolidate the ground won, the casualties would not be nearly so high as the first estimate. And so the attack was made, and the position was taken. The casualties were only seventeen and the Tank Corps was saved.
We called them 'busses,' and the name stuck. 'Landship' was too long and too clumsy to last. Even 'tank' did not stand the test of time, except officially in the army forms and the army correspondence. Always it was busses.
To each bus a crew was assigned. The duties of the crew were to keep the mechanism and the guns in working order, and to take the tank into battle. With the large busses the crew consisted of one commissioned officer, one non-commissioned officer, and six men. In the case of the guncarrier, when those busses were relegated to supply-work, only drivers were carried, as there were no guns. With the whippets the crew was not so numerous as with the male and female tanks, because the whippet was smaller, and there were fewer guns to be operated.
The general shape of the heavy British fighting tank is well known. The elevation is roughly that of a rhombus, with the two acute angles rounded off. The plan resembles somewhat the letter H, with a heavy cross-bar for the body, the sides of the letter representing the tracks.
For the most part the tanks are made of armor-plating. In some places the armor is thicker than in others, but at the thickest it is not more than three eighths of an inch. This may seem ridiculously inadequate, but the armor is hardened by a process used for ships of the British navy. It is bullet-proof and bomb-proof, and shrapnel more often than not does no harm. Armor-piercing shells, however, are effective when direct hits are made. The Germans even use an armor-piercing shell weighing only one pound, and seem to think it quite satisfactory. These shells are fired from specially designed anti-tank guns, which are kept in the front lines or in concealed places just behind the line.
Even the tracks are made of armor-plate. These tracks in the heavy fighting-tanks run completely round the body, and are made of individual plates, so that they can be 'broken,' opened up, anywhere, to permit the mechanism underneath them to be examined. This mechanism, in a general way, consists of rollers, chains, and sprocket-wheels and differs little from that of the average American tractor, but is greatly improved. The rollers need constant lubrication, and after every trip men are assigned to greasing up. This is a job which all of us hate cordially, because it consists of forcing grease into these rollers from outside, with a grease-gun, and one not only gets very dirty but, as there are fifty-four rollers to each tank and most of these are within two inches of the ground, the job is back-breaking and often necessitates sitting down in the mud. Usually greasing up outside falls to the gunners, for the drivers have other work inside, not always so arduous but equally important, and needing their greater knowledge of the engine and controls.
Projecting from either side of the male tank are two large sponsons. These are not quite one-third the entire length of the bus and are placed amidships. They are emplacements for the guns, and give the heavy cannon a wide traverse. The sponsons are removable and can be pushed in flush with the side. Were this not so, tanks could not be taken on trains because of their great width with the sponsons in position, and every move by train involves the arduous job of pushing in sponsons when entraining and pushing them out after detraining.
In the female tank the sponsons are comparatively small. The large one is not needed in this case, as the female has only machine-guns; but even the small sponson of the female is made to shut in. The supply-tanks and the whippets do not have sponsons.
Entrance, in the case of the male tank, is effected by means of doors at the back of each of the sponsons. In the case of the female these doors are underneath the sponson and open into the side. There is also a door at the rear of the heavy fighting tank, and a fourth place of entrance or exit elsewhere. All these doors are provided with locks, which are proof even against the Hun; there have been times when he has come around and tried to open them, to be greeted with revolver-fire; for each member of the tank crew carries a revolver for personal protection and closequarters work.
The engine is installed along the centre-line of the tank and slightly forward of the middle. At first, a powerful engine designed for heavy tractor-work was used; but this was found to be scarcely strong enough, and another engine was specially designed and contributed no small part of the success of the improved tank.
It is in the front of the tank that the driver sits; for there are the throttle and the controls and the brakes and the gauges which register the oil- and petrol-pressure. Beside him usually is the non-commissioned officer, who operates the forward machine-gun; and by no means the least among the driver's annoyances are the empty cartridge-cases which are ejected from this gun and which usually find the driver's left ear or eye as a target.
The tank officer usually sits in the conning tower amidships. Observation from the driver's seat is restricted on either side because of the tracks, but from the conning tower the lookout has an unrestricted view in all directions. Thus he can watch for 'targets,' and, being in the middle of the tank, is well situated to command it. He is so close to most of the gunners that he can communicate with them either by shouting or by making signs, but so terrific is the noise of the engine that it would be utterly impossible for the non-commissioned officer and the driver to hear him, so speaking-tubes run from the conning tower to the driver's cab.
In action in a tank, heat is one of the great hardships, for it is so exhausting that the men frequently have to buck themselves up with restoratives, carried in the tank's medicine bag.
Usually, in the ordinary course of travel, or going up, men walk outside the tank, or ride on the top, the driver alone being inside; but in action all have to be inside, and the tank is shut up so that in broad daylight it is quite dark within. Observation for the driver and gunners is made possible by lookout ports, in which eight tiny holes are drilled. Strangely enough, observation is not so difficult as might be imagined. It is above these holes that the only padding in the tank is placed; for, contrary to the general impression, tanks are not padded inside, nor are men strapped into seats. The gunners for the most part stand; the two men forward are seated, and when the driver is about to take a severe drop or incline, he shouts back through the speaking-tube and the men hang on, bracing themselves against the engine or the guns. The padding over the lookout holes consists of a head-rest against which one presses the forehead in order to bring the eyes as close to the holes as possible. These lookout holes superseded periscopic prisms, which proved unsatisfactory. The prisms were made of glass about two inches thick; but bullets striking the glass, while not breaking it, starred it so that observation became difficult if not quite impossible. To meet this, a steel reflector was tried out, but did not answer the purpose; and so the holes were resorted to, and while observation involves an unnatural straining of the neck, it is effective.
While bullets do not penetrate the armor, but only ruffle it up a bit at the point where they are deflected, a great deal of bullet 'splash' does come in. This is more annoying than serious, and after an action one could pick out any number of these tiny splinters from one's face. So, as a means of protection against 'splash,' face-armor was invented. This looks much like a bandit's mask, with a steel-mesh chain hanging from it. The mask itself is of thin steel, with slits for the eyes, the whole padded for the face and adjustable to it.
The greatest danger, however, whether in or out of action, is that of fire. Smoking inside a tank is forbidden. Usually smoking is not permitted within twenty yards of one. This is because of the great amount of petrol, or gasoline, carried, and because of the fumes. Thus an armor-piercing shell entering the tank not only explodes in a confined area, but usually sets the machine on fire. When that happens, men have to escape as best they can, tumbling out of the doors, usually to be greeted by the enemy's machine-gun fire. Often, however, so much damage was done by the shell itself, that only those nearest the doors ever escaped. The rest perished in the flames, and those who have ever had to go back to a tank and see their comrades burned almost beyond recognition will bear testimony that death by fire was feared more than anything else.
Such, then, is the tank. It came at a time when intense artillery barrages made the ground in front and behind the lines almost impossible to traverse. Thus the infantry was hampered in movement, and often reached the enemy's barbed wire only to find that, while its form had been destroyed, it lay there as tangled and as dangerous as ever. Furthermore these barrages were enormously expensive, and one British barrage lasting three days cost more than $63,000,000.
Perhaps the most serious fault of the barrage, however, was the notice of attack which it gave the enemy. While an attack might be on a limited front and the barrage on an extended front, it was like sending a visiting card. So the Germans watched and prayed. Often they prayed for the attack to begin; for after two or three days and nights of intense artillery and trench-mortar fire one longs to have it over and done with.
The tank virtually abolished this method of attack. Artillery barrages were kept up even after the tanks were perfected, but frequently the element of surprise was attained by the use of tanks without a preliminary fire. And so, in the dark of the early morning, the tanks go over, male and female, ahead of all others, and they cross the enemy's wire and flatten that, and then press on against his 'pill-boxes,' leaving the infantry with their bombs to settle affairs in the dugouts. Often the artillery assists the tanks, once the battle has begun, and particularly when dawn breaks and visibility exists. Then they put up a smoke-barrage, and the tanks carry on with the assistance of these screens, smashing down defenses, mopping up personnel, and creating terror in the hearts of the enemy.
Steel Monsters on the Western Front
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, December 1918
We were not always with the Tanks. We came from the infantry, from the cavalry, from the artillery, from the Machine-Gun Corps, the Motor Machine guns, the Flying Corps, the Army Service Corps, and even from the navy. We came at first in the varied uniforms of our various regiments, and a motley crowd we were - the British infantry man in his turned-over trousers, the Scotsman in his kilt, the artillery boys in riding breeches and jaunty bandoliers, and he of the senior service in regulation navy blue. Some of us came with the mud of the trenches on our boots and the stains of war on our clothing; others, who had not been overseas, were more presentable in clean khaki.
We were not always known as the Tanks. At first, a great deal of secrecy was thrown about us, and we were called the Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps, wearing the crossed-machine-gun insignia of that service. Later, in the summer of 1917, after we had cut our teeth and done a little biting on our own account, we became the Tank Corps, and the insignia was changed to a tank surrounded by laurel leaves, surmounted by a crown, By that time we had grown, and four original companies had become many battalions, the first handful of tanks had been multiplied and were legion, and we had established a depot in France in addition to depots in England, schools for gunnery and for driving, great workshops and stores behind the line, and advanced workshops and stores near the line. Also, we had taken part in many battles, and done a little toward winning some of them, perhaps, learning how most effectively to use our new engine of war, and improving upon it so much that, when the enemy used tanks against us, we were able to outdistance and outmanoeuvre his machines to his very great astonishment and dismay.
The spirit of adventure called most of us to the Tanks. This was not because we were any braver than our comrades-in-arms, but because our natures demanded a change. And so the call for volunteers found us ready, and when the word of acceptance came, our hearts beat quickly and our hopes rose high; for we were tired of the monotony of the trenches and the monotony of the guns. And yet, when we came together, we wondered why many of us were there; for while some of us were selected because we were machine-gunners, and others because we were motor-drivers, there were many of us to whom the machine-gun and the motor were incomprehensible things. But in the end we did not find this lack of knowledge any handicap; for the army authorities, who were wiser than we, knew that to men of average intelligence and education these things were easy to learn; and to our very great amazement, we found that a week was all that was necessary thoroughly to master any machine-gun and to qualify with it at the range, and that was necessary to grasp the principle of the internal-combustion engine and the mechanism of the tank.
All that, however, was only the preliminary training and there followed weeks and often months of instruction and of drill until we became letterperfect. In those later weeks, of course, some of us fell by the wayside and were returned to the infantry or the cavalry or the guns.
There were times when the spirit of adventure within us received a severe jolt. That was when we had to haul about cases of petrol, drums of oil, and tins of grease; for with every move-and we were constantly moving-it was necessary to form a 'dump' of such things as were necessary for the beast to move and have its being; and our minds will always turn back to nights of rain, and to roads of mud along which we struggled bitterly, bearing upon our shoulders or our backs great loads, the petrol leaking from its tins against our heads and so into our eyes, the thick oil escaping from its drums and trickling down our backs. All this was sheer navying and not at all what we expected, but it was most necessary.
Later, when we converted obsolete tanks into supply-tanks, much of this work was done by them and it became so organized that supply-tanks brought petrol, oil and grease up to us in action, or established dumps at certain designated points to which we turned back during the course of the battle, so that we could refill, return, and carry on. Thus the beast of prey did not altogether lose its usefulness with old age, but became a beast of burden and, as such, took no small part in making the fighting tank an efficient and formidable weapon.
Not all tanks were to survive for this service, however, for many went into action never to return; others sank from view in the Flanders mud, and our men dug down to them and converted them into bomb-proofs; and six of the first ever to be used lie along the Arras-Albert highroad, some on their sides, some on their backs, others still head-on toward the enemy's line, all of them broken and black with rust; for time and battle have shown them little mercy and left them merely unattractive hulks on the high tide of the German trenches.
Our first impression of the tank was one of disappointment. So much had been printed, after their first appearance in battle, of their freakish appearance and their great size, that we expected something far more strange in design, more monstrous, more dragon-like, and twice as big. However, when we came to go into action with them and to see some of them lurch clumsily when they were struck by armor-piercing shells, we inclined to the belief that they were quite large enough, and we even came to cherish a secret feeling that it would be much nicer and more comfortable and safer and healthier all round, if the tank could be made smaller and less conspicuous. Later it was made smaller; but the small tank was for special work and the large tank remained as large as ever, although certain internal improvements made it easier to handle and thereby increasingly difficult to hit. How increasingly difficult to hit they became may be appreciated when it is known that the first time the improved tanks were used in battle, not one of them was lost. That action took place during the merciful shelter of the darkness of a morning in the early summer of 1918; and while sixty tanks were used, the German official statement gave the number as eight hundred!
We were disappointed, too, to find that the tank could not do all that we had heard it could do. We had quite expected to climb to the housetops, or, failing that, to go right through houses, to uproot great trees, and to waddle through wide rivers. The newspapers had depicted the tanks doing all those things; but we were to learn that roofs have a habit of giving way under the weight Of 35 tons, which is the weight of a large tank, and that it was easier to go round houses than to go straight through them; and we were to learn that large trees, deeply rooted, successfully resist great force, and that the rivers of France are so muddy in the bed, that to cross them, as indeed once we had to in action, it was necessary to lay down a causeway of barrels filled with cement.
But, in spite of these early disappointments, there was much about the tank that satisfied the spirit of adventure, and there is not one of us who will ever forget his first ride-the crawling in at the sides, the discovery that the height did not permit a man of medium stature to stand erect, the sudden starting of the engine, the roar of it all when the throttle opened, the jolt forward, and the sliding through the mud that followed, until at last we came to the 'jump' which had been prepared. Then came the downward motion, which suddenly threw us off our feet and caused us to stretch trusting hands toward the nearest object-usually, at first, a hot pipe through which the water from the cylinder jackets flowed to the condenser. So, down and down and down, the throttle almost closed, the engine just 'ticking over,' until at last the bottom was reached, and as the power was turned full on, the tank raised herself to the incline, like a ship rising on a wave, and we were all jolted the other way, only to clutch again frantically for things which were hot and burned, until at last, with a swing over the top, we regained level ground. And in that moment we discovered that the trenches and the mud and the rain and the shells and the daily curse of bully beef had not killed everything within, for there came to us a thrill of happiness in that we were to sail over stranger seas than man had ever crossed, and set out on a great adventure. And some of us were to do great deeds, and others were to do simple things; some of us were to win great glory, and others of us were to crumple up against the engine or the guns, never again to stir; but all of us were to learn that it is not life that matters, but the courage which one brings to life.
Each one of us who transferred in France came to the reinforcement and training depot with a secret hope that he might he sent to Blighty for instruction. (Blighty is the soldiers' name for England. It is a corruption of the Indian word for home.) But in the first five minutes at the depot, that hope disappeared, and we knew that we should not see Blighty except in the ordinary routine of leave and wounds. As leave is granted only about every fifteen months, and even wounds are frequently difficult to get, the prospect of going home was soon dispelled.
In those days the depot was only in its infancy. It consisted of a score of tents for the men, and half a dozen small Armstrong huts for the officers.
But each week it grew, and after we left and went to various battalions, it was moved elsewhere, and huts such as are used in the British camps were erected.
On our arrival at the depot we were classified in two lots-drivers and gunners-the sheep and the goats, as it turned out to be later, for the better pay fell to the drivers and the dirtier work to the gunners. We were all given the rank of gunner, however. This was a relief. In the infantry we had been privates, but the term private soldier had ever been a source of mystery to us, for we had never discovered anything private in our lives to warrant the title. Even our private letters were not sealed, and had to be censored before they could be dispatched. Also, we were not permitted to have any private property; for a soldier belongs, body, soul, and belongings, to the army, at least theoretically, for of course we did have private property. This consisted mostly of the photographs of our wives, our children, and our sweethearts. The rest was what we bought in the way of soap and polish; for the one piece of soap and the single tin of blacking which the army issues to each recruit upon joining can scarcely be expected to last through a campaign, be the soldier ever so economical in washing his body or in cleaning his boots!
Just what was the mode of procedure in selecting some men to be drivers and other men to be gunners, we never knew. Perhaps it was gauged by the size of one's boots or the color of one's eyes. At any rate, quite frequently a skilled motor-mechanic would be sent to the gunners' company, while an expert machine-gunner, who knew nothing about internal combustion engines, would find himself among the drivers. In the long run, however, it did not matter much, for each driver had to qualify as a gunner, and each gunner was given an elementary tank course and taught how to drive.
The reasons for so complete a training were obvious. In case a tank was knocked out or developed serious engine-trouble, the entire crew could carry on in the trenches or the field with the guns; whereas, if all the drivers were killed, any gunner could bring the tank back. But to the average Tommy this dual instruction boded ill, for the soldier believes that the less you know, the better off you are. For instance, if you are a machine-gunner, a bomber, and a signaller, you will probably come in for more shows' than if you are simply a rifleman; wherefore a little knowledge is considered a dangerous thing. But later each one of us thanked his lucky stars that he was gunner and driver too; for there came a time when we did have to carry on in the trenches or the field with the guns, and there came a time, too, when the drivers all 'went West,' and the gunners had to bring back the tanks.
With the rank of gunner we drew slightly higher pay. In the infantry our rate of pay had been one shilling a day, half of which we turned over toward the support of our dependents, the government supplementing the allowance. As the Tanks were classified as artillery, and the daily rate of pay in the artillery was one shilling and twopence halfpenny, we drew this additional twopence halfpenny. Later, when the Tank Corps was established and pay in the army generally increased, we drew as much as two shillings and eightpence a day as first drivers, plus war-pay of a penny a day extra for each year we had been in the army; and the government relieved us of compulsorily contributing to the support of our dependents and itself undertook their entire support, which however, we were permitted to increase by voluntary contributions from our pay.
The depot was in a back area.
The site was ideal, a valley with woods on either side, making it difficult to observe from the air. Not infrequently hostile aircraft sailed overhead as if in search of us; but they failed to find us, for we were never subjected to aerial attack.
The camp was in a large field. The field itself was used as a parade and sports ground. Along either side were two rows of tents in which the men were housed. At one end was the mess-hall and at the other end the officers' quarters. The entire camp was surrounded by a hedge and poplar trees so that little could be seen from the road which bordered the eastern side. Along the western side ran a double-track, wide-gauge railway, and a spur of this led into Central Workshops, less than a quarter of a mile away. In a sense, Central Workshops was a tank hospital, for it was there that tanks which had been damaged in action went for overhauling and repair, and there at any time one could see tanks with great wounds in their sides, and, searching among the heap of cartridges on the floor, find some button or shred of clothing which told only too clearly what had happened. Later we were to see much of Central Works, for it was here, too, that all new tanks arriving from England were first tested before being turned over to the men who were to take them into battle; and it was upon flat cars moved into this siding that we were to drive our tanks, and so move to within striking distance of the fighting line.
It was to a tent on the side-lines that the new arrival was sent. If he was lucky, he found himself in one occupied mostly by cooks. The luck manifested itself after 'Lights Out,' when tins of sardines and jam, pieces of bread and cheese would mysteriously appear and be passed around; for while the army ration is sufficient, manna from the soldiers' heaven, which is the cookhouse, is always welcome. And almost nightly this manna rained upon this tent, and from the beginning the new arrival got a portion, for soldiers always share.
For the most part the men at the depot were recruits from England sent out to reinforce battalions which had suffered losses in action. A few battalion men were there, though, and these could be distinguished by the colors on their shoulder-straps. In those days the battalions were designated by the letters of the alphabet: A Battalion, B Battalion, C Battalion, and so on, and the colors of A Battalion were red, of B Battalion yellow, of C Battalion green, of D Battalion blue. Later, the lettering system was discontinued-why, we never knew-and A Battalion became the First Battalion, B the Second, C the Third, and so on.
At that time those of us who had only had instruction on tanks in England, and those of us who had never seen a tank, looked with awe upon these battalion men; for most of them had seen action in the tanks, and many of them had been wounded, gone to hospital, and subsequently been dispatched to the depot for return to their respective units. And because so much mystery was attached to the tanks, we came to think that their risks had been greater than any we ourselves had run, and we often tried to get them to talk of it all; but found them strangely silent. Later, we were to learn how ridiculous this sense of awe had been, for we in turn were to suffer from much the same sort of thing and were to hear people murmur hoarsely to each other, 'He's with the Tanks,' as if we were the pick of the army, undergoing greater hardships than anyone else.
The officers at the depot were there under circumstances similar to our own. Some of them were battalion officers who had been wounded; others were reinforcements sent from England, and others were officers who had transferred in France from as many different units as ourselves.
Usually the routine of the day included physical training, squad-drill. gas-drill machine-gun instruction, preliminary tank instruction, and fatigues. Fatigues were doing any odd job around the camp, from peeling potatoes for the cooks to unloading quartermasters' stores. And, the day finally ended, there were still pickets and guards to be done in turn. The fire picket was a more or less informed affair which we did not mind; but guard had to be mounted in full marching order, and so searching was the inspection that a spot of grease on your pack might cause you to lose three days' pay and be confined to camp as well. Guard-mounting in steel hats some thirty miles behind the line seemed to us only a ceremonial instituted purposely to aggravate the soldier, and we groused a great deal about it until we heard the reason, which may or may not be the true one. It was said that, in the first few weeks after the depot was started, and when there was one tank there, guard was mounted in the usual manner, the men wearing the soft field-service cap. A sentry was posted at the tank, and that night, when the corporal of the guard marched the relief to that point, he fell over the prostate body of the sentry. He picked him up and carried him to the guard-house and later had him removed to a hospital, for he had been struck over the head with some blunt weapon. Why or how he had been struck, he never knew, nor how long he had been unconscious; but the affair was put down to espionage and resulted in an order to wear our shrapnel helmets when on guard. Color was lent to the theory of espionage by a later incident; for through papers found on a man arrested in England the intelligence officers traced a German spy, and caught him on that spur of the railway track leading to Central Workshops.
It was while marching to the baths that many of us saw our first tank. For two days rain had been falling and the parade-ground was camouflaged by two inches of water and four inches of mud. Of the two the water was probably thicker than the mud; so, because we could not do squad-drill, we were warned for the baths. These were shower-baths, two kilometres distant, but they were more like an anaemic fire-sprinkler system than anything else. They were housed in a dilapidated old barn, the roof of which leaked more water than came through the sprinklers.
With towels over our left shoulders we were lined up and marched off, grousing a good deal, for it was still raining and the road was in a wretched condition. We had just passed Central Workshops when the tank appeared, moving along the road slowly, making less noise than we expected, for we were to learn that most of the noise is internal and little except the exhaust can be heard from without.
We marched to the side of the road to let Behemoth pass, and in that moment forgot the mud and the rain, and laughed as it slid past, much as the infantry are said to have laughed on that summer morning which marked the beginning of the Battle of the Somme. But our merriment lasted only a moment, for a sharp order brought us to a realization that we were marching to attention; so we set our faces and trudged on.
It has been printed that the tanks were called 'Willies.' We ourselves never used the name. At first they were known as landships, and H. M. S. Campania comes to mind. In those days all the tanks were named. There were Explorer and Explosive, for instance; and when the Germans came to use tanks we found that they had named theirs, too; for one of the first German tank-commanders called the tank Elfreda, probably after his sweetheart. But Elfreda turned out to be fickle and quickly deserted to our side, and we made much of her, for she was the first of her type to be captured. With us, however, names quickly fell into disfavor, and in the end were discontinued, and tanks fell to the military routine of carrying regimental numbers.
In those early days a tank always to be relied upon to create more than usual interest was one presented to the British army by a councilor of the Malay States.
In front of the tank, on either side, was painted a large staring eye, such as may be seen on the bows of Chinese junks; and the idea probably was the same, for the Chinese say, if a ship has not got eyes, how in the world can it possibly see to go?
To-day tanks are largely of four types: the male tank, the female tank, the gun-carrier (or supply) tank, and the 'whippet.' The male and female tanks are of the heavy type, and are identical in size. They differ only in armament, for the male tank carries two large cannons and five machine guns, whereas the female variety is armed with seven machine-guns, reversing the poet's assertion that the female of the species is deadlier than the male.
While male and female work together and probably would have entered the Ark side by side had they existed in those days, they are used for entirely different work. Generally speaking, the male tank is used first to pass over barbed wire and flatten it. so that infantry may walk through, and then goes on to the more important work of destroying 'pill-boxes', machine-gun emplacements-so called because of their appearance. It is for this work that the cannons are used and armor-piercing shells are fired, and not infrequently what remains of the emplacement is sat upon by the tank itself. That, however, is a dangerous undertaking, for the tank might be hoist with its own petard and ditched in its own destruction.
The female tank, moving in the wake of the male, passes over the wire in the same spot, effectively flattening it, and acts as 'mopper-up' of the infantry, with the exception of those who come into direct observation of the male; for while the male is pounding the 'pill-boxes' with her guns, the female is going across the enemy's trenches and moving along the tops of them, firing her machine-guns at the infantry there.
In shape male and female, as they are to-day, are identical with that first tank used at the Battle of the Somme. One attachment that was immediately discarded, however, was the trailer of wheels. These great wheels were used to assist in steering the tank, and were so devised that, when it went into a shell-hole or a trench, they could be lifted clear by internal mechanism. They were found to be of little value. however, and were discarded without delay. That was the first improvement, and later, when certain other internal changes were made, the tank manoeuvred so much better and went so much faster that, when those which had been captured from us were patched up and used against us, we found that we were able to run circles around them and defeat them at each encounter.
Of all our tanks the least successful was the gun-carrier. This was of greater length than the fighting tank; and was designed to carry a piece of ordinance of large calibre into advanced positions, newly captured; and the arrangement was such that the gun could either be fired from the tank or be dismounted and put on wheels. For some reason, however, this plan did not work out as well as was expected, and many of the gun-carrier tanks were used to bring up supplies, and as such did highly efficient work, more than making up for their early failure,
Of all our tanks the 'whippet' was the big surprise. This was a small tank, built for the purpose of pursuit on ground which could not be traversed by an armored car. The surprise came when the whippet, built much along the lines of the gun-carrier, succeeded in traversing ground which invariably ditched the bigger supply-tank.
With the failure of the gun-carrier, we of the heavy fighting tanks came to the belief that to have the tracks-or caterpillar tread-pass completely round the bull was an essential to success,; for in the gun-carriers this was not done and they found difficulty in getting out of holes. But when the whippet, whose tracks, like those of the gun-carrier, did not pass completely round the hull, proved a success, we came to change our views and to lay the blame to incorrect balance.
While whippets were first used in the early part of igi8, it was not until the second defeat of the German army on the Marne and the Somme that this type came to be generally known. The enemy's forced retreat to the old Hindenburg line was an ideal condition for the whippet, and these little tanks, which have a greater speed than their bigger brothers and sisters, were able to harass the foe and to break up the rear-guard machine-gun fighting which he attempted to put up. This they did so effectively that, in the late summer of that year, civilians seemed to talk in terms of whippets, not realizing that the preliminary work of the male and female tanks in flattening down wire, breaking 'pill-boxes,' and causing the enemy to give up his lines of defense, was needed before the whippet's effectiveness could he complete.
These, then, were the tanks which our men took into action. In the beginning none of us knew anything about tanks. We had learned the engine and the mechanism, and had driven them over holes and trenches; but battle conditions are found to be entirely different. And because this engine of war was new, our high command had to learn tank tactics; and not before all of us had made many mistakes, did we learn how tanks should be handled and where they should be used. Those mistakes cost us dear, both in men and in tanks, and there was a time when, although we ourselves knew the tank to be a valuable instrument, we quite understood that the confidence of the public had been shaken by our failures.
How near the Tank Corps came to being abandoned, few persons know. Its fate was decided by one single engagement, and only a minor operation at that.
At one point on our line there was a German position of seven machine-gun emplacements or 'pill-boxes,' which was forever causing trouble. It was planned to take that position, and the commander there was ordered to draw up a plan of attack and an estimate of casualties; for in the British army no attack is made without an estimate of casualties, and if they are out of proportion to the zenith of success, the attack is never made. In this instance the number was placed between 400 and 500. This figure the high command thought too high, and the Tanks were asked if they could capture the position. Officers of our corps looked over the ground and examined aeroplane maps. Then they announced that they could take the position, and that, as the infantry would be used only to consolidate the ground won, the casualties would not be nearly so high as the first estimate. And so the attack was made, and the position was taken. The casualties were only seventeen and the Tank Corps was saved.
We called them 'busses,' and the name stuck. 'Landship' was too long and too clumsy to last. Even 'tank' did not stand the test of time, except officially in the army forms and the army correspondence. Always it was busses.
To each bus a crew was assigned. The duties of the crew were to keep the mechanism and the guns in working order, and to take the tank into battle. With the large busses the crew consisted of one commissioned officer, one non-commissioned officer, and six men. In the case of the guncarrier, when those busses were relegated to supply-work, only drivers were carried, as there were no guns. With the whippets the crew was not so numerous as with the male and female tanks, because the whippet was smaller, and there were fewer guns to be operated.
The general shape of the heavy British fighting tank is well known. The elevation is roughly that of a rhombus, with the two acute angles rounded off. The plan resembles somewhat the letter H, with a heavy cross-bar for the body, the sides of the letter representing the tracks.
For the most part the tanks are made of armor-plating. In some places the armor is thicker than in others, but at the thickest it is not more than three eighths of an inch. This may seem ridiculously inadequate, but the armor is hardened by a process used for ships of the British navy. It is bullet-proof and bomb-proof, and shrapnel more often than not does no harm. Armor-piercing shells, however, are effective when direct hits are made. The Germans even use an armor-piercing shell weighing only one pound, and seem to think it quite satisfactory. These shells are fired from specially designed anti-tank guns, which are kept in the front lines or in concealed places just behind the line.
Even the tracks are made of armor-plate. These tracks in the heavy fighting-tanks run completely round the body, and are made of individual plates, so that they can be 'broken,' opened up, anywhere, to permit the mechanism underneath them to be examined. This mechanism, in a general way, consists of rollers, chains, and sprocket-wheels and differs little from that of the average American tractor, but is greatly improved. The rollers need constant lubrication, and after every trip men are assigned to greasing up. This is a job which all of us hate cordially, because it consists of forcing grease into these rollers from outside, with a grease-gun, and one not only gets very dirty but, as there are fifty-four rollers to each tank and most of these are within two inches of the ground, the job is back-breaking and often necessitates sitting down in the mud. Usually greasing up outside falls to the gunners, for the drivers have other work inside, not always so arduous but equally important, and needing their greater knowledge of the engine and controls.
Projecting from either side of the male tank are two large sponsons. These are not quite one-third the entire length of the bus and are placed amidships. They are emplacements for the guns, and give the heavy cannon a wide traverse. The sponsons are removable and can be pushed in flush with the side. Were this not so, tanks could not be taken on trains because of their great width with the sponsons in position, and every move by train involves the arduous job of pushing in sponsons when entraining and pushing them out after detraining.
In the female tank the sponsons are comparatively small. The large one is not needed in this case, as the female has only machine-guns; but even the small sponson of the female is made to shut in. The supply-tanks and the whippets do not have sponsons.
Entrance, in the case of the male tank, is effected by means of doors at the back of each of the sponsons. In the case of the female these doors are underneath the sponson and open into the side. There is also a door at the rear of the heavy fighting tank, and a fourth place of entrance or exit elsewhere. All these doors are provided with locks, which are proof even against the Hun; there have been times when he has come around and tried to open them, to be greeted with revolver-fire; for each member of the tank crew carries a revolver for personal protection and closequarters work.
The engine is installed along the centre-line of the tank and slightly forward of the middle. At first, a powerful engine designed for heavy tractor-work was used; but this was found to be scarcely strong enough, and another engine was specially designed and contributed no small part of the success of the improved tank.
It is in the front of the tank that the driver sits; for there are the throttle and the controls and the brakes and the gauges which register the oil- and petrol-pressure. Beside him usually is the non-commissioned officer, who operates the forward machine-gun; and by no means the least among the driver's annoyances are the empty cartridge-cases which are ejected from this gun and which usually find the driver's left ear or eye as a target.
The tank officer usually sits in the conning tower amidships. Observation from the driver's seat is restricted on either side because of the tracks, but from the conning tower the lookout has an unrestricted view in all directions. Thus he can watch for 'targets,' and, being in the middle of the tank, is well situated to command it. He is so close to most of the gunners that he can communicate with them either by shouting or by making signs, but so terrific is the noise of the engine that it would be utterly impossible for the non-commissioned officer and the driver to hear him, so speaking-tubes run from the conning tower to the driver's cab.
In action in a tank, heat is one of the great hardships, for it is so exhausting that the men frequently have to buck themselves up with restoratives, carried in the tank's medicine bag.
Usually, in the ordinary course of travel, or going up, men walk outside the tank, or ride on the top, the driver alone being inside; but in action all have to be inside, and the tank is shut up so that in broad daylight it is quite dark within. Observation for the driver and gunners is made possible by lookout ports, in which eight tiny holes are drilled. Strangely enough, observation is not so difficult as might be imagined. It is above these holes that the only padding in the tank is placed; for, contrary to the general impression, tanks are not padded inside, nor are men strapped into seats. The gunners for the most part stand; the two men forward are seated, and when the driver is about to take a severe drop or incline, he shouts back through the speaking-tube and the men hang on, bracing themselves against the engine or the guns. The padding over the lookout holes consists of a head-rest against which one presses the forehead in order to bring the eyes as close to the holes as possible. These lookout holes superseded periscopic prisms, which proved unsatisfactory. The prisms were made of glass about two inches thick; but bullets striking the glass, while not breaking it, starred it so that observation became difficult if not quite impossible. To meet this, a steel reflector was tried out, but did not answer the purpose; and so the holes were resorted to, and while observation involves an unnatural straining of the neck, it is effective.
While bullets do not penetrate the armor, but only ruffle it up a bit at the point where they are deflected, a great deal of bullet 'splash' does come in. This is more annoying than serious, and after an action one could pick out any number of these tiny splinters from one's face. So, as a means of protection against 'splash,' face-armor was invented. This looks much like a bandit's mask, with a steel-mesh chain hanging from it. The mask itself is of thin steel, with slits for the eyes, the whole padded for the face and adjustable to it.
The greatest danger, however, whether in or out of action, is that of fire. Smoking inside a tank is forbidden. Usually smoking is not permitted within twenty yards of one. This is because of the great amount of petrol, or gasoline, carried, and because of the fumes. Thus an armor-piercing shell entering the tank not only explodes in a confined area, but usually sets the machine on fire. When that happens, men have to escape as best they can, tumbling out of the doors, usually to be greeted by the enemy's machine-gun fire. Often, however, so much damage was done by the shell itself, that only those nearest the doors ever escaped. The rest perished in the flames, and those who have ever had to go back to a tank and see their comrades burned almost beyond recognition will bear testimony that death by fire was feared more than anything else.
Such, then, is the tank. It came at a time when intense artillery barrages made the ground in front and behind the lines almost impossible to traverse. Thus the infantry was hampered in movement, and often reached the enemy's barbed wire only to find that, while its form had been destroyed, it lay there as tangled and as dangerous as ever. Furthermore these barrages were enormously expensive, and one British barrage lasting three days cost more than $63,000,000.
Perhaps the most serious fault of the barrage, however, was the notice of attack which it gave the enemy. While an attack might be on a limited front and the barrage on an extended front, it was like sending a visiting card. So the Germans watched and prayed. Often they prayed for the attack to begin; for after two or three days and nights of intense artillery and trench-mortar fire one longs to have it over and done with.
The tank virtually abolished this method of attack. Artillery barrages were kept up even after the tanks were perfected, but frequently the element of surprise was attained by the use of tanks without a preliminary fire. And so, in the dark of the early morning, the tanks go over, male and female, ahead of all others, and they cross the enemy's wire and flatten that, and then press on against his 'pill-boxes,' leaving the infantry with their bombs to settle affairs in the dugouts. Often the artillery assists the tanks, once the battle has begun, and particularly when dawn breaks and visibility exists. Then they put up a smoke-barrage, and the tanks carry on with the assistance of these screens, smashing down defenses, mopping up personnel, and creating terror in the hearts of the enemy.
Monday, April 04, 2011
'A Tank and Two Crosses'
This tale from ‘The War Illustrated’, is entitled 'A Tank and Two Crosses'
and is dated 11th May, 1918
Little Journeys to the Great War
Who does not recall the thrill that went through the world when the first stories ot the great British Battles of the Somme came out early in July, 1916 ? We read of the weird fighting-machines that led our brave soldiers across the ghastly wastes of No Man's Land, riddling the astonished Huns with streams of bullets and behaving in such antic ways that the light-hearted khakied men who followed up with gleaming bayonet and ready bomb could but laugh — laugh and forward to kill or be killed.
Coming of the Monster
"Monsters of the primeval ooze and slime," "Antediluvian creatures that grunt and slither through the mud, that lean against trees and crush them ; that put their snouts to the wall of a house and it falls, while they crawl imperturbably over the ruin they have made," "Behemoths" — a rich variety of phrases such as these flowed from the pens of the war correspondents, then long starving for an opportunity to be "picturesque."'
It was the joy-day of the Tank. No British paper was allowed to describe the new creation of English mechanical genius ; to have shown a photograph of one would have been something like treason. Not until the counterfeit presentment of H.M. Landship Creme de Menthe and various others of the first quaint fleet had been published widely in the American Press, and the Huns had secured some of the material monsters, were we in England allowed to see what they were like ; and with admirable wisdom the official photos first issued all depicted Tanks that had come to grief.
Many stranger things than Tanks have occupied our minds since then, and Tanks themselves have waddled along the streets of many a town in these islands on stranger missions than their first job at zero hour on the Somme. They have even been transported across the Atlantic to stimulate American interest in .the war, and one at least has figured in the streets of Berlin to grace a Hunnish holiday. "Hush, hush !" no longer applies to them, and the Hun has made his own, like the sedulous ape he is.
Weird Pioneers
To me, however, my first sight of the Tanks in the autumn of 1917 was a sensation never to be forgotten. At the "Tankodrome" where I first saw them parked, distantly suggestive of what Hamilcar's elephants under the walls of ancient Carthage may have looked like before being caparisoned for battle, no close inspection was allowed ; but, later, on one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Somme, where several had ended their all-too-brief careers, I was able to explore their mysteries.
One of these weird pioneers in that opening Battle of the Somme — when another of them captured a village of machine-gun emplacements and still others achieved feats of valour which the fabled doings of the gods of old could not have rivalled — one had just crawled across a highway and was dragging its slow length along the sodden field of battle when a random shot put it out of action for ever.
There it lay by the roadside, no longer an object of terror, but of curiosity, of pity.
There was rust upon it, and one felt for the great inert mass of reddening metal a curious sympathy, as though it had been a thing from which life had gone out while it had been clumsily "doing its bit." The Byronic lines :
And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail, did not seem absurdly inapposite to the stranded Tank-, save that it was naught but "mail" and rust. What, after all, are Tanks but mammoth coats of mail to encase as brave men as ever went into battle ?
A dead soldier by the roadside could not have stirred more sorrow in me than this poor Tank, struck down on its maiden journey and probably before it had achieved anything of the purpose for which it had been laboriously created.
Thing of Wonder
One thought of the immense human labour that wrought those mighty plates of steel and drove home those thousands of rivets, of the months of loving craftsmanship that went to the fashioning of its intricacies of motive machinery, the elaborate testings of the individual parts, before the leviathan crawled away from its base and gruntingly reached the scene of action. .Above all, of the wonderful, godlike brains that conceived, designed, and made such living things out of base metal.
And all for this ! To be knocked out by a lucky shot from a barbarian's cannon.
Within, one could reconstitute in some degree the fate that had overtaken the thing. Nothing seemed destroyed in all its maze of complicated levers and tie-rods ; the steering-gear, though rusted, still showed a willingness to respond to the touch of the handle; the revolving gun-turrets on the port and starboard sides still swung round to a moderate pressure; the powerful Daimler engine astern looked as though it might "start up " after a little oiling ; but all the racks where the plentiful machine-gun ammunition had been stored were empty, and burnt bullets lay about in hundreds. Only the petrol reservoirs were wreckage ? — it was as though the heart of the uncouth thing had burst. Its eyes, too, were blinded, for the prisms in the periscopes were shattered into fragments.
The sense of pity for the hapless thing grew on me. Such a marvel of mechanism destroyed at one blow — one random shot! It seemed horribly unfair. Yet there was the evidence of it — a jagged hole, a little forward of the port gun-turret, into which- you could no more than put your fist, told the tale. Here the shell had penetrated, bursting in the forward part of the interior, wrecking the petrol containers, and in an instant the doomed Tank was a blazing inferno, the ammunition discharging as the flames licked around the magazines.
Scant imagination is needed to picture the terror of that scene. Yet not till now does the fate of the gallant fellows — bravest of pioneers, who were to the mechanical leviathan as the soul and spirit to the body of man — engage us. Seven of them went forth that fateful day in this strange coat of mail that is, when you think of it, and especially when you see it laid upon its side, horribly suggestive of the coffin of some fabulous giant.
A Tragic Close
Seven of them, young, full of enthusiasm, devotion, cooped up here so that they could not stand erect, wearing padded steel headgear to prevent their skulls from cracking on the riveted metal roof as the .strange craft lurched and swayed down shell-holes and over heaps of ruins, each at his particular post, to move the inert thing forward into the furnace of death and to die, or to slay and to live.
And one lucky shell out of the thousands the Huns sent over decides that they are to die, and this pioneer of land-ships is to end in a ditch by a highway of the Somme.
Nothing was known of the fate of the crew to the officer who brought me to the scene ; but when we emerged from the Tank's interior we noted, close by, two small mounds, well kept, with two neat crosses and the names thereon of two of the crew who had perished in the Tank.
We had not remarked the little grave before, so familiar are these tiny crosses throughout that vast graveyard of the Somme, where for generations crosses will far outnumber trees. There, side by side, lie two of the thousands of brave souls who gave their lives for England that day ; and somehow their graves are to me more memorable than any of the multitude I saw, by reason of the dead Tank at their side.
On Sacred Ground
Often had I thought of this little scene as the panorama of my Somme journey-ings came back to my mind's eye, and it was strange enough that at a later day, in the radiant spring weather of 1918 when larks were singing joyously above these fields of death, and all the mighty armies of the Allies were "standing-to" for the opening of the mighty German Battles for Amiens, I came again, with other friends, to this same spot; stood by these little graves and explored once more the interior of the Tank that told, as in a written book, their sad, brave story.
Not many days afterwards the new hordes from Hunland Game back once more, and doubtless their foul feet would defile that little bit of ground which seemed to me as sacred as any in Westminster Abbey.
What of the other five brave men who companioned the two who rest beneath the little crosses ? Who knows ? Five men, even of the bravest, are as nothing in an army of, five million. The finest stories of the Great War are those that will never be told.
and is dated 11th May, 1918
Little Journeys to the Great War
Who does not recall the thrill that went through the world when the first stories ot the great British Battles of the Somme came out early in July, 1916 ? We read of the weird fighting-machines that led our brave soldiers across the ghastly wastes of No Man's Land, riddling the astonished Huns with streams of bullets and behaving in such antic ways that the light-hearted khakied men who followed up with gleaming bayonet and ready bomb could but laugh — laugh and forward to kill or be killed.
Coming of the Monster
"Monsters of the primeval ooze and slime," "Antediluvian creatures that grunt and slither through the mud, that lean against trees and crush them ; that put their snouts to the wall of a house and it falls, while they crawl imperturbably over the ruin they have made," "Behemoths" — a rich variety of phrases such as these flowed from the pens of the war correspondents, then long starving for an opportunity to be "picturesque."'
It was the joy-day of the Tank. No British paper was allowed to describe the new creation of English mechanical genius ; to have shown a photograph of one would have been something like treason. Not until the counterfeit presentment of H.M. Landship Creme de Menthe and various others of the first quaint fleet had been published widely in the American Press, and the Huns had secured some of the material monsters, were we in England allowed to see what they were like ; and with admirable wisdom the official photos first issued all depicted Tanks that had come to grief.
Many stranger things than Tanks have occupied our minds since then, and Tanks themselves have waddled along the streets of many a town in these islands on stranger missions than their first job at zero hour on the Somme. They have even been transported across the Atlantic to stimulate American interest in .the war, and one at least has figured in the streets of Berlin to grace a Hunnish holiday. "Hush, hush !" no longer applies to them, and the Hun has made his own, like the sedulous ape he is.
Weird Pioneers
To me, however, my first sight of the Tanks in the autumn of 1917 was a sensation never to be forgotten. At the "Tankodrome" where I first saw them parked, distantly suggestive of what Hamilcar's elephants under the walls of ancient Carthage may have looked like before being caparisoned for battle, no close inspection was allowed ; but, later, on one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Somme, where several had ended their all-too-brief careers, I was able to explore their mysteries.
One of these weird pioneers in that opening Battle of the Somme — when another of them captured a village of machine-gun emplacements and still others achieved feats of valour which the fabled doings of the gods of old could not have rivalled — one had just crawled across a highway and was dragging its slow length along the sodden field of battle when a random shot put it out of action for ever.
There it lay by the roadside, no longer an object of terror, but of curiosity, of pity.
There was rust upon it, and one felt for the great inert mass of reddening metal a curious sympathy, as though it had been a thing from which life had gone out while it had been clumsily "doing its bit." The Byronic lines :
And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail, did not seem absurdly inapposite to the stranded Tank-, save that it was naught but "mail" and rust. What, after all, are Tanks but mammoth coats of mail to encase as brave men as ever went into battle ?
A dead soldier by the roadside could not have stirred more sorrow in me than this poor Tank, struck down on its maiden journey and probably before it had achieved anything of the purpose for which it had been laboriously created.
Thing of Wonder
One thought of the immense human labour that wrought those mighty plates of steel and drove home those thousands of rivets, of the months of loving craftsmanship that went to the fashioning of its intricacies of motive machinery, the elaborate testings of the individual parts, before the leviathan crawled away from its base and gruntingly reached the scene of action. .Above all, of the wonderful, godlike brains that conceived, designed, and made such living things out of base metal.
And all for this ! To be knocked out by a lucky shot from a barbarian's cannon.
Within, one could reconstitute in some degree the fate that had overtaken the thing. Nothing seemed destroyed in all its maze of complicated levers and tie-rods ; the steering-gear, though rusted, still showed a willingness to respond to the touch of the handle; the revolving gun-turrets on the port and starboard sides still swung round to a moderate pressure; the powerful Daimler engine astern looked as though it might "start up " after a little oiling ; but all the racks where the plentiful machine-gun ammunition had been stored were empty, and burnt bullets lay about in hundreds. Only the petrol reservoirs were wreckage ? — it was as though the heart of the uncouth thing had burst. Its eyes, too, were blinded, for the prisms in the periscopes were shattered into fragments.
The sense of pity for the hapless thing grew on me. Such a marvel of mechanism destroyed at one blow — one random shot! It seemed horribly unfair. Yet there was the evidence of it — a jagged hole, a little forward of the port gun-turret, into which- you could no more than put your fist, told the tale. Here the shell had penetrated, bursting in the forward part of the interior, wrecking the petrol containers, and in an instant the doomed Tank was a blazing inferno, the ammunition discharging as the flames licked around the magazines.
Scant imagination is needed to picture the terror of that scene. Yet not till now does the fate of the gallant fellows — bravest of pioneers, who were to the mechanical leviathan as the soul and spirit to the body of man — engage us. Seven of them went forth that fateful day in this strange coat of mail that is, when you think of it, and especially when you see it laid upon its side, horribly suggestive of the coffin of some fabulous giant.
A Tragic Close
Seven of them, young, full of enthusiasm, devotion, cooped up here so that they could not stand erect, wearing padded steel headgear to prevent their skulls from cracking on the riveted metal roof as the .strange craft lurched and swayed down shell-holes and over heaps of ruins, each at his particular post, to move the inert thing forward into the furnace of death and to die, or to slay and to live.
And one lucky shell out of the thousands the Huns sent over decides that they are to die, and this pioneer of land-ships is to end in a ditch by a highway of the Somme.
Nothing was known of the fate of the crew to the officer who brought me to the scene ; but when we emerged from the Tank's interior we noted, close by, two small mounds, well kept, with two neat crosses and the names thereon of two of the crew who had perished in the Tank.
We had not remarked the little grave before, so familiar are these tiny crosses throughout that vast graveyard of the Somme, where for generations crosses will far outnumber trees. There, side by side, lie two of the thousands of brave souls who gave their lives for England that day ; and somehow their graves are to me more memorable than any of the multitude I saw, by reason of the dead Tank at their side.
On Sacred Ground
Often had I thought of this little scene as the panorama of my Somme journey-ings came back to my mind's eye, and it was strange enough that at a later day, in the radiant spring weather of 1918 when larks were singing joyously above these fields of death, and all the mighty armies of the Allies were "standing-to" for the opening of the mighty German Battles for Amiens, I came again, with other friends, to this same spot; stood by these little graves and explored once more the interior of the Tank that told, as in a written book, their sad, brave story.
Not many days afterwards the new hordes from Hunland Game back once more, and doubtless their foul feet would defile that little bit of ground which seemed to me as sacred as any in Westminster Abbey.
What of the other five brave men who companioned the two who rest beneath the little crosses ? Who knows ? Five men, even of the bravest, are as nothing in an army of, five million. The finest stories of the Great War are those that will never be told.
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