A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE TANK, ITS CREW AND ITS TACTICAL FUNCTIONS, AS THEY WERE AT THE DATE OF THE ARMISTICE

I

The secrets of the Tank Corps have been so well kept that there are few civilians who even now know anything of Tanks or their crews beyond what might be learned from photographs, or a distant view of “Egbert” or some other War Bond or Olympian Tank.

The Censorship has seen to it that the civilian has had no opportunity of making himself familiar with the tactical opportunities and problems that the use of Tanks has introduced or with the conditions under which Tank crews fight.

It is for the civilian reader that the present chapter is intended. He is to be given some idea of the oak tree before he is invited to dissect the acorn.

If he has no idea of the appearance and habits of the Tanks that fought at the Canal du Nord or that pushed back the enemy at Mormal, he cannot be expected to thrill as he should over the vicissitudes of the first converted Holt Tractor. For to one who had never seen the engine of a through express the history of “Puffing Billy” would almost certainly prove insufferably tedious.

The authors, therefore, propose to deal, very briefly, with the modern Tank before plunging the reader into the dark ages of 1914, where, to pursue our analogy, Watt’s kettle-lid and the “Rocket” dwell obscurely.

II

Every detail of Tank Corps’ training, equipment, and tactics has been modified in view of some limitation or opportunity arising from the structure of the Tank itself. Therefore, though this book is principally concerned with the development of the Tank Corps rather than with the intricate evolution of the Tanks themselves, the reader will find it necessary to have a general idea of the construction and workings of the different types of machine.

It would indeed be as idle to describe the anatomy of a snail or a lobster without mention of its shell, as to endeavour to separate the story of the Tank Corps from that of its Tanks.

When the War ended in November, 1918, there were, besides obsolete types which were still used for such work as carrying and the towing of supply sledges, three main types of Tank. First, the Mark V., which was 26 ft. long, 8 ft. 4 in. wide, weighed 27 tons, and had a horse-power of 150. The Male Tanks carried two 6-pounder guns, and one Hotchkiss gun. The Female carried five Hotchkiss machine-guns and no 6-pounder guns.

The Mark V. Star.—This Tank resembled the Mark V., except that it had a length of 32 ft. 6 in., and was designed for the transport of infantry and for the traversing of trenches too wide for the Mark V. Each had a normal speed of about five miles an hour, and was protected by armour up to five-eights of an inch thick.

They were both so designed as to turn easily at their maximum speed, and carried attachments for use on soft ground, which increased the grip of the tracks.

Each was fought by a crew consisting of a subaltern and seven men, three drivers (two of whom normally fought the Hotchkiss guns), and three gunners.

The third type was the Whippet. The tracks were nearly as long as those of a heavy Tank, but the body had been reduced to a small cab perched at the back, rather as an urchin rides a donkey. It was armed with two machine-guns, managed by a crew of three men, and developed a speed of seven miles an hour. Whippets were designed for use as raiders and in conjunction with cavalry. In practice, however, the cavalry was seldom able to act with them. Partly in consequence of this, partly owing to the state of open warfare being of such short duration, the Whippets, though having brilliant feats to their credit (see the exploits of “Musical Box,” Chapter XIII), remained creatures of promise rather than of achievement.

III

As a rule Male Mark V. Tanks were used against Pill-Boxes and other “strong points,” while the special work of Female Tanks was to deal with hostile infantry (for example, by sitting astride and thus enfilading their trenches), and then to finish the process of flattening the enemy’s wire which the Male Tanks had begun.

All three types of Tank were capable of going across country. That is to say they could, for example, follow a pack of hounds anywhere, except perhaps in the Fens.

Ditches, heavy plough, banks, walls, hedges, or fences could all be negotiated.

Tanks could also go over many obstacles—notably over wire—where the Field, even were they willing “to take a windmill in the harbour of the chase,” must go round.

But as a moment’s reflection will show, there must remain in every country certain features which will prove absolute barriers to the progress of Tanks.

Chief among these are canals and deep rivers (unless spanned by strong bridges), very steep railway cuttings, railway embankments, marsh, or woods in which the trees are too strong to be pushed over, and too dense-set to be steered through.

Besides these natural, or at least civilian, obstacles, there will be inevitable military obstacles in any country that has been fought over.

For example, old half-blown-in trench systems make ground “awkward,” and Tanks operate at extreme disadvantage in country like that round Ypres, which was by 1917 a continuous network of water-logged shell and mine craters, with no original ground left at all.

Again, by the close of hostilities the number of anti-Tank devices employed by the Germans was very considerable. They paid the new arm the compliment of an intricate system of defence and counter-offence which included concealed Tank traps made on the model of elephant-pits, formidable double-traversed trenches, a branch of special anti-Tank artillery, heavily reinforced concrete stockades, and an elaborate system of land mines.

With so many obstacles to avoid or to negotiate, with their fate often hanging upon a prompt and accurate use of their guns, the crew inside the Tank were doomed by the conditions under which they fought to an almost incredibly limited view of the surrounding world.

When the flaps were closed (see diagram showing interior of a Mark V. Tank), as they had to be directly the Tank came under close fire, the crew were in almost complete darkness, and had to rely upon their periscope or, alternatively, upon minute eye-holes (about the size of the capital O’s used in this text) bored through the armour-plating. If the fire was at all heavy the periscope was usually quickly put out of action, and the officer and gunners had only the extremely limited view afforded by these holes.

They were thus almost entirely dependent upon their maps, the special Tank compass, and upon the information which a preliminary reconnaissance of the ground had given them.

This circumstance not only profoundly modified the training of the officers and crews, but also necessitated the organisation of what was almost a new service. This service was the “Reconnaissance” branch of the Intelligence. When the Tank Corps was ordered to take part in an attack, the Reconnaissance Staff was responsible for the preliminary survey of the proposed battle site for a report as to where and how Tanks could best operate, and finally for a series of detailed maps and sketches. In these maps and sketches the route of every individual Tank was set forth from landmark to landmark, together with the assigned objectives of each machine and the obstacles which it was likely to encounter. These maps and sketches were compiled from aerial surveys, captured German maps and documents, information gained from local inhabitants, accounts given by prisoners, the original Ordnance survey, and from personal reconnaissance. By 1918 this system had been so developed that the infantry came to rely almost entirely upon their accompanying Tanks for direction.

This added greatly to the importance and responsibility of the work both of Tank Reconnaissance officers and of commanders.

IV

Topographical information can only be adequately conveyed to a more or less trained receiver, and it was therefore found necessary to add an elementary course on Reconnaissance to the already long list of subjects in which the members of every Tank crew must train. The crew were an assemblage of experts.

An average of about a month was spent by every soldier at the training depots and battle-practice grounds. Here each man did about ten days’ course as a driver or gunner, learned revolver-shooting, signalling, and the management of carrier pigeons, and went through a gas course. In view of the probability of casualties, each man was also given a working knowledge of every other man’s job. But most vital of all—the conditions under which Tank crews fought being out of the common trying and arduous—the scheme of training aimed at creating a high sense of discipline; that esprit de corps and that tradition of valour which teaches men to endure the unendurable.

This supreme end it achieved, as a perusal of the Tank Corps Honours List will show.

Such, then, were the Tanks and their crews in the autumn of 1918.

In the pages which follow, the reader will see from how crude an embryo the Tank sprang, and through what hair-breadth escapes alike from official overlaying and annihilation by the enemy, it passed in the four years of which we are about to relate the history.