The following are first hand quotes from Paul Allens book 'Neath a foreign sky.' They all refer to tanks and tank warfare. Its an excellent historical record of how people thought and felt during the Great War.
Extract: The white lines - The battle of Cambrai
The final approval for the operation had been issued by General Headquarters on the 13TH of November, two days later the tanks had begun to clank their way to the front under the cover of darkness. With their commanders walking in front the tanks drivers had steered their extremely noisy petrol fume filled monsters between the two strips of white tape laid on the ground towards various 'laying up point's behind the front, the noise of their engines being drowned by machine gun fire. Of these nocturnal, and often dangerous operations one of the tank commanders [F.R.J. Jefford M.B.E.] had later recorded...
"The greatest hazard was barbed wire; for if the commander got caught in this the chances were that he would be crushed down by his own tank."
'The tank commanders went out on foot under cover of darkness and laid white tapes through the maze of trenches to the points behind the front line. The tanks reduced speed so that the engines were just ticking over by the time the starting point was reached. It was a dangerous operation for the commanders, who had to walk in front of their tanks to guide the drivers. The greatest hazard was barbed wire; for if the commander got caught in this the chances were that he would be crushed down by his own tank. In fact, we lost several officers in this way before the battle started'...
At 6am the tank crews had begun to get into their machines. By this time the gunners and drivers had been wearing various items of body armour, including armour plated face masks with slotted eye holes and chain mail veils hanging down to cover their mouths and lower faces. These had been their only protection against the tiny particles of red hot metal and paint that would fly around inside the tank once heavy machine gun fire had begun to pepper the outside walls of the vehicle. Once inside the men had been in a world of their own...
"Once we started there was no co-operation between the tanks, no tactics, no external command."
'Nothing could be seen outside, nothing could be heard, while inside one half shaded lamp gave an eerie, murky glimmer in the stygian gloom. The walls represented the limits of one's world and the crew of eight—and the three carrier pigeons—the population. One was completely isolated. Existence depended on the driving skill of the driver and the wits of the officer. Tanks on the left and tanks on the right might be seen through the tiny peepholes in the armour plate, but they existed merely as other worlds. Once we started there was no co-operation between the tanks, no tactics, no external command.'
'It rained nearly every day. The men were soaked to the skin with liquid mud for days on end, and after ration carrying fatigues were deadbeat. It was a long carry, and the mud was appalling... . The sick rate in the Battalions at this time was the worst I have ever known. One morning each battalion in the Brigade had over 150 sick, and one had nearly 250'... [14]
[14] The Royal Fusiliers in the Great War; H.C. O'Neal; The Naval and Military Press Ltd; Courtesy of the Royal Fusiliers Museum, Tower of London.
Extract: Tank breakdown
Having suffered the least casualties the previous day, on Sunday the 25TH of August the advance had been renewed by Captain Pulteney Malcolm's King's Company and Lieutenant Edward Gerald Hawksworth's No 3 Company, together with eight tanks;
'At 4-30am the attack started. A very thick mist covered the ground, which made it difficult for the tanks to find their way. Lieutenant Hawkesworth started off with No.3 Company supported by one tank, but when he reached the neighbourhood of Bank's Trench the tank broke down, and when the fog lifted he found he had only forty men quite unsupported. Unfortunately, at this point he was badly wounded, and therefore ordered his men, who were without an officer, to fall back on to Mory Trench.
Extract: Driving through a wood
No strangers to hard fighting, 47TH Division's objective for the day, however, was to be perhaps their severest trial thus far, the capture of the terrifying High Wood, which by this time could barely be described as a wood, more of 'a wood only in name, ragged stumps sticking out of churned up earth poisoned with fumes of high explosives, the whole a mass of corruption'... [1]
Four tanks were supposed to have spearheaded the attack of the Londoners. In spite of the protestations of the tank commanders and the Divisional Commander of the 47TH, Major General C.ST. L. Barter who had considered the terrain impossible for the machines, they had been ordered by the Corps Commander [lieutenant General Sir William Pulteney] to drive directly through the mass of broken tree stumps.
'Dawn broke and showed the ragged and ghastly remnants of the wood, stripped and fallen trunks and a tangle of obstacles below them. At 5-45 three tanks [one had broken down before it had begun its advance] were seen coming up the hill behind, but appeared to have lost their way. One of them fired several rounds from its six-pounder gun and stopped close to battalion headquarters. The Officer asked the way to the crater or gravel pit on the eastern side of High Wood. This was just before Zero, and the tanks then vanished. Afterwards they were found to have stuck just inside the wood, one over Glasgow Trench, the other between High Alley and the south corner of the wood. This was the first hitch, and a grave one, and needless'...
A disastrous start indeed. In fact one of the tank crews had become so confused in the heat of battle as to their whereabouts that upon seeing troops in nearby trenches they had opened fire on them, unfortunately they were New Zealanders and Londoners waiting to begin their attack.
Extract: They put up a poor fight when they saw the tanks
The tanks had begun to assemble during the night of the 7TH of August arriving just before Zero Hour at their 'jumping off point' slightly to the east of Villers Bretonneux...
'We arrived just when the barrage commenced, and each tank at once got into its own sector in front of the infantry. At Zero Hour [4-20am] there was a thick mist which made observation most difficult, and it was only by using my tank compass and following the barrage that we were able to keep to our proper course. The mist lifted afterwards, about 6-45am. Very little opposition was met in the first phase of the attack, we had taken the enemy completely by surprise and they put up a poor fight. Whenever a tank was sighted they ran forward with their hands well up and we passed them and allowed the infantry to deal with them. A few enemy machine guns kept on firing but they were soon silenced by running over them with the tank. Any of the gun teams who remained were dealt with effectively'...
'We entered the village, followed by the other tanks and infantry, and steered a zigzag course through it, travelling down behind the houses and swinging round, then passing through a house on the other side and so on. This had the effect of bringing out any enemy who were hiding in the houses and they immediately surrendered. There was little resistance met within this village and a good number of prisoners were rounded up and afterwards handed over to the infantry for disposal. We patrolled the village until infantry commander informed us that the assistance of Barrhead was no longer required. We then set off for Harbonnieres. On arrival there we found other tanks of the battalion cleaning up the village; they had also captured an enemy train full of reinforcements. After seeing that the village was cleared of the enemy, all the tanks returned to the rallying point. It was a good day's work and the crews were in excellent spirits, although somewhat exhausted, having been in the tanks for nearly sixteen hours'...
"This shell threw the crew all over the tank and filled it with suffocating fumes".'The machine guns were soon silenced. Barrhead's six pounder guns opened fire on some splendid targets and her machine guns poured forth a leaden hail of bullets on the Germans who were running in all directions. Pushing ahead and getting nearer the objective, the artillery fire became very heavy shells kept busting around Barrhead so the driver steered a zigzag course to avoid them and meanwhile the gunners kept up a heavy fire. At this time one of the crew was wounded, and whilst the N.C.O. was examining his wounds, a shell hit the tank. The concussion from this shell threw the crew all over the tank and filled it with suffocating fumes. I got four of the crew outside and placed them at the rear of the tank as they were all wounded. On re-entering the tank to ascertain what had happened to the other two members of my crew I found them both dead. The shell, which must have been a large high explosive, had hit the tank near the right hand sponson and burst inside, wrecking the cylinders of the engine.
After dressing the wounded men I sent three of them to the nearest dressing station and went in search of a stretcher for the other man whose wounds prevented him from walking. While I was bringing the stretcher the tank was again hit and burst into flames. When I returned I found that Barrhead was a blazing furnace and the ammunition was going off like a machine gun firing. The seriously wounded man has since died of his wounds in hospital'... [7]
[7] Extracted from Tanks and Trenches; edited by David Fletcher; Alan Sutton Publishing; 1994. The account of the tank's part in the Battle of Amiens is reproduced as recorded by Barrhead's unnamed commanding officer. Whether Private Collinson had in fact been the wounded soldier mentioned in the text is, unfortunately, not known.
