Deborah and the War of the Tanks Page 3

  The challenge was spelled out dramatically by Colonel Christopher Baker-Carr, commander of 1st Tank Brigade which included D Battalion:

  If a careful search had been made from the English Channel to Switzerland, no more unsuitable spot could have been discovered … Ypres itself at one time had been a seaport, and the drainage system, which had been instituted in order to render the land in the vicinity cultivable, had to be regulated with the utmost care … For over two years this drainage system had, of necessity, been untended and, in addition to natural decay, had been largely destroyed by shell fire. The result was that many square miles of land consisted merely of a thin crust of soil, beneath which lay a bottomless sea of mud and water. Bad as it was in ordinary times, we knew that it would be a thousand-fold worse after the terrible preliminary bombardment which was now regarded as the indispensable forerunner of an attack.9

  Nevertheless, such concerns were dismissed by General Headquarters (GHQ), which had incorporated tanks into its plans for the offensive. More than 130 machines were to be used in the initial push, which was eventually scheduled for 31 July 1917. This would make it the largest tank attack in British history, though the French had unleashed a similar number of tanks in their ill-fated assault on the Chemin des Dames ridge in April 1917. The results were hardly encouraging: their vehicles, smaller and lighter than the British equivalent, were devastated by German artillery fire and no fewer than seventy-six were put out of action without any gain whatsoever.

  The foreboding felt by the tank crews as they prepared for their journey into the Salient was all the greater because they were clearly being tested not just by the enemy, but also by their own side. Many in the higher echelons of the British army were beginning to question whether tanks could ever live up to expectations, and the new Tank Corps found itself trapped in a situation that we have since come to characterize by the phrase Catch-22: if the tanks took no part in the coming battle they would be seen as superfluous and were likely to be done away with; but if they did take part, they were almost certain to fail.

  * * *

  As the dog days of July drew on, and whatever the uncertainty about their future, the men of D Battalion were swept up in the mounting frenzy of preparations for the big push, as they began the process of moving their great machines into position ready for the start of the battle.

  The epicentre of this activity was Oosthoek Wood, a straggling expanse of trees covering several hundred acres which was to provide shelter for a number of tank battalions and their crews. Among them were D, E and G Battalions, constituting the 1st Brigade of a unit that was still known as the Machine Gun Corps (Heavy Branch) – a title that originally disguised its secret purpose, but was about to be replaced by a more transparent one. On 27 July, just before the battle began, the name was changed by Royal Warrant to the Tank Corps.

  Since the end of June, men from the Royal Engineers’ 184th Tunnelling Company had been at work in and around the wood, preparing a network of tracks, river crossings, shelters and encampments in readiness for the arrival of the tanks.10 The complex was known as a ‘tankodrome’ – a coinage of the Great War that has not stood the test of time, unlike its counterpart, the aerodrome. Oosthoek Wood had been selected for this purpose because it lay more than three miles (or five kilometres) behind the front line, offering a compromise between access to the battlefront and protection from German artillery. It was served by a railway line which enabled the tanks to be brought in by train, with ramps for them to drive down from the flatbed rolling stock on which they travelled. The challenge of detraining an enormous tank with a few inches of clearance on either side was a daunting one for the drivers, the more so because they would have to be unloaded in darkness and camouflaged by daybreak to avoid the risk of observation by enemy aircraft.

  The Royal Engineers had been harassed by shellfire almost since their arrival,11 and Major William Watson, one of the company commanders in D Battalion of the Tank Corps, realized the danger when he reached Oosthoek Wood after a hot and dusty ride in early July to join his reconnaissance officer, Second Lieutenant Frederick King, known for obscure reasons as ‘Jumbo’. Watson described the situation with characteristic wry humour: ‘It was a part of the world which the German gunner found interesting. Jumbo was quite clear on the point, though Jumbo himself, revelling in the cool and shade of the woods after hot days forward on reconnaissance, did not turn a hair. The ramp and the northern edge of Oosthoek Wood were shelled nightly. There were two painfully fresh shell-holes in the middle of the area allotted to us, and “G” Battalion across the road were not sleeping at all … Before I left I was told that a shell had dropped into “C” Battalion lines and nearly wiped out Battalion Headquarters.’12 In fact the wood had been heavily shelled for several hours on 4 July, resulting in the deaths of six men from C Battalion and damaging three of their tanks. Their commander reported that ‘owing to this contretemps, which it was thought likely might be frequently repeated during the next three weeks, it was decided to move the majority of the personnel of the camp to a more salubrious situation.’13

  Meanwhile the rail timetable was fixed, and every evening trains pulled into the sidings at Oosthoek, each bearing an entire company of twelve fighting tanks and their crews. The trains were scheduled to arrive around 9.30 p.m., leaving a short summer’s night for the tanks to be unloaded, driven into the shelter of the woods, and camouflaged before dawn. The first contingent from D Battalion arrived on 9 July,14 and this included a Mark IV tank with the number D51, and probably the name Deborah: the new tank and her crew were on their way to war.

  As they arrived in the so-called concentration area the men were acutely aware of the need for secrecy, and the orders signed by the adjutant Captain Fred Cozens stressed that ‘companies will take great care in camouflaging the tanks and covering up the tracks made by the tanks when moving from the ramp to the tankodrome.’15 The orders made it sound straightforward, but this was far from the case, as explained by Second Lieutenant Douglas Browne of G Battalion, who had arrived at Oosthoek Wood the day before:

  Parking tanks … among timber at night is always a noisy and trying operation, resembling in sound and destructiveness the gambols of a herd of inebriated elephants. The tank-driver, unaided, can see nothing whatever, and has to be guided by the flashings of an electric torch, with which refinements of signalling are difficult and generally misunderstood. The trees, which appeared to be harmless and nicely spaced in the daytime, become endued [sic] with a malignant spirit and (apparently) have changed their positions since last seen. It was as black as a coal-pocket in Oosthoek Wood that night; and for an hour or so it rang with curses and exhortations and the crash and rending of ill-treated timber as tank after tank tried to swing this way or that and pushed down a young tree or two in the act. However, soon after one o’clock we had them all in, herded together more or less in sections, and the first arrivals were already camouflaged. Although the foliage was fairly thick, and probably would have formed an adequate screen, we were running no risks. The camouflage nets were suspended from the trees a few feet above the tanks, the sides being drawn down at a slant and pegged to the ground. All this was exhausting work in the pitchy darkness, and very trying to the temper. At the same time a party was obliterating the tracks we had made between the ramp and the wood. By three o’clock the work was done, and we lay down in and under the tanks to sleep for a few hours.16

  D Battalion’s arrival was no less fraught, as described by Major Watson:

  At dusk we drove down to the ramp at Oosthoek Wood. The train backed in after dark. We brought off our tanks in great style, under the eye of the Brigade Commander, who was always present at these ceremonies. The enemy was not unkind. He threw over a few shells, but one only disturbed our operations by bursting on the farther side of the ramp and so frightening our company dog that we never saw her again. There was no moon, and we found it difficult to drive our tanks into the wood without knocking down trees that made valu
able cover. It was none too easy without lights, which we did not wish to use, to fasten the camouflage nets above the tanks on to the branches. The track of the tanks from the ramp to the wood was strewn with branches and straw.17

  Despite the secrecy, the shelling suggested the Germans had somehow detected the growing threat within Oosthoek Wood. Soon after overseeing the arrival of his tanks, Colonel Christopher Baker-Carr, commander of 1st Tank Brigade, also concluded that the risk of keeping his crews there was too great: ‘Some peculiarly well-directed shelling appeared to indicate that the Germans had gleaned information that the wood was harbouring something worthy of their attention. At nights, also, a large number of bombs were dropped in the vicinity, with the result that the crews, who were busy all day in getting their machines into the highest state of efficiency, were deprived of their much-needed rest. I, therefore, withdrew the personnel and installed them in a camp within a few hundred yards of my own headquarters near Lovie Château.’18

  The sappers of 184th Tunnelling Company were now put to work building alternative accommodation for the tank crews in the woodland around La Lovie, the château that was already home to the commander and staff of Fifth Army. Although this could still be reached by long-range artillery fire, it was three-and-a-half miles (or nearly six kilometres) further back and felt correspondingly safer. The tanks themselves remained in Oosthoek Wood with a small overnight guard. In the words of Captain Edward Glanville Smith of D Battalion:

  This had the disadvantage of adding a five miles’ march each way on to our daily programme, since the necessary work entailed visiting the Tankodromes every day of the week, but a good service of [Army Service Corps] lorries, both ways, used to lighten the burden to no small extent … An honest day’s work could be done there, trudging about in the mud and slush (natural adjuncts to any Tankodrome) carrying oil, grease, petrol or unditching rails from the ramp to the company Tankodromes, or trundling worn out sprockets in the opposite direction … Haversack rations were consumed daily between 12.30 and 1.30, and coffee and omelettes could be obtained by a fortunate few from one or two Belgian farmhouses lying round the edge of the wood. Hordes of small children also used to sell chocolate at huge profits. Camp would be reached about 4.30, and after a good meal we would retire early to bed – the only dry spot in Belgium. A visit to Poperinghe formed an alternative evening’s amusement, but a two mile uphill walk back, about 10 at night, after an excellent dinner, was too much of a strain to be repeated often.19

  As they settled into this schedule, the tank crews were still mystified as to how the Germans had discovered their location with such apparent ease. Shortly afterwards, once the British offensive was under way, they were shocked to learn that their whereabouts had been betrayed to the enemy. But for the time being they could do nothing but prepare their tanks for action, make themselves as comfortable as possible, and hope for the best.

  * * *

  On 31 July 1917, the long-awaited offensive finally broke over the Germans like a storm, driving the defenders back along a broad front to a distance of more than oneand-a-half miles (or two-and-a-half kilometres).

  This time there was no repeat of the first day’s fighting on the Somme nearly a year before, when the British had suffered tremendous losses and the survivors often ended up in the same trenches from which they had set out. The success of the initial advance in the Third Battle of Ypres was partly thanks to the growing power of the British artillery, but it was also something of an illusion. On the Somme the German positions were dug deep into the chalky downland and were all but impregnable. A different defensive approach was called for in Flanders where the boggy terrain made it impossible to construct a conventional trench system, and the Germans had adapted their strategy to take account of this. Since they could afford to give ground, their front line was thinly held and rapidly caved in before the British advance, but most of their forces were held further back beyond the range of the main artillery bombardment, and were poised to counter-attack and catch the attackers off-balance.

  During the afternoon German artillery began to pound the advancing troops, and in the wake of this came waves of enemy infantry. The attackers suddenly found the tables turned, and in many cases were forced to give up at least some of their newly-won ground, though at the cost of heavy losses to the Germans. Finally the drizzle that had set in during the day turned into a sustained downpour which continued for the next three days and nights, effectively blocking further operations by both sides, who were left to reinforce their new positions as best they could. British casualties in the first three days’ fighting came to 31,850 (including nearly 4,500 dead);20 this was significantly lower than on the first day of the Somme when nearly 20,000 died, though even the British high command struggled to present this in a positive light.

  As for the tanks, the statistics told their own story. On the first day 133 tanks went into action, including those used for signalling and supply. Of these just over fifty gave some assistance to the infantry, but the vast majority became stuck in the soft ground or were hit by shells, and only thirty-three made it back to their rallying-points.21 The losses were severe, but the view within the Tank Corps was that they could have been a lot worse: ‘Considering the great difficulties of the ground the result is not unsatisfactory.’22 Their report pointed out that the terrain ‘was very sodden by recent heavy rains and had been heavily bombarded since the 7th July and was covered by many hundreds of thousands of shell holes old and new, many of which had been filled by the rain.’23

  The casualty lists named forty-four officers and men dead, nine missing and 222 wounded, but the Tank Corps regarded this as ‘insignificant’ compared to the damage done by the tanks and the lives they had saved among the infantry.24

  As soon as the battle was under way, the staff officers in La Lovie Château began reviewing the tanks’ performance. After mulling over feedback from the infantry, the commander of Fifth Army, General Sir Hubert Gough, sent his findings to Tank Corps headquarters in their camp beneath his windows. The conclusions were balanced, but they must have added to the general air of gloom. General Gough admitted that in many cases tanks had given ‘considerable assistance’ to the infantry, and improved their morale, but from then on it was all downhill.25

  His view was that tanks were ‘slow, vulnerable, and very susceptible to bad “going”. The “going” on a battlefield will always be bad … From prisoners’ statements it would appear that the moral effect of their appearance is diminishing rapidly, except in the case of very young soldiers.’ He concluded that tanks had ‘considerable possibilities, but also great limitations … Large forces are out of place unless very great mechanical improvements can be effected. Even so they will always be very vulnerable.’26

  In reply, Brigadier-General Elles could only repeat that he was well aware of the limitations of tanks, and reassert their potential if used in the right way: ‘Tanks offer the only possibility of surprise against entrenched infantry that we have in prospect. Vulnerability will decrease with surprise, good counter-battery work [i.e. destruction of enemy artillery] and superior mobility.’ However, he repeated that they were being asked to do the impossible, and added what should have been obvious to anyone: ‘Swamp fighting is no part of the function of a tank.’27

  Following the initial advance there were no further attacks in the Salient for more than two weeks, as the British sought to consolidate their gains and re-establish artillery superiority ready for the next phase. The dreadful weather showed no signs of letting up, and the area pulverized by the bombardment now formed an impassable barrier that left the front-line troops effectively cut off from their support areas. The prospect of getting tanks across this morass were limited, and it was agreed that they would not be called on until after the next spell of dry weather.

  It was now clear to the Tank Corps top brass that there was no future in fighting other people’s battles, and if they wanted to have any future at all, they would have to find on
e of their own to fight. On 3 August, a crucial meeting took place at La Lovie between Brigadier-General Elles, his staff officer Lieutenant-Colonel John Fuller, and Colonel John Hardress-Lloyd, latterly commander of D Battalion and now heading 3rd Tank Brigade. They were all men of vision, and the outcome was summarized in the War Diary: ‘Discussion … on the advisability from a tank point of view of switching off the present operations and initiating a tank attack on some other part of the line in conjunction with cavalry and the [Royal Flying Corps].’ The next day Elles shared the idea with a general at GHQ and reported that he ‘does not altogether reject it and asks for certain proposals to be submitted.’28

  However, ‘switching off’ the present attack was hardly viable bearing in mind the expectations of Sir Douglas Haig and GHQ. For the foreseeable future, the tank crews would have to grit their teeth and struggle on through the swamp.

  CHAPTER 2

  Temporary Gentlemen

  The men of D Battalion were largely unaware of these machinations, though the rumour mill was grinding away as usual. Since they were in reserve they had taken no part in the fighting, but it could only be a matter of time. Meanwhile there was plenty of scope for speculation about the future as they settled into their makeshift camp in the woods at La Lovie, near the château that accommodated the headquarters of Fifth Army – in the hands of whose commander, General Sir Hubert Gough, their fate now lay.

  Along with Second Army to the south and the French First Army to the north, Fifth Army was one of three formations with overall responsibility for the offensive, and the nineteenth-century château provided its staff officers with suitably imposing accommodation. General Gough described it as ‘a large, pretentious, ugly square building, with a lake in front of it, which must have made it an easy mark for hostile aeroplanes or long-range guns. A Belgian Count and his family were still in residence … There were sinister stories of their secret influence with the Germans, which was supposed to account for the château having been spared from all bombardments when every building in its vicinity had been pretty well knocked about; I do not believe there was a word of truth in these stories, though it remained a mystery to me why and how the château escaped destruction.’1