THE EQUILIBRIUM--MINOR ACTIONS--HAMEL--THE BALLON D’ESSAI
It is not perhaps too fanciful to envisage the battles of April 24,
25 and 26, though they were by no means uniformly satisfactory little
actions, as belonging to a different and a happier era than the action
of Villers Bretonneux itself. On the 23rd we had been fighting for our
lives. Through the three subsequent days’ fighting, it began to be
more and more obvious that a change had taken place. Either through
our desperate efforts to save Amiens, or by the workings of some
deeper cause, spent and disorganised as we were, we had begun to pull
level with the Germans again. The change was slight, but none the less
palpable.
On the 25th, a few Tanks of the 1st and 3rd Battalions fought with the
3rd Corps in a counter-attack against the most advanced of the new
German positions in the Bois d’Aquenne. The Tanks did a good deal of
execution, and we succeeded in driving in some of the forward German
posts.
On the 26th, four Tanks of the 1st Brigade had an interesting
experience.
The Allied forces on this part of the line consisted of a most curious
mixture of arms and races.
The scene, for example, in a neighbouring wood about ten days before is
thus described by the historian of the 1st Battalion:
“The Bois d’Abbé presented a most picturesque spectacle, and any
one taking the trouble to walk through it could have had the unique
experience of seeing practically every branch of both the British
and French Armies represented. In this wood were to be found
Tanks of all descriptions, Mark IV.’s, V’s, Whippets and French
Rénaults, heavy and light artillery, British infantry, Australians,
French cavalry and infantry, Moroccans, and lastly a detachment
of the Legion of Frontiersmen mounted on little Arab ponies,
which presented a strange contrast to the heavy Percherons of the
artillery.”
On April 26, it was in company with the Moroccan Division that the 1st
Battalion fought.
The enemy had launched a strong attack against the Front held by
these troops at 6 a.m. on the morning of the 26th, under cover of
the usual heavy mist. Very soon, however, a section of Tanks under
Captain Groves got right in amongst the advancing Germans and inflicted
heavy casualties upon them. The French Colonial infantry, who had
been obliged to fall back, immediately rallied and brought the German
assault to a standstill. In the course of the action Second Lieutenant
Wilson’s Tank found itself among some German heavy guns, which it
attacked with case shot[61] and machine-gun fire, wounding most of
their crews and killing the rest. Mr. Wilson then patrolled up and down
some trenches held by the enemy and cost them very heavy losses by his
enfilading fire. Eventually, having fired every round of ammunition
in his Tank, he decided to go back, but while he was on his way, his
magneto broke down. However, he sent back a messenger to fetch a new
magneto, and after this had been fitted, he returned to the rallying
point, his Tank having suffered the total casualties of two men
slightly wounded.
On the 28th, another Company of the same Battalion again co-operated
with the Moroccan Division. This time it was the Allies who were
the attackers, their objective being the Hangard Wood. Owing to a
mistake, the four Tanks did not get into action until rather late.
Second Lieutenant Jones’ Tank, however, fought a very good action,
clearing out a great number of machine-gun nests in the Wood, and
generally giving a great deal of help to the Moroccan infantry in their
advance. The Tank stayed in the Wood, until all its ammunition had been
expended, and then, the infantry deciding not to make a further attack,
it was withdrawn and rejoined its Company.
Except a small action of the 1st Battalion on May 2, the Tank Corps saw
no fighting for the next six weeks, and it was not till July 4 that
they fought again in any considerable action.
II
The general situation in May was still such as to cause our High
Command a certain anxiety. It is easy to be wise after the event and
say that the Germans must obviously have outrun their transport and
overtaxed the limited road capacity of the devastated area which
lay behind them. In early May this, though true, was not obvious.
Meanwhile, we had been too much weakened by the disasters of the last
six weeks to be able to counter-attack. Consequently, the enemy had
the same opportunities for reconstruction as we had ourselves, and
although we felt confident that after such a hurricane of battles
there must be a breathing space for both Armies, we were by no means
certain what would be the respective rôles of the two opposing sides
when the struggle came to be resumed. Our most pressing need was the
filling of the gaps in our Divisions and the closing of the huge
breaches which the German advance had made in our defensive systems.
The greatest need was for men. We had, it is true, to lay out new
trench lines and reconstruct such old systems as already existed, but
it was not likely that the enemy would afford us time to establish new
defences comparable with those which he had already proved his power of
overrunning. Therefore it was to procuring new and well-trained troops
that our chief efforts must be directed. The men procured, there must
be railways upon which to move them.
[62]“The depth to which the enemy had penetrated in the Somme and
Lys valleys had disrupted important lateral lines of railway,
and had created a situation of extreme gravity with regard to
the maintenance of communications in Northern France. At Amiens,
Béthune, and Hazebrouck, much-used railway junctions had been
brought under the effective fire of the enemy’s guns, while the
railway centre at St. Pol was threatened. To relieve the situation
a comprehensive programme of railway construction was undertaken.”
Some 200 miles of broad-gauge track was laid between April and
July and a complete series of new defences were built, involving,
incredible as it may seem, 5000 miles of trench. Nor were Tanks left
out of the scheme of reorganisation. But, alas! owing to the extreme
need of infantry reinforcements, and the difficulty of immediately
re-arming Battalions which had lost their Tanks during the Retreat,
this “reconstruction” all but took the form, not of augmentation,
but of diminution. It was proposed to reduce the number of Tank
Brigades from six to four. The appearance of enemy Tanks, however,
soon quashed this project. Not only had the Corps lost heavily in
machines, but the fighting done by the Lewis gun Units had been of a
particularly strenuous kind, and several Battalions had sustained such
casualties in trained and experienced men as to cause great anxiety
at Tank Headquarters. However, the Tank Corps were only in the same
predicament as the rest of the British Army, and there was nothing
for it but to gather up the bits with as much grace as possible and
to start away as quickly as might be on the work of reconstruction.
All through May, Mark V. machines were arriving in France at the rate
of about sixty a week. Some of the Battalions which had not taken any
part in the Retreat had been left in their original areas, in case the
Germans should attack, so that we find Battalions (for example of the
1st Brigade) doing “Savage Rabbit” as late as the middle of May. For
the most part, however, the Corps was gathered together undergoing
intensive training in the Bermicourt area. All Tank Units were to be
ready for action--re-armed, re-equipped and re-trained--by August 1.
The Central Workshops set to work in early June to prepare sledges
for supply haulage, bridges upon which the Whippets could cross wide
obstacles, and “Cribs” for the heavy Tanks. There “Cribs” were big
hexagonal oaken crates, reinforced with steel, which were an improved
and lighter version of the fascines which were improvised for the
Battle of Cambrai. Training grounds and workshops hummed with the
preparations, and when, in the last days of July, the call came, it
was, as we shall see, found possible to launch 400 Tanks at little over
a week’s notice.
It was while the Corps was training at Bermicourt that the foundation
of the excellent relations which ever afterwards existed between
Tanks and the French infantry was laid. A great number of French
troops happened to be billeted in and around the Tank Corps area, and
their keenness to learn all they could about our machines and their
tactics afforded great pleasure to the men of the British Tank Corps.
General Le Maistre, commanding the 10th French Army, particularly
asked that Tank demonstrations should be held for the Units of his
command. This was done, and all through May and June two or three
of these demonstrations were given weekly. Besides French troops,
representatives from a number of British and Colonial Corps, and the
Canadian and Australian Corps, also came to watch, to their great
edification.
III
We have said that only a few minor Tank actions were fought during the
last part of May and the month of June. Two of these small encounters,
however, were rather interesting. To begin with, the 17th Armoured Car
Battalion fought its first action in company with the French on June
11. At 9.30 on the morning of June 10 orders were received by Colonel
Carter, commanding the Battalion, to report to the 1st French Army at
Contay. At Contay instructions were issued for the Battalion to proceed
to Ravenel, near St. Just. The Battalion got this order by telephone,
and although the night was very dark and wet, and the roads crowded
with traffic, it reached Ravenel after a sixty miles’ journey by five
in the morning of June 11. That same day it went into action with
the 10th French Army in its counter-attack at Belloy. Two sections
of the Armoured Cars engaged the enemy with machine-gun fire, but
unfortunately the roads here were piled high with every sort of débris.
This prevented the cars from being as active as they were to prove
themselves later.
The second small action was a night raid, interesting as the first
in which Tanks had ever been engaged. Here the 10th Battalion fought
in conjunction with the 4th Corps. We were endeavouring to capture
a series of posts near Bucquoy, only five Platoons of infantry and
five female Tanks being employed. The raid began at about half-past
eleven at night. We were met with a heavy barrage from trench mortars
and machine-guns, and the infantry were held up. The Tanks, however,
managed to push forward, and carried on the attack in the pitch dark
by themselves. As they advanced they met with a number of large
parties of Germans, into the “brown” of which they fired. The Tanks
certainly accounted for a great many of the enemy, though it being, as
we have said, extremely dark, it was impossible to make a very exact
computation of the “bag.” Curiously enough, not a single Tank was
damaged by the trench mortar barrage, which was extremely heavy. One
Tank was swarmed over by a particularly bold party of the enemy and
the crew shot them down with their revolvers. Later on this same Tank
managed to rescue a wounded infantry officer who had earlier been taken
prisoner by the Germans. The raid is interesting as it demonstrated
the possibility of manœuvring Tanks in the dark through the enemy’s
lines--not a single machine lost direction--and also showed how much
protection was afforded to the machines by their invisibility.
IV
By the middle of June the British High Command had grown anxious to
make some test of the position of things on the enemy’s side of the
line. This they proposed to do by a more or less limited and tentative
attack, an attack which might, if it was successful, be utilised
as a dress rehearsal for larger ventures, or which, if it failed,
would not commit us too deeply. The Australians had been constantly
harassing their _vis à vis_ on the Villers Bretonneux Front, and the
High Command gave out that for this and other reasons they considered
that a better place than the sector opposite Villers Bretonneux could
hardly be found from which to launch our _ballon d’essai_. What those
“other reasons” were did not appear for nearly a month after the battle
had been fought. It was proposed that between sixty and seventy Tanks
belonging to the 5th Brigade should be employed. Our attack was to have
a strictly limited objective, its ostensible purpose being to capture
the spur running from the main Villers Bretonneux plateau towards
the Somme, on the east side of Hamel, and thus to gain important
observation and incidentally a useful jumping-off place for any
subsequent advance. “Z” day was to be on July 4.
Directly the attack had been decided upon, Tanks and Australians began
their combined training in the area of the 5th Tank Brigade. Tank
units were at once permanently affiliated to corresponding Australian
infantry units with whom they were to fight, and by this means a
very close comradeship was cultivated. It was (tradition relates),
most necessary that some special steps should be taken to ensure the
confidence of the Australian infantry in the Tank Corps, for, in the
absence of artillery preparation, upon the Tanks would almost entirely
depend the success and prestige of the Australians in this first Allied
offensive since the March disaster.
Now the Australians, though having, as it were, a natural affinity for
the activity and surprise of a Tank as against a prepared artillery
attack, were not inclined to bestow their approval on the Tanks without
due cause being given.
They still had vivid memories of the tragedy of errors of the
Bullecourt incident in 1917.
They were, however, very open-minded, and the battle partners had not
long been in training together before their relations were particularly
cordial.
Coy and hard to please as were the Australians in the beginning, the
triumphant success of their partnership in battle left them no memory
of their earlier shyness, and made them vociferous in their praises
of a combination that the Tanks had long felt would prove notably
effective.
The plan of the attack soon took exact shape. It is worth more or less
detailed consideration, as it was upon the lines of the Battles of
Cambrai and Hamel that all set Tank attacks were afterwards based.
[63]“The operation was to be conducted as a direct advance
of infantry and Tanks in two waves, under cover of a rolling
artillery barrage. From a Brigade point of view, the points of
chief interest lay, first, in the preliminary arrangements with
the Australian Corps and the infantry concerned; secondly, in the
somewhat intricate plans for assembling Tanks at their start lines
with due provision for concealment; and, thirdly, in the methods
devised for bringing up large quantities of infantry supplies to
the final objective. At a conference held by the Australian Corps
three days prior to the action the plans were finally settled and
no alteration in these was permitted after that date. Thus infantry
and Tank officers were able to confer in perfect faith that their
mutual arrangements would be carried out without change, and this
method was adhered to in all subsequent operations of a prepared
type with the Australian Corps. Tanks were employed on a scale
that was large in proportion to the front attacked, the saving of
casualties to the infantry being made the most important factor in
the plan.”
The main tactical features of the attack were the strongholds of Vaire
Wood, Hamel Wood, Pear-shaped Trench and Hamel Village. There was no
defined system of trench, except the old British lines just east of
Hamel which the enemy now occupied, and which had, of course, been
originally sited to face east. For the rest, the German defensive
consisted in machine-gun nests.
The attacking forces were the 4th Australian Division and four
companies of American infantry. The Artillery was to provide a rolling
barrage, behind which the infantry were to advance, followed by the
Tanks, which were only to pass ahead of them when resistance was
encountered. This last arrangement did not prove a good one.
The going was good, and the fertile country lay still and smiling in
its Midsummer pride. The camp allotted to the Tanks lay five miles
behind the line in the angle formed by the meeting of the Somme and the
Luce.
[64]“It was an ideal spot in which to spend the summer months. In
the cool of the evening, looking toward the west over the uncut
cornfields, we could obtain a wonderful view of the old city of
Amiens, its large cathedral, with the numbers of smaller church
spires and smokeless chimneys clustering around it, being outlined
against the setting sun. Toward the east one saw the ruined village
of Villers Bretonneux standing on Hill 104, its château dominating
the surrounding wreck of houses. It was hard to believe that the
line was so close until the view was suddenly obliterated by the
familiar sight of bursting shrapnel and the heavy smoke of the gas
shells.”
The sixty fighting Tanks which were employed in the attack were divided
into two waves, the first of forty-eight, and the second of twelve
machines. As the advance intended was but a short one, the usual
gigantic system of supply dumps was not necessary. On the contrary,
each fighting Tank carried forward ammunition and water for the
infantry, and the four supply Tanks were detailed to carry up R.E.
supplies and other stores.
[65]“Each of these four machines eventually delivered a load of
about 12,500 lbs. within 500 yards of the final objective and
within half an hour of its capture. The total amount of supplies
delivered on July 4 at 40 lbs. per man represented the loads of
a carrying party 1,250 men strong. The number of men used in the
supply Tanks was twenty-four.”
No precise information as to time and place had been given to the Tank
Corps till just a week before the battle; but as the area had been
carefully reconnoitred for the last two months, very little had to be
done to complete this side of the preparations.
On the night of July 1–2, the Tanks were moved up to the assembly
point, an early move which was the result of the Australians’ last
lingering doubts as to the capacity of the Tanks for arriving in time
at _rendezvous_. No chance was thus given to any Tank of being late in
the starting line.
Machines of “C” flight of No. 8 Squadron of aeroplanes were to make
their début as honorary members of the Tank Corps on the morrow, for
the wonderful potentialities of aeroplane and Tank co-operation were
now fully realised, and the Tank Corps had been allotted a squadron of
its own.
VI
At three o’clock on the morning of July 4, almost before the sky had
begun to lighten, the Tank engines were swung up all along our line,
and at two minutes past the hour sixty graceful Mark V.’s slid forward
after their infantry, two low-flying aeroplanes escorting them. As the
Tanks moved along, the crew’s blessed the sweet running of their new
machines, for there had not been a single mechanical hitch of any sort,
and they knew that the shrewd eyes of the Australians had been fixed
like gimlets upon them.
But the whole day was to be one long triumph for the Mark V.
Here and there as the attack surged forward the Tanks were leading,
following close behind the bursting shells. Here and there the
Australians were ahead. The enemy’s infantry put up little or no fight,
but their machine-gunners resisted us with the tenacious courage which
we had learned to expect.
But our onrush was inexorable. The new Tanks were possessed, the
Germans found, of a deadly power of manœuvre which they used to the
full, expending little ammunition upon machine-gun nests, but, even
when they had passed an emplacement by in the first rush, swinging
swiftly round on the wretched gunners and crushing guns and crews
beneath them. As a Tank chronicler somewhat grimly remarks: “This
method eliminated all chance of the enemy coming to life again after
the attack had passed by.”
Over 200 machine-guns were accounted for during the day. There were
also other and rarer little groups of picked men which the Tanks here
and there routed out of the standing crops.
These little parties, generally consisting of three men, were armed
with a special rifle of gigantic size designed to be fired--like
our Lewis gun--from a bipod. Its projectile was a heavy steel-cored
armour-piercing bullet.
It was a new anti-Tank weapon, a weapon from which the Germans hoped
great things.
With the 13th Battalion, a Tank which had advanced ahead of the
infantry, came upon some enemy dug-outs, on the far side of a trench
too broad for their machine to cross. From these dug-outs the enemy
were keeping up a hot fire.
The Tank Commander, Second Lieutenant Edwards, and Private Benns,
immediately got out of their Tank and attacked the garrison on foot.
Between them the two killed seven of the enemy with their revolvers,
and the rest they took prisoners, and handed over to the infantry at
the first opportunity.
There were many fine pieces of individual work, especially instances of
Tanks helping each other under heavy fire, and there is little doubt
that it was to this friendly co-operation, this towing of lame Tanks
out of hot corners, the astonishingly low casualties in machines were
partly due.
The despatch tells how the battle fared all along the line.
“Moving up and down behind the barrage, the Tanks either killed the
enemy or forced him to take shelter in dug-outs, where he became an
easy prey to the infantry. Hamel was taken by envelopment from the
flanks and rear, the enemy was driven from Vaire Wood, and at the
end of the day our troops had gained all their objectives and over
1500 prisoners.”
Our little success had been complete and triumphant.
No less than fifty-seven of the sixty fighting Tanks came through the
day without a scratch, the infantry killed and wounded amounted to
less than half the German prisoners who passed through our cages; and
as we have seen, the battle between Tanks and machine-guns being _à
l’outrance_, the proportion of Germans killed to those made prisoners
had been unusually high.
As for the Tank crews, they suffered only thirteen men wounded. To our
great satisfaction also, the five damaged machines were all salved, and
thus the armament of the Mark V.’s could not be investigated by the
enemy.
But at first almost the most striking characteristic of the victory
seemed the perfect co-operation between Tanks and infantry.
The Tanks and the Australians were equally enthusiastic over one
another’s performances. The Australians were surprised and delighted at
the weight and solidity which the sixty Tanks had lent their impact,
and at the sense of support and comradeship which their men had
experienced.
The Tank Corps were equally impressed by the superb _moral_ of the
Australians,[66] “who never considered that the presence of Tanks
exonerated them from fighting, and who took instant advantage of any
opportunity created by the Tanks.”
A generous and lasting friendship had been established. The 5th Tank
Brigade and their Australians were destined throughout their coming
partnership to prove an almost invincible combination.
But it was not alone the battle partners who were pleased and surprised.
The whole Allied front rang with the news of victory.
We had sent up our tentative _ballon d’essai_, and behold it had sailed
up, high above our highest expectations and now hung, a token in the
sky. All men might know that though Apollyon had straddled all across
the way, we had beaten him and were at last come out of the Valley of
Humiliation.