THE SOMME BATTLES.
I.
As the companies of the Heavy Section arrived in France, they were
assembled with their tanks at Yvrench, near Abbeville. This was before
the days of the Channel Ferry. The heavy machines had to be shipped
like any other form of ordnance; and they were but a part of the load
which required to be carried overseas. Several complete workshops,
dozens of sponson trolleys, light cars, lorries, and motor-bicycles,
together with tons upon tons of spare parts, furnished the first
instalments of that vast collection of material which the Tank Corps
came to accumulate in France.
A training centre was established at Yvrench, at first under
Lieut.-Colonel Brough, but early in September Colonel Bradley came
out to take over the command. It was known that the unit would soon
be called upon, and there still was an immense amount of work to
be done. Drivers and gunners had to receive further training. The
tanks required to be overhauled and tuned up. Workshops and depots
must be established. Above all, a host of novel problems concerning
administration, supply, tactics--in short, the whole method and
manner of tank-work in the field--fell to be solved without delay,
and, what was more, without assistance. The tank companies in France
were nobody’s children. Their nominal parent, the M.G.C. (itself a
mushroom growth of doubtful antecedents and future), had in fact no
actual connection with them whatever; and it would seem that a new
technical unit, in so experimental a stage, should more properly have
been made a branch of an established technical corps, such as the
Royal Engineers. As it was, the companies were self-contained and
unattached. The infantry, whom they had come to help, knew nothing
of them except by rumour. The Generals and staff officers who came
to see them perform regarded them as a curious and rather dangerous
innovation, unlikely to be of much practical value. In so far as this
isolation was intentional, it is very doubtful whether the measure of
secrecy obtained by it outweighed its disadvantages. The first battle
was near at hand; and a few minutes after zero the secret would be
exploded for ever. In the meantime, a fuller comprehension by other
arms, a more liberal interchange of views, in especial some tuition of
the infantry who were to co-operate in action, might have saved much
disappointment and many lives. Nothing of the kind was attempted; and
the companies had to think out and master other people’s problems in
addition to their own, in the field and with small aid from outside.
Some contingencies inevitably were overlooked. Not only was experience
of this new warfare yet to seek, but many of the officers and a larger
proportion of the men actually were in France for the first time, and
knew nothing of normal battle conditions. It is surprising how much was
foreseen and provided for in spite of these disadvantages. The matter
of supply, for example, seems to have been dealt with adequately from
the beginning, for the tanks were seldom hampered for want of petrol
or ammunition, wherever they might be. As regards general tactics, the
new unit was fortunate in possessing a basis to work on in a valuable
memorandum issued by Colonel Swinton early in the year. In this he
outlined the probable scope of tank warfare, dealt with infantry
co-operation and artillery support, and laid down a definite system of
attack which in essentials is in use to-day.[6] On the other hand,
less thought was given to a Department that proved to be of vital
importance. This was Intelligence, or (as the branch of that service in
the Tank Corps is more accurately styled) Reconnaissance. Circumstances
peculiar to tank operations call for the training of special officers
in this duty alone, as well as an unusually high standard of
proficiency in all tank commanders; but these needs were not recognised
fully at the outset, and one Intelligence officer, Captain Hotblack,
was responsible for the welfare of all four companies. A little later,
and there were seven Reconnaissance Officers to each battalion; and the
corps soon won so high a reputation for thoroughness in this work that
every formation in the Army, from Headquarters downward, came to it for
assistance.
II.
In the beginning of September the situation along the Somme Front was
as follows:--
After two months’ very sanguinary fighting two stages of the battle
had been completed, more or less satisfactorily. In the British sector,
which alone concerns us, the enemy’s first and second positions had
been captured from a point just west of Combles (where we touched
the French 6th Army) to Pozières on the Albert-Bapaume road. Farther
northward, from Pozières to Gommecourt, we had failed badly, and were
still in our old front line. The casualties had been extremely heavy.
Before Beaumont Hamel and Thiepval, whole brigades were destroyed on
the first day without gaining a yard of ground; and along this moiety
of our front the battle came virtually to a standstill for months.
In the southern portion our advance, although slow and costly, had
progressed fairly methodically, side by side with that of the French.
The result was a flattish salient biting into the enemy’s old position
from the Albert-Bapaume road, southward across the Somme, to the road
from Amiens to Brie. Corresponding to the curve of the salient was the
German third line of defence, completed since the battle began. On the
British front it ran along the reverse slope of the Pozières Morval
ridge (most of which was in our possession), some five miles west of
Bapaume. It was now intended to resume our advance in an easterly and
north-easterly direction toward that town. The tunnelled positions of
Thiepval and Beaumont Hamel were to be left, for the present, still
unassailed, except for a few minor enterprises required to improve the
existing line.
The main attack was fixed for the 15th of September. Both the British
armies now engaged in the general offensive were taking part: the
4th, under General Rawlinson, whose front extended from the point
of junction with the French to west of Martinpuich, and a part of
Gough’s 5th or Reserve Army, which continued the line northward.
From right to left the 4th Army was to carry the villages of Morval,
Les Bœufs, Gueudecourt, and Flers; while Gough, after a preliminary
operation south-west of Thiepval on the 14th, had in hand the capture
of Martinpuich and Courcelette. The usual orders were issued for a
vigorous exploitation of any opening--a poor hope on the Somme--and
once more the Cavalry Corps, with all its impedimenta, clattered
noisily up toward the battlefield to be at hand if needed.
The tanks were to make their entry in this attack. C and D Companies,
commanded respectively by Major Holford Walker and Major Summers,
D.S.C., were allotted to the two armies, and on the 10th moved up
to the railway centre called the Loop, near Bray. From there the
tanks trekked to their lying-up positions for the battle--C to the
Briqueterie near Trônes Wood, and D to the Green Dump behind Delville
Wood. The companies’ headquarters followed on the 14th. For the actual
attack the tanks were to be distributed as follows:--
Three sections of each company (17 tanks apiece) worked on the right
and right-centre with the 14th and 15th Corps. One section of 8 tanks
of D Company was attached to the 3rd Corps in the centre, while the
remaining section of C (7 tanks) came under the orders of the Reserve
Army on the left. This made a total of 49. It was intended for the
machines to be used in sub-sections of two or three against specified
strong-points. There was some discussion as to whether they should
precede or follow the infantry at zero. If they led, it was feared
that the noise of their approach to the front line would bring down
the enemy’s barrage upon our assembly trenches; and eventually it was
decided that their arrival should be so timed that they could reach the
first objectives--roughly the line of villages--five minutes before the
infantry. For this purpose lanes were to be left in our own barrage.
I shall not attempt a detailed account of this or any other early tank
action. In the first place, it would be difficult to do so, for the
records of those days are meagre and inaccurate. Again, the _rôle_ of
the tanks on the Somme was so largely experimental and subsidiary that
infantry operation orders, even after the secret was blown, were framed
to be carried out irrespective of the action of what was then regarded
in most quarters as an unreliable innovation of doubtful future. As
regards the tactical methods employed, an organisation in its infancy,
with everything to learn, had to take what chances it was offered, and
had little say in the direction of events. No attempt was or could be
made at this stage, or for long after, to introduce those revolutionary
tactics (already discussed and advocated by Colonel Swinton and others)
in which the tank was to be the vital instrument, and wherein lies the
chief interest of its history. Finally, since all tank battles as such
bear very similar features, I prefer to concentrate on later ones of
which I have personal knowledge.
The attack on the 15th September was highly successful on the left and
centre, but failed on the right, where the strong-point known as the
Quadrilateral held up our advance against Morval and Les Bœufs. On
the whole, it may be said that the work of the tanks fully justified
expectations. No startling triumph could be recorded, but under the
circumstances none was anticipated. Enough was done to demonstrate
the inherent soundness of the design, the correctness of the tactical
axioms laid down, and the enormous potential value of the machine when
faults had been rectified and the personnel more highly trained. The
test to which the Heavy Section had been put was a severe one. The
ground everywhere was so pulverised by the ferocious shelling of the
past two months, that out of 49 tanks which left the Briqueterie and
Green Dump that night, 17 failed to reach their starting-points. These
broke down or were ditched on the way, the absence of any unditching
gear, such as was supplied later, proving a serious handicap. Half
an hour before zero, which fell at dawn, the other 32 began to crawl
forward to the front line. The three sections of C Company, on the
right, had been particularly unfortunate during the approach-march, and
the few tanks remaining were able to effect little or nothing against
the Quadrilateral and Les Bœufs. In most cases they were ditched or
knocked out by shell-fire soon after they crossed the German front
line. D Company’s three sections, working with the 15th Corps farther
north, were far more successful. Every one who read the newspapers at
the time knows how one tank preceded the New Zealanders up the main
street of Flers, driving the terrified Germans down into the cellars,
where the infantry rounded them up. The tank then moved on to a trench
strongly held by the enemy, enfiladed it, moved along behind it, and
took 300 prisoners. Farther north, the two sections assisting the 3rd
Corps and the Reserve Army reached Gueudecourt and the famous sugar
factory at Courcelette. In almost every case where a tank succeeded in
arriving at its objective, the mere sight of it was enough. Save for
some picked machine-gunners and a few other desperate men, the enemy
fled or surrendered on the spot.
The moral effect, all proverbs about familiarity to the contrary, is
still and will always remain the chief asset of the tank as a weapon.
No body of infantry, unless very closely supported by guns, will
stand for long in the open before a properly concerted attack led by
tanks. They cannot: accidents apart, they are entirely helpless, and
they know it. The fire from the machine may be erratic, as usually
it is, for the gunners can see very little, and their platform is
continually in motion; but this does not abate in any degree the
moral effect of its onset. In the last five months of the war, when
the proper use of tanks had come at last to be understood, it was
only by the bold use and sacrifice of field artillery, pushed far
forward, that the German armies were able to protract for as long as
they did the final struggle. And this moral influence works both ways:
it helps the attacker as much as it demoralises the attacked. The
tank is terrifying, or inspiring and rather ludicrous, according to
whether it is against you or for you. It is not only a known antidote
to the dreadful trinity of trench, wire, and machine-gun. Its very
appearance is a comfort. Its shape, unlike that of any other example
of man’s handiwork, its deliberate but at times curiously active and
disconcerting movements, its obvious weight and power, even the two
ports, like lidded eyes, which ornament the front of the cab, combine
irresistibly (as all journalists will testify) to suggest some huge
prehistoric animal--some giant sloth or toad. Indeed, to visit a
training-ground in the evening when some dozens of these creatures are
rolling home to their stalls or hangars is, for all the world, like
being at a Zoo during the Pleistocene Age. The striking pattern of
colours with which the machines were painted in the early days only
aided the illusion. The British soldier, whose great merit it is to
see the comic side of everything, could not fail to be exhilarated by
these gorgeous monsters. It was long before he came to rely on them as
he could rely, let us say, on an old-established and perfected arm like
the artillery; but this is not remarkable. Rather is it something of
a miracle, and an abiding testimony to the efforts of the new corps,
that a similar confidence between infantry and tanks actually was
created during the war’s lifetime. And from the very first their mere
appearance in the field was a great moral factor in our favour.
In this, their first battle, their casualties in personnel were
insignificant. One tank, after attacking a field battery in Gueudecourt
and destroying one gun, was itself hit and burnt out, only two of the
crew escaping. Most of the others got off lightly. Altogether ten were
disabled by shell-fire, and seven more were hit, but returned to the
rallying-point.
Reserving remarks and criticism for the end of the chapter, we will run
through the remaining actions fought by the Heavy Section that autumn
and winter. A comparative lull of rather more than a week (marked by a
successful minor operation which gave us the Quadrilateral) followed
on the battle of the 15th; but during this period the tank companies
were feverishly busy. At first no fewer than 50 tanks were asked for
to assist in the next attack. So large a demand at that stage meant an
immense amount of work; and in the end nothing like this number was
required, the co-operation of the Heavy Section being limited to the
northern assault on Gueudecourt, Thiepval, and the height overlooking
the Ancre from the south. Work on the tanks was hampered by the
multitude of visitors who came to see these novelties now that the
secret was disclosed. There was much uncertainty as to the method of
attack, the supply of maps was insufficient, and operation orders, when
they did arrive, were meagre and ambiguous.
The ground along the Thiepval ridge was in an appalling condition. It
had been shelled more or less continuously for upwards of three months
by guns of every calibre. On top of this came two or three days of
heavy rain just before the attack. “The plan,” to quote Colonel Buchan,
“was for an attack by the 4th Army on Monday, the 25th, with--on its
left wing--small objectives; but, on the right and centre, aiming at
completing the captures which had been the ultimate objectives of the
advance of the 15th. The following day the right wing of the 5th Army
would come into action, and it was hoped that from Thiepval to Combles
the enemy would be driven back to his fourth line of defence, and our
own front pushed up well within assaulting distance.” The enemy’s
fourth line of defence ran just in front of Bapaume. Five tanks only
were detailed eventually to work with the 4th Army on the 25th, and
they were able to effect little or nothing. Unable to leave their
starting-point until zero, for the attack was made at midday, they seem
to have become ditched very early. They were hardly needed, except
at one point. The assault was entirely successful everywhere but at
Gueudecourt, where uncut wire held up the 21st Division. It had been
a bitterly disappointing day for the tanks, but the fault was hardly
theirs. It was an error in the first place to employ them at all in
an operation starting in broad daylight, for it was impossible to
conceal them near enough to the front line to enable them to go over
with the infantry. Corps and divisional commanders had not yet learnt
the elements of tank warfare. Secondly, the ground was so riven and
pulverised, so absolutely rotten with shelling and rain, that without
any unditching gear or spuds (iron shoes afterwards provided to grip
sodden or crumbling soil) the odds were all against their getting far.
As it happened, an opportunity was soon offered of redeeming these
mishaps, and was seized in a very brilliant manner. The 21st Division,
we have seen, was brought to a standstill in front of Gueudecourt. Here
was a formidable obstacle known as Gird Trench, and as a preliminary to
a further assault on the village it was essential that this should be
cleared. Orders were issued that night for an attack at dawn, and the
help of a tank was asked for. With immense toil one was brought up in
the dark across the frightful waste of half-obliterated trenches and
shell-holes and water. For the ensuing action I will quote the report
of the 15th Corps.
“On the 25th September, the 64th Brigade, 21st Division’s
attack on Gird Trench was hung up and unable to make any
progress. A footing had been obtained in Gird Trench at N. 32 d
91, and our troops held the trench from N. 26 c 45 northwards.
Between these two points there remained approximately 1500
yards of trench very strongly held by the Germans and well
wired, the wire not having been cut. Arrangements were made
for a tank (female) to move up for an attack next morning. The
tank arrived at 6.30, followed by bombers. It started moving
south-eastward along the Gird Trench, firing its machine-guns.
As the trench gradually fell into our hands, strong-points were
made in it by two companies of infantry which were following
in rear for that purpose. No difficulty was experienced. The
enemy surrendered freely as the tank moved down the trench.
They were unable to escape, owing to our holding the trench at
the southern end at N. 32 d 91. By 8.30 A.M. the whole length
of the trench had been cleared, and the 15th D.L.I. moved over
the open and took over the captured trench. The infantry then
advanced to their final objective (Gueudecourt), where the tank
rendered very valuable assistance. The tank finally ran short
of petrol south-east of Gueudecourt. In the capture of Gird
Trench 8 officers and 362 other ranks were made prisoners, and
a great many Germans were killed. Our casualties only amounted
to 5. Nearly 1500 yards of trench were captured in less than
an hour. What would have proved a very difficult operation,
involving probably heavy losses, was taken with the greatest
ease entirely owing to the assistance rendered by the tank.”
It should be added that an aeroplane also lent a hand, flying low over
the trench and machine-gunning the defenders.
This admirable little demonstration of what a tank could do came at a
most opportune moment. The months of slaughter on the Somme were in
fact having their inevitable effect on the armies in France. Already
the best of the volunteers who enlisted in the first year of the war
were gone, and the new recruits were of a very different type. Again
and again battalions, brigades, whole divisions even, came out of the
line decimated and shaken from what was trumpeted at home as a cheap
and glorious success. A mile or two of trenches, a wood or a village,
had indeed been won, and with much glory. But at what a cost! Whether
or no these Pyrrhic victories were worth the sacrifice--and presumably
they were--the men on the spot, seeing only their small corner,
remembered nothing but the horror of it all. The Somme, together with
Gallipoli, and the third battle of Ypres, stand apart in the minds
of those who lived through them as long-drawn nightmares; and it was
the peculiar abomination of the first-named that it seemed but the
foretaste of an endless future. The war might go on for ever in this
fashion. There can be no doubt that the Higher Command itself viewed
with apprehension a prolonged continuance of these conditions, and
was prepared at last to welcome any suggestion or innovation which
promised to alleviate them. Hence the demand for the services of the
Heavy Section before, in fact, it was prepared to take the field.
The tanks came; and the little action just described, together with
other similar if less spectacular performances, went far to convert
doubters to the possibilities of the attack by armour. Gird Trench,
however insignificant in itself, was a singularly perfect example of
how the new weapon could help toward economy of life and effort. At a
conservative estimate the enemy had lost not only a strong position,
but also some 600 officers and men killed, wounded, or taken. Our
infantry casualties totalled five, and the tank crew who were directly
responsible for the success numbered only eight. Such figures in
themselves were convincing.
On the same morning eight tanks went over on the left with the
right wing of the 5th Army against Thiepval. The ground was all but
impossible, and most of them were ditched on or about the German front
line; but two got into Thiepval and gave valuable help to the infantry
at a time when the artillery support for once had failed.
III.
The Heavy Section had no more fighting for nearly two months. With
October the bad weather set in: the rain fell in torrents: when it did
not rain a heavy mist gave the sodden ground no chance of recovery;
and the overburdened roads went from bad to worse. While the armies
struggled in the mud and water on the slopes of the final ridge before
Bapaume, the tank companies were withdrawn to Acheux to refit.
By the end of October it was plain that a condition of stalemate had
been reached on the main battlefield. To relieve this it was decided
to make a flank attack along and north of the Ancre, where we had been
repulsed in July. The capture of the Thiepval height had improved the
prospect of a fresh attempt in this quarter. The northern edge of the
salient we had created now ran east and west along high ground south
of the river; and it was possible for our artillery to enfilade and
even take in reverse the immensely strong positions of Beaucourt and
Beaumont Hamel.
The attack was fixed for the 13th November. Originally, twenty tanks
were to have been used, but the weather was so bad that this number
was reduced to five--three to assist at St Pierre Divion, south of the
Ancre, while the other two endeavoured to reach Beaumont Hamel. By this
time the absolute necessity of good reconnaissance had been recognised;
and before the action, tank commanders were taken to observation-points
from which they could see something of the ground beyond the front
line. Landmarks were indicated to them, aeroplane photographs were
studied, and, on zero night, the tank routes were taped as far as
possible. But no foresight could avail against the weather. Gales blew,
the rain fell, and, on the night of the 12th-13th, came snow. The three
southern tanks were bogged in the mud as they moved up. The northern
pair found the tapes obliterated by the snow, but Captain Hotblack,
the Intelligence Officer, led one forward under heavy fire, and then
going back, brought up the second to a point where the infantry was
hung up. Both these tanks did good work before getting ditched, and
Hotblack received the D.S.O. Meanwhile the attack had succeeded beyond
expectation. St Pierre Divion and Beaumont Hamel were taken, although
once more an assault on Serre was repulsed. One battalion of the Naval
Division, led by Lieut.-Colonel Freyburg, actually pushed right up
the river valley to the outskirts of Beaucourt. Here it hung on all
day, far ahead of our main advance. The failure to capture a powerful
redoubt between Beaucourt and Beaumont Hamel prevented any adequate
support reaching the battalion, but Freyburg, who was wounded in all
four times, refused to withdraw. A Territorial unit contrived to get
in touch with him, and communication of a sort was maintained with the
rear along the river bank. But his position was as precarious as it
was valuable; and that night three tanks were brought up for another
attack on the redoubt. One was hit by a shell and disabled. The others
got within close range of the strong-point before getting ditched.
They were able to bring their guns to bear, and in a short time the
place surrendered, no fewer than 400 prisoners falling to the two tanks
alone. The subsequent infantry advance closed up the line and enabled
Freyburg to crown his exploit by capturing Beaucourt at the head of his
men.
A few days later the battles of the Somme came definitely to an
end. If the autumn advance had come up to expectations there was an
intention of continuing the offensive throughout the winter, but the
powers which modern weapons give to the defence, combined with the
October rains, had limited our successes and brought the army to a
pitch of exhaustion; and now a complete break-up of the weather put any
idea of further operations out of the question. The troops set about
making themselves as comfortable as possible in their new positions.
Shattered roads were remade and light railways laid down across the
waste behind the front line. Preparations began for a renewed onslaught
in the spring. With the rest, the companies of the Heavy Section
were to be very busy that winter. The increasing difficulties of the
attack, and their own demonstration of how those difficulties might
be overcome, had established their position as a valuable, if not yet
an indispensable, auxiliary. But they had fought their last battle as
individual units. The corps was growing; and they withdrew from the
line only to form the nucleus of the four battalions which were to be
raised in France.
IV.
An immense amount of nonsense was talked and written about the first
appearance of the tanks in the field. The newspapers, as perhaps was
to be expected, excelled themselves in absurdity. Any lie was good
enough for them. The war correspondents, in their safe and comfortable
château in the valley of the Ternoise, ransacked Scripture and
zoology for suitable similes. There is a story of those halfpenny
strategists, Messrs Gibbs and Beach Thomas,[7] tossing up a coin (no
doubt a halfpenny) to decide who should use the word Behemoth. All this
ignorant flapdoodle did an ill service to the new unit. Its exploits
in battle had been witnessed by few; but tens of thousands had seen
tanks lying derelict in the Somme mud or holding up traffic through
mechanical breakdowns on important thoroughfares; and exaggerated
encomiums in ill-informed newspaper articles only brought ridicule upon
men who had done wonders in circumstances inconceivable to the writers.
The Heavy Section, in its early days, is said to have been the victim
of more chaff (and not always good-natured) than any unit except the
London Scottish. People at home, who believe anything they read in
print and have the Press they deserve, naturally expected miracles of
machines which pushed down houses on battlefields, where, in fact, no
house had been standing for months.
No one disliked this sort of thing more than the men concerned. They
knew well enough where they had succeeded and where they had failed.
The necessary experience had been bought; and there were many lessons
to be learnt from it and carried into practice, so far as was possible,
before the next battle. It was proved that the Mark I. was designed
on sound lines, and needed only a few structural alterations to make
it equal to all reasonable demands until such time as it could be
superseded by an altogether superior type. The “Hydraulic Stabiliser”
or tail, for example, must be got rid of. Its essential worthlessness
was discovered quite early, when a tank came under shell-fire while
waiting for zero behind our front line. The whole crew being inside
for shelter, with the engine just ticking over, a projectile burst
under the stern and blew the tail away without doing any other damage:
amid the general uproar no one was aware of what had happened; and the
tank moved forward and was in action for some time before the loss
of this absurd appendage was discovered. Other faults to be remedied
were the position of the petrol-tanks, the overhead exhaust-outlet,
emitting conspicuous flame and sparks, the needlessly broad sponsons
(accessories in many cases of ditching), and the lack of any gear by
which a ditched tank could free itself under its own power. “Ditching,”
an unpleasant commonplace of tank warfare, can happen in many ways;
but in essentials this misfortune means one of two things. Either
the machine has got itself into such a position (_e.g._, tail down
in a wide and very deep trench) that although the tracks will grip
the surface the engine-power is insufficient to pull it out; or the
belly, with a dead weight of nearly 30 tons on top of it, is resting on
comparatively hard ground, while the tracks, happening on soft patches,
cut through without gripping at all. The tank, for example, is moving
parallel and close to the forward edge of a trench. The edge gives way
under the weight of the near track, which slides down until the sponson
on that side hits the rear wall of the trench. The fallen track is now
revolving uselessly in air or crumbling earth, the belly of the tank
is resting heavily on the parapet, and the efforts of the outer track,
still on firm ground, to overcome the consequent friction, only succeed
in embedding the sponson in the parados until the engine can no longer
force the machine forward. What was needed was something which would
give one or both tracks a more secure grip or leverage in such cases.
After the experiences on the Somme, two separate devices were adopted.
For permanent use over soft ground iron shoes or “spuds” were clamped
at intervals along the tracks; while in addition each tank carried
a pair of what were known as torpedo-booms. These were cigar-shaped
objects of wood and iron, about six feet long, to be clamped to each
track by chains when the tank became ditched. As the tracks revolved,
these booms in theory were pulled round underneath the tank until they
became jammed in the ground, when, the tracks being thus brought to a
standstill, the machine was able to climb out over them in the normal
way. In practice, although of great use on many occasions, these booms
were found to be too small and weak. In soft ground they often were
dragged under the whole length of the tank and up to the surface again
behind: in hard ground, the chains were apt to part under the strain. A
greatly superior development of this idea (to be described in its turn)
was tested and adopted after the battle of Messines.
I offer no apology for this digression on unditching. Throughout the
battles of the Somme, Arras, Messines, and Ypres, by day and by night,
during approach-marches and under fire in action, this unsavoury
process might fall at any moment to the lot of any crew. On at least
one occasion at Ypres a whole company of twelve tanks was ditched
hopelessly before it even reached the front line, and a few days
before, in the same dismal area, out of two companies of the same
battalion (my own) which went over at zero, only one tank returned
before the end of the day. One other had been blown to pieces, the
remaining twenty-one were ditched, temporarily or for ever, here and
there about our little sector of that water-logged battlefield. Most of
them had struggled somehow into action, and some were extricated from
bogs or shell-holes half a dozen times before their exhausted crews
gave up the struggle. At least another fifty from other battalions
were in similar case that evening. Ypres, of course, was exceptional,
and tanks should never have been used there; but until their proper
function was discovered at Cambrai, he was a fortunate commander who
could take his machine in and out of action anywhere without a case of
ditching on the way.
Reverting finally to the lessons of the Somme, it was felt by most
officers and men of the new unit that, well as they had done on many
occasions, more might have been accomplished. They suffered none of
the delusions which the Press was fostering at home. The lack of
foresight in some directions was obvious enough now. At the same time
it was realised that the tanks had been put to an unreasonable test.
They were constructed for fair ground and fair weather; they had been
granted neither. There had been insufficient time to train the crews.
On account of the secrecy maintained at the start, it was impossible
for infantry commanders and their men to become acquainted with tank
tactics; but this want of co-operation was not remedied, as it should
have been, before the later actions. Springing from the same source of
ignorance was the mischievous tendency to use tanks in driblets instead
of in masses--a tendency which the Tank Corps had to fight throughout
its existence.
It was proved that the preparations for a battle required an infinite
amount of work and forethought. There were contingencies to be
considered such as affected no other arm. Especially was this the
case with reconnaissance; for success or failure hung upon the tank
commanders’ familiarity, from thorough coaching beforehand, with the
ground they had to cover. Once in action, they could see very little,
while maps were almost useless in a devastated country, and each
officer instead had to carry in his mind the look of almost every
tree-stump and every mound of rubble.
If tanks lost their way, apart from other consequences, the infantry
were very apt to follow them and lose their own direction. Another
difficulty, springing in part from the small size of the unit and in
part from the bad practice of employing tanks in driblets, was that
subaltern tank officers often found themselves working alone or in
pairs with divisions or even with corps, and conferring on tactical
points with G.S.O.I.’s and Generals. They had not the experience or
authority needed to combat ill-advised demands, and as a result were
often set to perform impossible tasks.
If the Heavy Section was to remain, still more if it was to be
expanded, everything went to show the urgent need of reforming it as
a fully equipped and independent organisation like the Flying Corps,
whose requirements in many ways resembled its own. It must have its
responsible staff to decide finally all questions dealing purely with
tank warfare, its intelligence branch run on individual lines, its
technical officers, its signal service, its workshops and depots, its
transport and supply. Such a proposal was put forward after the first
Somme battles, and as a proof that the mistakes and disappointments of
that period were outweighed greatly on the credit side, the suggestion
was adopted at once. Before the end of September the expansion and
new establishment were authorised. Lieut.-Colonel Elles was given the
command in France; and the building of a thousand improved tanks was
put in hand without delay.