Читать книгу The Tank Corps - Clough Williams-Ellis - Страница 17

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It was not till the Somme offensive, which was launched on July 1, 1916, had been in progress for two months and a half, that it was found possible for the new arm to take its place in the fighting. We have seen how, secretly, urgently, behind a rich curtain of ingenious and circumstantial lies, the manufacture of the Tanks had been going on. How, secretly, urgently, the crews had been training for their unknown job.

Of the fifty Tanks which were destined to take part in the battle of September 15, about thirteen left England on August 15, and the rest followed at intervals and in driblets as the limited transport allowed. The last batch arrived on August 30 and, like its fellows, proceeded to the training centre at Yvrench. Here trenches had been dug and wire entanglements erected, and machine-gun and 6-pounder practice could be carried out after a fashion. But there was no staff of instructors, the ranges were too short, and the conditions for battle practice quite unlike those which prevailed on the Somme. But it had to suffice. The Tanks were wanted at once, and by September 10 “C” and “D” Companies had arrived in the forward area, their H.Q. being established at the Loop. It was thus within a week of their arrival forward that Tanks were called upon to take part in the attack.

The battle had now been in progress for nearly ten weeks. We had advanced and occupied a depth of four miles of devastated country.

Most of the men and many of the officers had not been to France before. They found themselves in a strange world. Endless lines of transport crawled over incredibly bad roads bordered by gaunt stumps of trees and by a sordid and tragic litter of dead men and horses, rags, tin cans, rotting equipment, and derelict transport.

The enemy was counter-attacking over the whole of the thirty-mile front, and the sound of our guns was everywhere. At night the stream of lorries never ceased, and at some point or other in our line, far away, a star shell could always be seen sailing up from behind a rise of ground, giving some fringe of shattered wood, or ruined sugar factory, a fleeting silhouette against its cold white light.

All ranks were desperately busy, from the mechanics who had new spare engine parts to adjust, to those in command who had their own minds and those of several Major-Generals to make up. Colonel Brough had commanded when the Tanks disembarked, but had now handed over to Colonel Bradley, and he and the Army Corps, and Divisional Commanders with whom he conferred on the 13th seem, perhaps inevitably, to have been as uncertain how to wield the new weapon as were the Tank Commanders of such details as how to fit their new camouflage covers or anti-bombing nets.

In an advance when ought a Tank to start? If it started too soon it would draw the enemy barrage; if it started too late the infantry would reach the first objective before it, and it would be of no use.

This and other similar dilemmas darkened their counsels, and it was finally decided that the Tanks’ start should be so timed that they reached the first objective five minutes before the infantry, and, further that Tanks should be used in twos and threes against strong points. No special or detailed reconnaissance work had been done, and a somewhat indigestible mass of aerial photographs was presented by the Divisional Staff to the bewildered Tank Commanders, many of whom had never seen such things before.12

Much more useful were a series of maps with routes marked out and annotated with the necessary compass bearings, and a detailed time-table with full barrage and other particulars. At least they would have been more useful had not all orders been changed in such a way at the last moment as to invalidate almost every route and hour which they showed.

Meanwhile the Tank crews and commanders had been enjoying three or four days of almost comically complete nightmare. In the first place, they had all manner of mechanical preoccupations—newly arrived spare engine parts to test, new guns to adjust, box respirators to struggle with, and an astounding amount of “battle luggage” to stow away. But worst of all, they found themselves regarded as the star variety-turn of the Western Front.

Already, before leaving Thetford, they had given a demonstration before the King and several members of the Cabinet. At Yvrench they had performed before General Joffre, Sir Douglas Haig, and the greater part of the G.H.Q. Staffs,13 but on reaching the Loop they found to their horror that it was to be “Roses, roses, all the way.” A Tank Commander wrote bitterly:

“It rather reminded me of Hampstead Heath. When we got there we found that the Infantry Brigades had been notified that the Tanks were to perform daily from 9 to 10 and from 2 to 3, and every officer within a large radius and an enormous number of the Staff came to inspect us. We were an object of interest to every one. This did not help on one’s work.”

On the 13th they were to move the Loop to the point of assembly, and the problems of “housekeeping” became acute.

14“The officer and each man carried two gas helmets and one pair of goggles, and in addition to their ordinary service caps, a leather ‘anti-bruise’ helmet; we also had a large field dressing as well as an ordinary first-aid dressing. The usual equipment consisted of revolver, haversack, water-bottles and iron rations. There are eight people in a Tank, and as soon as they get in they naturally take off all these things, which lie about on the floor, unless you devise some method of packing all your equipment.... We carried, in addition to iron rations, sixteen loaves and about thirty tins of food, cheese, tea, sugar and milk. These took up a lot of room. We also had one spare drum of engine oil and one of gear oil, two small drums of grease, three water-cans and two boxes of revolver ammunition ... four spare Vickers barrels, one spare Vickers gun, a spare barrel for the Hotchkiss and two wire-cutters. We also had three flags for signalling purposes, which unfortunately proved to have been lost when they were really wanted.”

But Captain Henriques’ list was, even so, not complete. Many Tanks also carried two carrier pigeons, 33,000 rounds of S.A. ammunition for their machine-guns, a lamp-signalling set, and a telephonic contrivance consisting of an instrument and one hundred yards of cable wound upon a drum. The second instrument was to be left at the “jumping-off place,” and the Tank was to unwind the cable as it advanced, relating its experiences the while to the telephone operator or other interested person in the rear. What was to happen when the Tank began to traverse the hundred and first yard we do not know. In practice the device was not used.

But that was not all. The orders, time-tables and maps upon which the Tank Commanders depended, proved to have been issued in insufficient quantities.

“For every three Tanks only one set of orders had been issued, and only one map supplied: consequently we had to grasp these orders before we passed them on to the other two officers.”

However, at 5 p.m. on the day before the battle, these written orders were cancelled and new verbal instructions substituted. Roughly, the Tanks were to operate as follows:—

On the right with the 14th Corps, ten Tanks were to work with the Guards Division, and seven with the 6th and 56th Divisions, their objectives being Ginchy and the Quadrilateral.

On the left eight Tanks were allotted to the 3rd Corps, operating through High Wood and East of Martinpuich. The 15th Corps had seventeen Tanks attached, and the Reserve (5th) Army—fighting between Pozières and Martinpuich—had six tanks.

With all these groups of Tanks the preliminary moving up into the first-line positions—in the pitch dark, through the mud and in and out of the shell-holes of badly crumped ground—proved most arduous, and a good many Tanks broke down in the process. One Tank Commander who struck a narrow sunken road remarks:

“It was full of the bodies of dead Boches, and my driver did not like going along it.”

For the Tanks’ crews the remainder of the night passed in a final tightening of loose tracks and adjustment of the engines, and in listening to the steadily increasing crash and roar of the British bombardment.

The strain on men and officers had been tremendous. Most of them seem to have started the battle having had no sleep for over twenty-four hours.

They were desperately anxious, too, that Tanks should prove their worth, and the Mark I. machine was too capricious to give them much assurance.

To this list of discomforts must be added that most of the men had never heard guns before, and that the lying-up places were close to our batteries.