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A Company of Tanks

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A Company of Tanks
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Author(s): W. H. L. Watson
Date Published: 2010/02
Page Count: 236
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-84677-979-4
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-84677-980-0

Steel, mud, blood and courage on the Western Front

This is a fine book because it is a superb first hand eye-witness account of British Tanks in action throughout the First World War. Without much preamble Watson launches the reader, in company with the author's brother officers, men and machines into the heart of the field of conflict on the 11th Corps forward line on the Western Front in the Autumn and Winter of 1916. From that point to the end of the book and the war itself the narrative takes us inexorably into the dark heart of war the tankers knew. Battles and battlefield experiences in their various phases (sometimes the book includes descriptions as expansive as three chapters each) are covered in engrossing detail. We join the author and the men we come to know as personalities, at First and Second Bullecourt, in much detail at Third Ypres and Cambrai before Amiens, the breaking of the Hindenburg Line and Second Le Cateau. This is a primary source work within a finite resource and as such is beyond value. Nevertheless, it is also a highly absorbing read to be relished by students of the period-professional and amateur alike. Available in soft cover and hard back with dust jacket for collectors.

On the night before the battle the tanks moved up to points in the rear of our posts, and thirty minutes after “zero” they followed the fighting tanks and the infantry. The shelling was severe.<br>
The first tank under Sergeant Broughton reached its objective, but, as the unloading party had lost touch with it on the trek forward, the crew were compelled themselves to unload the tank. Apparently the attack had been checked, for Sergeant Broughton found that he was so close to the enemy that he could see them firing. He completed the dump, swinging the tank to give the men as much cover as possible from machine-gun bullets, though without help it was painfully slow work, and half his men were wounded. On the way back the tank struck a land-mine, and it was set on fire. The survivors crawled back into camp late in the afternoon.<br>
The second tank, under Thomas, became “ditched” in a huge crater a few hundred yards from its objective. It was so heavy loaded that the unditching beam could not be used, and such intense machine-gun fire was directed at the tank that Thomas quite properly did not ask his men to attempt to unload the roof. It would, in any case, have been a laborious job, since the unloading party had missed the way. Three attempts were made to extricate the tank from the crater into which it had slipped, but each attempt failed. The German gunners were more successful, for by dusk they had blown the tank into a fantastic tangle of twisted wreckage.<br>
The third tank struck a landmine on the way forward. Two of the crew were killed instantly, and a third man was severely wounded. Ryan, who was walking beside the tank, was badly injured—his ankle was shattered by the force of the explosion.<br>
Read and I had tramped up to Ronssoy, a large industrial village in which were the headquarters of the 108th Regiment. It was a damp steamy day. The Americans were puzzled and disconsolate. Their infantry, led gallantly by tanks of the 4th Battalion, had undoubtedly advanced, but the reports were so conflicting that no one could say definitely how the line ran. It appeared that the Americans had not “mopped up” with any success, since there were parties of the enemy between the Americans who had attacked and the posts which they had left at “zero.”<br>
In places the Germans seemed to be farther forward than they had been before the attack commenced. Of the fighting tanks the majority had received direct hits, and the crews, mostly wounded, were staggering back by twos and threes into Ronssoy. It was no wonder that Sergeant Broughton had found himself under the very noses of the enemy. With the main attack still to come, the situation could not have been more unsatisfactory.<br>
Even the headquarters of the 108th Regiment were to suffer. We had noticed a little nervously that although a German observation balloon was looking into Ronssoy, a crowd of orderlies and officers were collected in the road outside the head-quarters. The lesson was sharp. Twenty minutes after we had left the village in an ammunition lorry a salvo of 5.9’s, entirely without warning, burst among the crowd.<br>
Of the land-mines which had proved fatal to two of my tanks and to several tanks of the 4th Battalion we had received information, but the information was found to be inaccurate. Warning had reached us of a British anti-tank minefield laid in March, and we had marked the mines on our maps. The minefield, however, was in fact five hundred yards from its supposed position, and its full extent was not discovered until on the 29th ten American tanks endeavoured to pass across it and were destroyed.<br>
On the 28th it was clear enough that, although parties of American infantry were out in front of their original line, The Knoll, together with Quennemont and Guillemont Farms, remained in German hands. The attack of the 108th Regiment was more than unsuccessful.<br>
If it had never been launched the attack on the 29th might have taken place at least under cover of a barrage; but now that scattered bodies of Americans, surrounded by the enemy, were ahead, no barrage could be employed.
While the survivors of Ryan’s section, under the command of Thomas, were salving what remained of their tank equipment, the three remaining sections moved forward from Manancourt with the battalions to which they had been allotted. Fortunately, my officers reconnoitred their own routes, for two of the convoys with which they were trekking temporarily lost their way.3 My tanks were detailed once again to carry supplies for the fighting tanks, a dull and thankless task.