Tank Boys

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  After cleaning his tin plate at the mill-house’s well, Richard went for a ramble along the bank of the stream. It was already dark and a silvery moon was just beginning to climb into the sky.

  ‘A newcomer, are you?’ said a voice from behind.

  Richard turned to see an officer sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree. Quickly coming to attention, Richard saluted.

  The officer, a second lieutenant, came to his feet and returned the salute, then ambled to where Richard stood. Richard could now see that the lieutenant was a middle-aged man, round-faced, with a narrow moustache and thinning hair.

  ‘At ease, Private,’ said the lieutenant. ‘No need to stand on formality for my sake.’ Looking down into the stream, the officer clasped his hands behind his back. With his eyes still on the water, he asked, ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Rix, Herr Leutnant,’ Richard replied, relaxing a little but still remaining at attention. ‘Private Richard Rix. Assigned as loader to Panzerkampfwagen 506, Mephisto.’

  ‘You seem very young for panzer service. Where are you from?’

  ‘Bavaria, Herr Leutnant. A farm just outside Augsburg.’ Richard didn’t add that he had spent some of his childhood years in America. With American troops known to be arriving in France to join the Allied armies, he worried that other German soldiers might question his loyalty if he were to mention his time in America.

  ‘Ah, Augsburg.’ The lieutenant nodded thoughtfully. ‘I myself lived in Lower Saxony for many years. At the outbreak of this war, I was living in Clausthall. Do you know it?’

  ‘No, Herr Leutnant.’

  ‘I taught there, you know.’

  ‘You were a teacher, Herr Leutnant?’

  ‘Oh, yes. A professor of chemistry.’

  ‘A professor!’

  The lieutenant smiled. ‘I hear you thinking, “What is a professor of chemistry doing in a panzerkampfwagen unit?” Well, originally, our superiors thought that a professor of chemistry might know something about British technology, and they asked me to assess captured British war wagons. Then they put me in command of one. And now, here, I have charge of the panzer Siegfried.’

  To Richard, the middle-aged lieutenant looked the most unlikely of tank commanders. ‘You are in charge of Siegfried, Herr Leutnant?’ Richard asked, only now noticing the prized Eiserne Kreuze, the Iron Cross gallantry medal, pinned to the lieutenant’s tunic.

  ‘Indeed.’ But the officer quickly changed the subject. ‘Tell me, Richard Rix, what do you think you will do after the war?’

  The question took Richard by surprise. ‘After the war, Herr Leutnant? I hardly think about what might happen next week. I cannot imagine what it would be like after the war, or what I might be doing then.’

  ‘You should. This war will not last much longer, now that the Americans have arrived in France. That is why our High Command has launched this Spring Offensive, to try to win this thing before the Americans, with all their money and men, have a chance to influence matters. But that is like trying to stop the incoming tide. Think about a career in science after the war, Richard Rix. That is my advice – a career in science. The world needs scientists, not soldiers. Work for peace, not war.’

  ‘Er, yes, Herr Leutnant.’ Richard was surprised by the officer’s attitude. The lieutenant almost sounded as if he were expecting Germany to lose the war.

  ‘A good evening to you, my boy.’ The lieutenant turned to go.

  ‘Sir, may I know your name?’

  The officer paused. ‘Biltz. Wilhelm Biltz.’

  ‘Leutnant Biltz, is it true that we will soon be going against the British panzers?’

  ‘Yes, I expect we will.’

  ‘Are our panzers superior to those of the British?’

  Biltz paused, then replied, ‘Well, for one thing, the British outnumber us greatly. They have hundreds of panzers while we have only twenty A7Vs – too few to make a difference, I fear. Certainly, our panzers are larger – much larger – than theirs. The tracks on our machines are protected by the armoured sides, while the British tracks are exposed. And some might say that our panzers look more fearsome. But let me tell you, young man, don’t let appearances fool you. As a chemist, I know for a fact that the armour on our panzers is inferior in quality to that of the British vehicles. They use hardened steel, and we do not. Our A7Vs are top-heavy – pray that your driver does not get your Mephisto into a situation where it will topple over. I sometimes think that it is more dangerous for the men inside our panzers than for the enemy outside.’

  Richard felt a chill run down his spine. ‘Oh.’

  ‘I urge you to wear the face mask that is issued to panzer crews. A number of lazy crewmen have discarded them, but once your vehicle starts taking hits from enemy bullets and shells, the mask will save your eyes and face from metal splinters.’

  Richard nodded earnestly. ‘Yes, I will do that, Herr Leutnant.’

  ‘And your driver, Feldwebel Heiber – the men call him “Papa” Heiber, I believe – you could do worse, a young fellow like yourself, than sheltering under his wing. Heiber might just help you survive this war.’

  ‘Yes, Herr Leutnant.’

  ‘Goodnight to you, young man.’ With that, Lieutenant Biltz wandered away into the night.

  Feeling a little disconcerted by Lieutenant Biltz’s morbid advice, Richard hurried back to the barns.

  When he arrived at the enlisted men’s quarters, he found that several members of Mephisto’s crew were already settling down to sleep on the hay. He could see Sergeant Heiber writing a letter in the light of a candle.

  Richard walked over to where Heiber sat with his back against the wall, and, squatting down in front of him, said, ‘Feldwebel, I was just talking with Leutnant Biltz, and he was saying that our panzers –’

  ‘Lightning Biltz?’ said Heiber, looking up from his letter-writing. ‘What did he have to say?’

  Richard frowned. ‘“Lightning” Biltz?’

  Papa Heiber chuckled. ‘That fellow Biltz is so slow and calculated in all he does, the men mock him with the nickname “Lightning”. To illustrate how slow he is – Biltz has been in the German Army for four years now, having entered as a leutnant. And still he is a leutnant! He will probably end up being the oldest leutnant in the army.’ Heiber smirked. ‘A lightning career, wouldn’t you say?’

  To Richard, Lieutenant Biltz seemed an officer he could respect – even admire – despite Biltz’s pessimistic attitude to the war. ‘But he wears the Iron Cross,’ he responded, defending the lieutenant.

  ‘I didn’t say he wasn’t brave,’ Heiber came back. A questioning look now crossed his face. ‘But, tell me, what was he saying to you?’

  Richard suddenly felt hesitant about revealing the lieutenant’s lack of faith in their panzers. He decided to keep Lieutenant Biltz’s advice to himself. ‘Nothing. Nothing important,’ he said, standing up. ‘Goodnight, Feldwebel.’

  ‘Goodnight, boy,’ said Heiber, returning to his letter.

  Finding a clear space on the hay, Richard unrolled his blanket and lay down. Mental exhaustion quickly claimed him, and almost as soon as he closed his eyes he was asleep.

  In a Flanders village square, not far from the hotel that was serving as the headquarters of the AIF’s 13th Brigade, of which the 52nd Battalion was a part, Frankie Pickles and Taz Dutton came to attention in front of a group of Australian officers, and saluted. Both young soldiers were nervous. Out of the blue, they’d been ordered to report to their battalion’s commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel John Whitlam. They were terrified that the secret they shared had somehow been discovered and that they were about to be sent home.

  ‘These are the two I was telling you about, Colonel,’ said Lieutenant Blair, the pair’s platoon commander.

  ‘Don’t look so terrified, lads,’ said the tall colonel, who, although he was only thirty-seven, was already going grey. Smiling, he added, ‘I’m not going to eat you.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Frankie responded. �
��I mean, yes, sir.’

  Whitlam chuckled to himself. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘Just the opposite. I wanted to commend you on the cool-headed way you helped dig out your fellow soldiers the other day. Lieutenant Blair was full of praise for the pair of you.’

  Frankie beamed. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said with relief. ‘It was nothing, sir. All in a day’s work, sir.’

  ‘Very good. Keep up the good work.’ The colonel turned to the lieutenant. ‘I think we’d better give them both a stripe, Blair. We need cool-headed non-coms.’

  Lieutenant Blair nodded approvingly. ‘You must have read my mind, sir. I’ll put it through right away.’ Looking at Frankie and Taz, he said, ‘Carry on, Lance-Corporal Pickles and Lance-Corporal Dutton.’

  Frankie and Taz looked at each other in amazement, then broke into wide grins.

  ‘Thank you, sir!’ they said together.

  After exchanging salutes with the officers, the pair swung on their heels and marched away.

  ‘What do you think about that, Tazzie boy?’ said Frankie, once they’d rounded the corner of a church and were out of sight and earshot of the officers. ‘We’re lance-corporals. Non-commissioned officers. We can give privates orders! And we get an increase in pay.’

  Taz was shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe it, Frankie. I was sure they were going to kick us out of the battalion.’

  They were feeling pretty pleased with themselves when they arrived back at the collection of tents on the village outskirts that made up their company’s latest behind-the-lines quarters. With a stripe on their arm, they would now be the same rank as the obnoxious Rait the Rat. Or so they thought.

  When they found Rait waiting for them, Taz noticed that he was sporting a newly sewn second stripe on the arms of his tunic. Now a corporal, he was still superior to Frankie and Taz.

  ‘What did Jockey Blair and the old man want you for?’ Rait demanded, standing in front of them with his hands on his hips.

  ‘He said we’re both going to get a medal,’ Frankie lied, ‘for digging you other blokes out the other day.’

  Rait frowned. ‘A medal? What sort of a medal? You’ve got to do something brave to get a medal, and there’s nothing brave about slinging sodding dirt.’

  ‘Frankie’s pulling your leg, Corporal,’ said Taz. ‘We’re both being promoted to lance-corporal.’

  Rait’s face clouded over. ‘Colonel Whitlam’s giving you two a stripe? The man must have a screw loose! You two brats? Non-coms?’

  ‘The colonel can see that we’re full of potential,’ said Frankie, with a wink in Taz’s direction.

  ‘I can see that you’re full of bulldust, chum!’ Rait retorted. ‘Just don’t act the smart alec with me – either of you – or you’ll come a bleeding cropper!’ With that, he stormed away.

  ‘Why’d you tell him we weren’t up for medals, Taz?’ Frankie asked, as they watched Rait depart. ‘I had the bugger going there for a while.’

  ‘Lies don’t get you anywhere, Frankie. I try to stick to the truth.’

  ‘Well, lies got us both into the AIF, didn’t they?’

  Taz looked guilty. ‘Yes, but there was a good reason for that . . .’

  ‘And there was a good reason for having on Rait the Rat – to take him down a peg or two.’

  The next day, a quartermaster-sergeant gave Frankie and Taz a cloth stripe each. But they didn’t have time to sew them onto their tunics before they had to join their compatriots for the march back to the front.

  The 52nd moved up to occupy reserve trenches not far from where the battalion had been stationed when much of Frankie and Taz’s platoon were buried by a bombardment. There, in the reserve trenches behind the front line, the men of the 52nd would sit and wait for something to happen.

  If the Germans attacked here, the men in the reserve trenches would be sent forward to support those in the front line. All the talk behind the lines had been of the German Spring Offensive, which had been launched on the morning of 21 March, in the Somme region of eastern France. They all expected that sooner or later the Germans must also launch a full-out attack here in Flanders. But all Frankie and Taz were destined to see for the next few weeks were trench walls.

  The noise almost deafened Richard! At Charleroi, 115 kilometres away from where Frankie and Taz were sitting in a trench, Richard Rix was hunched at his post by the big gun in the nose of Mephisto. With its dual 100-horsepower, 4-cylinder petrol engines straining, the tank was being put through its paces in a gently sloping Belgian field. This was Richard’s first time inside the tank while underway and it was not a pleasant experience.

  Apart from the thunderous noise from the engines right behind him, noise which reverberated around the interior of the metal tank, there was also the unpredictability of the vehicle’s movement to deal with. Papa Heiber, sitting up in the driver’s seat, beside but a little behind the seat of Lieutenant Skopnik, was steering the monster by using gears on the two engines – one drove the linked metal track on Mephisto’s left side, while the other drove the track on the right side. To turn the tank left or right, Heiber had to move the gear lever for one engine, slowing the track on that side, which then caused the opposite track to rotate faster, jerkily dragging the tank in the desired direction.

  When Heiber put one engine into reverse, while leaving the other engine in forward, and applied the accelerator, he could spin the massive machine right around on the spot. This was an impressive sight to onlookers outside, but for Richard and the other crewmen inside the tank, it was disorienting. Mephisto’s movements were abrupt and, with all the engine noise, there was no way for Heiber to alert the crew to manoeuvres he was about to perform. Without warning, the tank would veer left or right, or jag up or down an incline, sending the crew lurching all over the place.

  For standing crewmen like Richard, there were rope handles hanging from the metal ceiling. But even when Richard did hang on, he was often swung around the tank’s interior like a circus performer at the end of a rope, as Mephisto jerked and dipped and swayed its way over rough ground. If the gun was being fired as the tank rumbled along, Richard needed both leather-gloved hands to do his job as gun loader. He could only brace his feet as he dragged a 57 mm shell from an ammunition locker behind the gun to slide it into the cannon’s breech. Once the shell was loaded, he would close the breech while Sergeant Eckhardt peered out a small opening beside the gun to take aim on a target, spinning two metal wheels on the gun mount to turn the barrel left or right, or to raise or lower it.

  Because of engine noise, talking was virtually impossible for the crew once the tank was underway, and this was accentuated when Mephisto’s guns were firing. Written instructions were sometimes passed down from Lieutenant Skopnik, but hand signals and taps on the back were the main ways to communicate. There was a single piece of technology to allow the commander to communicate the location of an enemy target to gunner Eckhardt – a metal box containing round red lights, situated above the gun. The commander could depress a switch in front of him that lit up one of those lights. If the light in the middle lit up, the enemy was directly ahead. A light to the left or right meant the enemy was in that direction.

  As Richard had learned, Mephisto had been one of four tanks of Abteilung 1 to take part in an assault against British lines at St Quentin at the commencement of the Spring Offensive, an operation that the Supreme High Command of the German Army had given the codename ‘Michael’. Those four tanks, all bearing the skull and crossbones emblem, had helped Germany’s 18th Army halt a British counterattack.

  But three had been damaged, with a number of crewmen injured, and all four vehicles had been withdrawn to the tank base at Charleroi to regroup. Mephisto, with Lieutenant Skopnik in command, had come back scarred by bullet and shell but was otherwise undamaged, and had been transferred to Abteilung 3. More new tanks had arrived at Charleroi from the Daimler-Benz factory in Berlin. Twenty massive A7Vs were now at Charleroi, making up the entire German-made
component of the Kaiser’s tank corps. The seventy other tanks operated by the German Army were all captured British vehicles.

  Now, with Maxim MG08 machine guns jutting out the side and rear gun ports, and the main gun poking out the snout, Mephisto was manoeuvring in the open with the three other A7Vs of Abteilung 3. The tanks’ commanders were training to operate as a group while new crewmembers, such as Richard, became accustomed to their machines. Doing four kilometres an hour, Mephisto led the way across fields where a Belgian farmer had once run his dairy herd. Ahead in Mephisto’s path stood a fence of barbed wire that stretched across the field.

  The other three tanks spread out beside Mephisto, forming a ragged line as they advanced towards the wire. Smoke from their exhausts wafted over the landscape while several hundred fully armed German infantry ‘shock troops’ training in tank cooperation techniques walked behind the tanks, rifles in their hands.

  Up to the barbed wire the tanks lumbered. Without a pause or a bump they rolled over the top of the wire, pressing it hard into the earth under their thirty-tonne weight before continuing on. The shock troopers coming up behind were able to step nimbly across the gaps in the wire made by the tanks. This was how it was intended they would attack the British in the next stage of the Michael Offensive – with the tanks driving pathways for the infantry through British lines.

  Inside Mephisto, Richard was hanging on to one of the ceiling handles. He had loaded a shell into the tank’s gun, and Sergeant Eckhardt was peering out the narrow opening of the right front port. Lieutenant Skopnik had sent down a note for the gunner: Target – stone barn ahead. In the panel above the gun, the middle light glowed red. Richard, knowing what was coming, clamped his hands over his ears.

  Eckhardt yanked the firing handle. With an almighty boom, the gun fired. The tank rocked up and back on its springs. As acrid cordite fumes filled the tank’s interior, gunner Eckhardt and commander Skopnik watched the shell speed towards the assigned target; Eckhardt from his observation port, and Skopnik from the open commander’s port up in the cupola.