by John Taylor
PART III
GATHERING FORCES
CHAPTER 15
The Coming of Frank Heap
Frank Heap’s service file shows he sailed from Folkestone to Boulogne on 9 August 1917, and probably spent the next few weeks at the Tank Corps base near St Pol-sur-Ternoise and the driving school near Wailly before making his way to La Lovie.1 On 25 September – an otherwise uneventful day – D Battalion’s War Diary notes: ‘On this date 1 Officer and 3 O.R. [other ranks] arrived as Reinforcements from … Depôt.’2
We know exactly how Frank Heap looked at this time, because he posed for a photograph before he left home wearing his freshly-tailored officer’s uniform. Proudly displaying the badge of the Tank Corps, and the single ‘pip’ denoting his promotion to second lieutenant (or ‘subaltern’), he peers quizzically at the camera through his pincenez, a diffident and unintimidating figure.3
We also know how he appeared in figurative terms, because Second Lieutenant James Macintosh, writing as his alter ego ‘Tosh’, described just such a new arrival:
Hurrying through the gateway as if his life depended on it, came the most beautifully apparelled of young subalterns. He was hung round about with all manner of map-cases, haversacks, field-glasses, and other ‘Blighty touches’; from his pink cheeks to his pink breeches, the colour-scheme was a delight to the eye; and he was followed by a diminutive batman, almost obliterated by a most capacious valise. Up dashed the young officer, perspiringly followed by his faithful, if overloaded henchman. It was then that Tosh noticed the new-comer’s badges – the new Tank badge of which he had heard, but which had not yet percolated to France, and on his right sleeve a resplendent Tank in black and silver thread.4
One hopes that Heap’s arrival was met with an introduction as upbeat as that from Tosh: ‘“Well, you’re lucky; you’ve struck the best of the bunch.” Forthwith he plunged into an eulogy of the old D Battalion, which in the earliest days, as D Company had done such outstanding work, and had continued doing all the best work down to the present time. Such bursts of eloquence are common enough from old hand to new; in the present case it was swallowed eagerly enough.’5
We also know how Heap’s brother officers appeared, for the very next day the battalion had a more eminent visitor: an official photographer from the Ministry of Information called Ernest Brooks, who depicted a group of officers smoking and relaxing in deckchairs against a backdrop of tents and drying blankets. Casually clad in jackets and shorts, their hair trimmed and pomaded, they play cards or cluster round to peruse the Daily Mail. They are accompanied by their pet dogs, one of which is posed next to a gramophone in a parody of the ‘His Master’s Voice’ record label. It is a carefully studied picture of relaxation, which might as easily show the members of a college rugger team unwinding after a match.6
Although created as propaganda, the images did not lie, for this was indeed an idyllic period. Major William Watson, commander of No. 11 Company whose officers featured in the photographs, recalled:
My company had returned from the Canal, as it was not likely that we should be wanted again in the near future, and were living in shameless comfort at La Lovie. The rain had stopped – we always had bright sunshine in the Salient, when we were not ready to attack. If it had not been for the growl of the guns, an occasional shell in Poperinghe while we were bargaining for greengages, or the perseverance of the enemy airmen, who dropped bombs somewhere in the neighbourhood each fine night, we might have forgotten the war completely. There were walks through the pine-woods, canters over the heath, thrilling football matches against our rivals, little expeditions to Bailleul for fish, or Cassel for a pleasant dinner in the cool of the evening.7
Captain Edward Glanville Smith also found much to enjoy:
In camp the battalion was kept physically fit by daily drill of different sorts, but it became increasingly difficult to fill up the entire day. Frequent leave was given to Poperinghe which place had by now developed into a miniature ‘West End,’ containing numerous restaurants and about half-a-dozen divisional concert parties, such as the ‘Whizz-Bangs,’ ‘Bow Bells,’ etc., where humour was plentiful though somewhat crude. ‘House,’ bridge, ping-pong and gramophones were popular pastimes. Some fortunate beings were able to indulge in short motor trips to Amiens, St. Omer, and Dunkirk … But most welcome of all was the fact that leave to England had reopened after a cessation of nine months, and the frequent departure of large parties of all ranks served to brighten an otherwise gloomy prospect.8
It must have been bizarre for Frank Heap, having followed the progress of the great Flanders offensive in the papers, and trained for months to be at the cutting edge of the conflict, to find himself in what we would now characterize as a holiday camp, though one with an underlying deadly purpose. Having been through public school and university, he no doubt slotted easily into the jovial bonhomie of the officers’ mess, and as a token of acceptance he soon acquired a nickname. In such well-read company, it was hardly surprising that someone called Heap should be known to his brother officers as ‘Uriah’.9
* * *
Of course it was not all fun and frolics. For many at La Lovie, there was also a mounting sense of frustration, and Captain Smith told how they were becoming ‘“fed up to the teeth” at a more or less continuous life of inaction.’10
Frank Heap must have sensed this, but for the time being he had to overcome some major personal challenges. Of the three companies that made up D Battalion, he was assigned to No. 12 – probably to replace another second lieutenant called John Elwy Symond, who had been wounded by a shell splinter when his tank was hit on 20 September.11 This meant Frank’s company commander would be the formidable Major R.O.C. Ward.
His first meeting with the major was an ordeal yet to come, but Frank Heap faced a more immediate test of his powers of leadership when he met the tank crew he was to command. This must have been daunting, since at least some of them had been in battle together, whereas Frank – although he had been on the Western Front for nearly a year-and-a-half – had not really been in battle at all, having served as a motorcycle despatch-rider delivering messages behind the lines. It was true that at twenty-five he was older than most of his crew, and was better educated and more affluent; but they must have been aware that he had spent most of the war as a humble corporal, and had only received his commission as a ‘temporary gentleman’ at the beginning of the year.12
In fact for the last few months Frank had been at the Tank Corps depot in Bovington, Dorset, going through the training course developed to teach the skills needed in the new unit. These included tank driving, use of the compass and various types of machine gun, and target practice with the revolver which crewmen carried for personal protection. At the coastal range in Lulworth he was taught how to fire the 6-pounder gun which was the principal armament of a male tank. He would also have learned how to use and care for carrier pigeons, which were the most reliable means of reporting on progress when in action. After he arrived in France he had further training in handling a tank over more realistic terrain at Wailly, where a section of German trenches had been taken over by the Tank Corps as their driving school and practice area.13
All this gave a comprehensive set of technical skills, but there was no effort to teach the most fundamental skill of all, namely how to command men in battle. This reflected the fact that the army had traditionally drawn its officer corps from a small and select group, many of whom belonged to long-serving military families and absorbed officer qualities almost literally with their mothers’ milk. Although the army had expanded beyond all recognition, the idea that leadership was something that should, or could, be taught was slow to catch on, which meant there was little guidance for the aspiring officer, other than the advice of his surviving colleagues and the case-studies of heroism from the mass media, later collected in books such as Deeds That Thrill the Empire. The day after Frank Heap’s arrival, an even younger subaltern called Wilfred Bion went into action for the
first time with E Battalion, a frustrating experience which prompted him to ask: ‘Could anyone, outside a public-school culture, believe in the fitness of a boy of nineteen to officer troops in battle?’14
However, one of the few good things to be said about the war was that it rubbed the edges off people. Frank Heap may not have been taught what makes a good officer, but at least he would have learned how to establish a rapport with men from a range of social backgrounds. His family was wealthy but not grand, and his service as a despatch-rider had thrown him together with all conditions of men. The same could be said of his crew, and although Heap had been both a public schoolboy and student in Cambridge, he was no longer a member of an alien species for a townsman like Gunner Joseph Cheverton, who had shared barrack-rooms and dug-outs with plenty of varsity men while in the Cambridgeshire Regiment. Gunner Fred Tipping, who was more than a decade older than Frank Heap, was probably something of a father figure, while Gunner William Galway, who was exactly the same age as his new commander, was easy to get along with thanks to his uproarious sense of humour: Heap described him as ‘the life and soul of my crew, doing two men’s work and cheering us all up’.15
The biggest challenge, if he had been so minded, could have been Gunner George Foot, who had also started the war as a despatch-rider but transferred to the tanks at the start, acquiring a wealth of experience and, as we have seen, a gallantry medal; in fact his three-day vigil in No Man’s Land could have come straight out of Deeds That Thrill the Empire. But Frank Heap was in luck and George Foot, probably mindful that he might well face a similar promotion in future, chose to make his commander’s arrival as easy as possible. Heap recognized this, and singled him out for praise: ‘As a young officer in charge of a tank for the first time, I was helped to do my job by his tactful experience.’16
While we can glean something of Heap’s impressions of his crew, we can only surmise what they made of him. Their initial response was probably to wonder whether Bovington was turning its officers out of a mould, since Frank Heap looked incredibly similar to George Macdonald, the ill-fated commander of the first D51, right down to the glasses they both wore for short-sightedness. It was true that neither presented a particularly martial appearance, but the crew had probably learned that it was hard to tell a book by its cover, or to extend the metaphor, however bookish a man appeared, he might still turn out to have a spine. No-one could predict how Frank Heap would react when he went into action, including Heap himself, but one thing was certain: the decisions he made, and the orders he gave, and his keenness or otherwise to ‘get on’, would eventually determine all their fates.
* * *
Having met his crew, Frank Heap now faced another important introduction – to his tank. This might sound straightforward in comparison, but these were complex machines that could be as wayward and unpredictable as any crewman or commanding officer. The crew probably travelled back to Erin to pick up their new charge as part of a consignment sent to replace those lost on 20 September. Frank found he had been allocated a new Mark IV female tank with the manufacturer’s number 2620, the crew number D51, and the name Deborah.17
No doubt he had learned about the fate of the first D51, and was determined this one would have better luck. Apart from that, we can be sure his main reaction was disappointment, as his fellow commander Second Lieutenant Horace Birks explained: ‘Everybody wanted a male tank. I was a junior officer, I got a female … The male tank was the thing because it had a gun and it was a more formidable weapon altogether. You could get out of it easier because it had quite a biggish door on the back of the sponson, but the female tank had doors no more than [a few feet] off the ground, and it was very difficult to get out of. If there was a fire or anything like that, it was odds on that somebody would get hurt.’18
The task of taking over a tank was a major chore for the commander and crew, in view of the huge range of tools and spares that had to be checked and signed for. Captain Edward Glanville Smith told how ‘297 articles of equipment (exclusive of ammunition) had to be collected from apparently an equal number of sheds’.19 The best account of the process was given by Second Lieutenant James Macintosh, writing under his usual alias as ‘Tosh’:
The first driver, a most important personage, who is responsible for the mechanical efficiency of the tank, proceeds to inspect her interior … The inside of a tank is not remarkable for comfort or capaciousness. The centre is occupied by a large engine, the rear by a huge differential, the two sides by field guns [Macintosh imagined he had a male tank, though in reality his was female too], and the front by seats and driving controls; while the roof is not high enough to allow of standing upright. The fact that eight men frequently spend many crowded hours of glorious life in the remaining crevices does not prevent one man, if careless, from banging his head and both elbows at the same time; especially as the lighting arrangements are artificial and inadequate. But our friend is an old hand, rendered cautious by many a bump on projecting rivet-heads, and he sets about his business of examination without further ado. Meanwhile, the second driver … and the third driver … enter by the other door, open the tool-boxes in the floor, and throw tools and equipment into a large box outside.
The equipment list of a tank is a document well worthy of study, comprising as it does such a medley of timber, hardware, and ironmongery as only a salvage-dump could ever rival … Slowly and methodically Tosh wades through the list of items useful and ornamental, decorative and deadly. Periscopes are there, and plugs sparking; spanners, scrapers, and shovels; gun spares, engine spares, track spares. There is included a fishing net, with green rags tied to it, as a camouflage; there are signalling discs and ‘flappers’ which no tank commander has ever been known to use, but which are still religiously issued and must be exhibited.20 Gradually order develops out of chaos; the checking is complete, and Tosh writes out a duplicate list of his deficiencies. Meanwhile, the crew stow the various implements away where they fondly hope they will be able to find them in case of need …
While the gunners have been inspecting the 6-pounders … Tosh has been examining his seat and the various devices round it. The tank commander’s seat, a horsehair cushion, is set well up in the forepeak or cab; as he sits in it, his feet rest on the upward slope where the belly runs up to the curve of the nose. In front, behind, and to the left, are various flaps and ‘gadgets’ for observation; immediately above is a periscope-hole; to the right is a mounting for a Lewis gun, while beside the commander’s seat is that for the driver, with similar flaps and with controls for driving the tank. Tosh tests them methodically, finds them O.K., and … reports himself to his skipper as ready to move off for lunch.21
Despite his initial disappointment, Frank must also have felt a mounting surge of pride and anticipation as he seated himself at the controls of Deborah for the first time. It would have been hard not to feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility, not just for himself and his crew, but also for the great machine which was the product of such enormous labour and expense.
By now significant resources were being devoted to the production of tanks, each of which cost around £5,000 (excluding transportation charges),22 and Deborah was one of 1,015 Mark IV fighting tanks that were built, of which 595 were female.23 Factories in Lincoln, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Glasgow were all involved in tank assembly, using components supplied by many other contractors, but by far the largest number came from the Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon and Finance Co. Ltd. in the West Midlands.24 Based on the available records, it seems that Deborah probably began life at their factory in the Black Country town of Oldbury.25
After completion the tanks were handed over to a unit called No. 20 Squadron, Royal Naval Armoured Cars, which was responsible for testing and delivering them to France. The involvement of the Navy was a throwback to the earliest days of development, when the Admiralty had promoted the concept of ‘land battleships’, but their role was now limited to the vital but not very glamorous work of tank supply. As
production stepped up, Squadron 20 opened testing grounds near the assembly plants, and Deborah probably first went through her paces at their centre in Oldbury, before being loaded onto a flatbed railway wagon and transported to Portsmouth for the crossing to Le Havre. The machines then continued their railway journey to Erin where they were handed over to the Tank Corps for distribution to the front-line battalions. The process was generally smooth and rapid, as described in a history of the unit: ‘Great dexterity in handling tanks was acquired by Squadron 20 and at Oldbury (where the bulk of them were produced) the usual rule was to deliver them to Tank Headquarters in France 3 days after they left [the Testing] Station. There was no occasion upon which any tanks were lost on the sea journey to France.’26
Despite the extensive inspection and testing it had undergone, each tank had its own peculiar characteristics, and once the crew had taken it over, they began investigating and correcting these mechanical foibles. To quote Second Lieutenant Macintosh: ‘The tanks a month ago had all been certified ready for action by a body of experts; but the crews which had now taken them over expected shortly to entrust their lives to them, and it was remarkable how much work they found to do on them before they were satisfied.’27
This process completed, Second Lieutenant Heap and his crew were ready to load Deborah onto another train that would transport them to Oosthoek Wood, to the tankodrome formerly occupied by her predecessor, there to await the call for action as the great offensive in the Ypres Salient ground steadily on. Wartime railway journeys were normally long drawn-out affairs as the trains crawled along between frequent and unexplained halts. This was maddening for anyone going home on leave, but otherwise it was one of the minor inconveniences of military life that had to be accepted, and could even be enjoyed were it not for the discomfort of the rolling stock. It meant there was time to smoke and chat, and for Frank Heap to get to know his brother officers, and to tell them a little about his own progress through peace and war.