Deborah and the War of the Tanks

by John Taylor

  The battalion had arrived at Plateau, where a sprawling complex of sidings and marshalling yards covered the uplands near Maricourt, a few miles south-east of Albert. This was familiar territory to some, since the first tanks had been unloaded near here just over a year before, on the way to their initial encounter in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. Now the tanks were driven into nearby Billon Wood, which would be their hiding-place for the next couple of days, while as many men as possible were housed in the camp at Méaulte just outside Albert.

  This was a vital opportunity for further preparation, as Second Lieutenant James Macintosh described: ‘Busy the crews undoubtedly were that day. It was their last chance of free movement by day, and any further time for preparation was likely to be short. Furthermore, fascines were to be carried in position during the final move, and must now be adjusted so as to require the minimum of attention before action.’5 Captain Edward Glanville Smith noted an additional complication: ‘We were supposed to finally complete our equipment here in the matter of petrol, oil, grease, etc., and should have done so but for a great shortage of these materials, with the result that most battalions had to “scrounge” someone’s else [sic], and this added a good deal of excitement to what might have been a very boring two days.’6

  It was a clear, bitterly cold night when the crews, now exhausted from labour and lack of sleep, drove their machines out of Billon Wood on 15 November and back to the railhead for the final stage of the journey. The entire Tank Corps was slowly moving into position, and the rail schedules were under severe pressure with around forty trains loaded with hundreds of tanks leaving Plateau over a five-day period.7

  As they stood by, the men of No. 12 Company learned their train had been delayed due to an accident and made the best of the situation, as described by Second Lieutenant Macintosh:

  Then some individual, one of our nameless heroes, had a heaven-sent inspiration. The countryside was littered with empty petrol-boxes. At his suggestion these were collected in the dip of a sunken road, a light was put to them, and in five minutes the entire company was dozing contentedly round a flaming bonfire, which, as Tosh sleepily murmured, was indeed bon. True, faces were scorched while backs were freezing, and there was not seating accommodation for all; but on such a night ’twas bliss to be even sectionally warm, and there is a stage of weariness at which standing ceases to be an effort. In fact, it was with profound regret that the company heard of the arrival of their train at 12.45 a.m., and, abandoning the glowing coals of the fire, started up their engines and drove on to the train.8

  Captain Smith also fondly recalled the ‘huge bonfire’, and added a further detail: ‘“Mactosh” distinguished himself by going to sleep standing up – chiefly made possible by a small body and large feet.’9

  Despite the pressure they were under, the American railway engineers found time to record the scene in a series of photographs showing the tanks, each with its huge fascine, manoeuvring delicately onto the rolling stock, and then lined up, a dozen or so tanks per train, ready for departure. At the front of one photograph can be seen D46 Dragon III, indicating that this is the train bearing No. 12 Company, and D51 Deborah is somewhere behind. The crew of Dragon are lounging in front of their tank, and they look remarkably cheerful, though they would have to get through another exhausting day and night before their journey came to an end.10

  The trains drew out in the late afternoon for their final two-hour journey eastwards, reaching the detraining point at dusk. Major Watson was awaiting their arrival at a ramp near the village of Ytres when he heard some dreadful news: a train carrying tanks had collided with a lorry at a level crossing nearby, and there were reports of casualties.

  I hurried there. The train had collided with a lorry and pushed it a few hundred yards, when the last truck had been derailed and the tank on it had crushed the lorry against the slight embankment. Under the tank were two men. I was convinced that I had lost two of my men, until I discovered that the tanks belonged to Marris [of No. 10 Company] and the two unfortunate men had been on the lorry. The line was soon cleared. The derailed truck was uncoupled, and the tank, none the worse for its adventure, climbed up the embankment and joined its fellows at the ramp.11

  Colonel Baker-Carr was even closer to the scene of the accident and arrived to find the lorry ‘smashed to atoms’. He added: ‘There was no sign whatever of the driver and we found him later, completely flattened out and crushed into the solid earth.’12

  In fact, one of those who died was a train crewman, Sapper Frederick Bird of the Royal Engineers’ Railway Operating Department. An inquiry found he had been riding on the front rail truck or ‘bogie’, piloting the train into position when a lorry pulled in front and collided, throwing the tank with its fascine onto him. Another railman who had tried to stop the accident told how after ‘making a further search, I found the head of a man under a Caterpillar [i.e. tank] which had been thrown off a bogie’. A private in 1st Bn Royal Irish Fusiliers, who had presumably been in the lorry, also died (officially of ‘traumatic asphyxia’) and two of his comrades were injured, though the lorry driver was unhurt.13 The accident, however tragic, could not be allowed to disrupt the timetable, and the wreckage was dragged clear using other tanks so the next trains could pull in with only a few minutes’ delay.

  It was in the early hours of 17 November when No. 12 Company finished detraining, and the tank commanders were ordered to gather at the ramp in the darkness to meet Major R.O.C. Ward, who had arrived by car. ‘He explained that they were five miles from the line, and would be in view of the enemy most of the way forward; nor must they suppose that because he was silent he was not watchful. There lay before them a nine-mile run; the time was then 3.30, and they must be in the wood before day broke at seven. The going being mostly flat grass-land, they must make all possible speed.’14

  Exhausted as they were, the last stage of that night’s journey stood out in everyone’s minds as an interminable ordeal; in fact Lieutenant Gerald Edwards called it ‘the worst trek we ever did’.15 The commanders, leading their tanks forward on foot, struggled to stay alert as they traversed mile after mile of ‘absolutely featureless country’,16 following the white tape laid down to guide them through the gloom.

  As the tanks trundled slowly forward, there was time to take in the fact that their surroundings were unlike anything they had previously encountered in war. Great battles, like the one they had left behind in the Ypres Salient, were normally preceded by a relentless build-up of men and material, and by a shattering artillery bombardment that could last a week. Instead, with only days to go before a major offensive, the countryside they were crossing looked deserted and deathly quiet. On closer inspection, however, Second Lieutenant Macintosh could see reassuring evidence of the scale of the preparations: ‘The countryside was almost empty of man – there were no camps, there were no guns or dumps, the roads were almost empty. But in hollows and in sunken roads, in woods and among ruined houses, could be seen carefully hidden gun-pits; dug-outs empty of men; casualty clearing stations with their red crosses hidden – everywhere a secret but scrupulous preparation. Thrilled with the feeling that at last the old difficulties were to be overcome and a new method of war introduced, they clanked their slow way over untouched ground.’17

  Towards the end of their trek, they reached the enormous wood where they were to stay hidden in the run-up to the attack. ‘As they skirted the edge of the wood, which, though a mile from the line, was here almost untouched, they noticed more signs of a forthcoming attack. The wood itself was full of camps, all carefully camouflaged, while along the fringe were innumerable dumps, emplacements, and so forth … No fewer than three light railways ran into the wood.’18

  This ‘strange fatiguing tramp’ finally came to end as the tanks were manoeuvred into the shelter of the wood under cover of darkness. In some ways it was a reprise of their arrival in Oosthoek Wood five months earlier, except they were now just 3,000 yards (i.e. one-and-three-quarte
r miles, or two-and-three-quarter kilometres) from the German front line, with enemy outposts even closer in No Man’s Land. Major Watson described how

  the tanks pushed boldly among the trees, and for the next two hours there was an ordered pandemonium. Each tank had to move an inch at a time for fear it should bring down a valuable tree or run over its commander, who probably had fallen backwards into the undergrowth. One tank would meet another in the darkness, and in swinging to avoid the other, would probably collide with a third. But by dawn – I do not know how it was done – every tank was safely in the wood; the men had fallen asleep anywhere, and the cooks with sly weary jests were trying to make a fire which would not smoke. Three thousand yards is a trifle near …19

  When Frank Heap and his fellow officers awoke a few hours later and gathered for lunch, they were finally issued with a map of the district and learned they were in Havrincourt Wood, three-quarters of a mile behind a village called Trescault, which lay just inside the British lines. They would remain there for the next three days, under the very noses of the enemy, while the rest of the attacking forces moved slowly and stealthily into position around them. Most of G Battalion’s tanks were already hidden in another part of the wood, while E Battalion was arriving that night, with the rest of G Battalion to follow.20 Similar moves were taking place to the south, so that a total of 476 machines from all nine battalions of the Tank Corps would soon be in position ready for the start of the attack.21

  In the meantime, there was nothing to contradict Tosh’s initial impressions: ‘The peaceful atmosphere of this comer of the war was indescribable. By day hardly a “boom” broke the heavy silence; even by night machine-guns chattered quite perfunctorily, star-shells were few and far between, and the flash of a gun was a rare event. Meanwhile the tanks lay embowered in leafy growth, while high above them the trees met to screen them from prying eyes.’22 It sounds almost idyllic, but in fact this was the start of a period of frantic, surreptitious activity and mounting tension for the tank crews, who were hidden well within range of the enemy’s machine guns, not to mention artillery. The situation was made even worse because the men were not allowed to leave the wood, or to light fires for cooking. Major Watson shared in the general anxiety:

  For the next [few] days we had only one thought – would the Boche ‘catch on’? The Ulster Division was still in the line, and, even if the enemy raided and took prisoners, the Ulstermen knew almost nothing. By day the occasional German aeroplane could see little, for there was little to see. Tanks, infantry, and guns were hidden in the woods. New gun-pits were camouflaged. There was no movement on the roads or in the villages. Our guns fired a few customary rounds every day and night, and the enemy replied. There was nothing unusual.

  But at night the roads were blocked with transport. Guns and more guns arrived, from field guns to enormous howitzers, that had rumbled down all the way from the Salient. Streams of lorries were bringing up ammunition, petrol, rations; and whole brigades of infantry, marching across the open country, had disappeared by dawn into the woods. Would the Boche ‘catch on’?23

  As the men of D Battalion slept off their exertions, they were awoken by a brief frenzy of artillery and small-arms fire in the early hours of the next morning. It was only a mile-and-a-quarter away from them, but that was far enough to pose no threat, and it died down soon afterwards. It turned out the Germans had indeed raided a British outpost in No Man’s Land and captured some men from the Ulster Division, but the tank crews had plenty of other things to concern them, and no-one seems to have given it much thought.

  CHAPTER 22

  On the Silent Front

  Just as Deborah and the rest of the great force of tanks were secretly moving into position, so were the infantry divisions that would support them in the attack in a few days’ time. The sector had been held by 36th (Ulster) Division since August, when they were withdrawn from the Ypres Salient after suffering crushing losses there. They found themselves in an overwhelmingly peaceful area, though the commanders tried to keep up their men’s fighting spirit by mounting sporadic raids on the German lines.

  The 36th (Ulster) Division was now a very different formation from the one that had stormed the German lines at Thiepval on the first day of the Somme, when so many men were killed or wounded, including Gunner William Galway who was now in the crew of Deborah. Originally made up of members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, the demands of war meant the division’s pure stock had been diluted by recruits from all over Britain and Ireland. Some battalions had been amalgamated after suffering heavy losses, including William Galway’s old unit, 13th Bn Royal Irish Rifles. Others had joined the division, among them 1st Bn Royal Irish Fusiliers, whose Gaelic motto ‘Faugh a Ballagh’ (‘Clear the way’) had been their war-cry during a glorious episode in the Napoleonic Wars when they captured a French eagle at the Battle of Barrosa. The Ulster Division was taking part in the coming operation, but would be on the periphery of the British advance, which meant it was now being withdrawn from the line and replaced by the two fresh divisions that would lead the attack in this sector, namely 62nd (West Riding) Division and 51st (Highland) Division.

  Like everything else, this great movement of men had to take place without the enemy noticing that anything was afoot – a huge challenge in such a quiet sector, when any abnormal activity would instantly attract attention. There was an additional sensitivity, because the mere presence of the crack 51st Division would ring alarm-bells if it was detected. During their early reconnaissance, its senior officers had worn ordinary uniforms instead of their distinctive Highland dress, just as visiting Tank Corps commanders had removed their badges and worn dark glasses to avoid being recognized.1

  As night fell on 17 November, the relief got under way and the Yorkshiremen of 62nd Division filed into the trenches opposite the village of Havrincourt, replacing the Royal Irish Fusiliers who were moving back to billets in the village of Metz-en-Couture.2 As a precaution, small squads of fusiliers were left behind to occupy a series of forward positions known as ‘saps’ dotted across No Man’s Land. In the words of the divisional historian: ‘To deceive the enemy as to the great concentration in front of him, a screen of the troops of [the Ulster Division] remained to hold the outpost line.’3

  It was a depressing duty for the men who had to move out into No Man’s Land and occupy a series of isolated posts several hundred yards in front of the main British lines, knowing their mates were heading back to warm billets in the rear area. They would have to hold these exposed outposts for the next two days, and they could only hope the time would pass quietly.

  One of these posts was called ‘E’ Sap, and as the little garrison settled into their new home and peered into the darkness, they did not know that the Germans had been scanning their position for weeks, and even now, they were preparing to attack them in the dead of night.

  * * *

  The idea of mounting a raid on a British outpost was the brainchild of Hauptmann (i.e. Captain) Harro Soltau, commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 84th Infantry Regiment which was holding the line in front of Havrincourt. Like the Ulster Division opposite, the 84th was a regiment with a proud history, but it had also suffered heavy losses and was now rebuilding its strength in what the Germans called the ‘stille (i.e. silent) Front’, or the ‘Sanatorium des Westens’ – the sanatorium of the Western Front.

  The raid was not triggered by any unusual activity on the British side, but Hauptmann Soltau faced a similar challenge of maintaining his men’s fighting spirit in such a tranquil area, and encouraged patrolling and raiding as a means of probing the enemy’s defences and gathering intelligence. In this case he had just the man for the job: one of his company commanders, Leutnant Bernhard Hegermann, had just completed a training course in stormtrooper tactics and was itching to put them into practice.

  In early November, Leutnant Hegermann was told to prepare for a fighting patrol to capture prisoners from the position known as ‘E’ Sap, and immediately
began the detailed planning and reconnaissance necessary to ensure success. He welcomed the chance of some excitement: ‘It would liven up the never-ending monotony of trench duty, but the best thing about activities of this kind was that they put some vitality back into the men. Any soldier would be inwardly aroused, he would have something to occupy his mind again, as through his personal resolve he could create a worthwhile opportunity to distinguish himself.’4 The men were just as keen, according to one of his senior NCOs, Fähnrich Hans Carstens: ‘For a long time, many of us had been eager to put the Tommies on their guard once again, as they had recently become very cocky. It was therefore easy … to find enough volunteers from all four companies to mount a small surprise attack on the enemy trenches.’5

  So it was that in the early hours of 18 November, Hegermann and his men crept out of the trenches to their jumping-off points in No Man’s Land. They were lightly armed with pistols and hand grenades, and Fähnrich Carstens recalled their mood of grim determination: ‘The most important thing was to get up and at them like Blücher, and on no count to hesitate. That went without saying for every one of us.’6

  The raid went like clockwork, as described by Leutnant Hegermann: