Deborah and the War of the Tanks

by John Taylor

  As they dragged their guns into position that night and the horse-drawn limbers jingled off into the darkness, the only consolation was that they were not alone: the area was also dotted with the batteries of 108th FAR, which formed part of the resident 54th Division and had been in the area since the summer, while the Landwehr also had support from 282nd FAR and a number of batteries of Landwehr foot artillery. The main problem was a chronic lack of ammunition, and the arrival of reinforcements placed an even greater strain on the limited supplies.

  Infantry reinforcements were also pushed forward in case of attack. As an immediate measure, the 3rd Battalion, 84th Infantry Regiment was moved forward from its rest quarters in Noyelles to occupy the trenches in and around Flesquières. The seasoned troops of 27th Reserve Infantry Regiment, who had been temporarily replaced by the Landwehr, also began moving forward during the evening.32 One of the officers described their departure for Flesquières from Fontaine, near Cambrai, at 10 p.m. (i.e. 9 p.m. UK time): ‘The company moved off in the best of spirits … As we marched through the headlight beams of the rumbling vehicles, our shadows marched alongside and ahead of us, magnified to enormous size against the bare gables of the houses – an impressive spectacle. During the approach march we witnessed the build-up of artillery from 107th Infantry Division behind Flesquières.’33

  Amid this frenzy of activity, Major Fritz Hofmeister, the commander of 84th Infantry Regiment, felt fully in control. The epitome of a Prussian officer, he was described as ‘a giant in stature, like a mighty cannon, overcoming everything through the iron rule of military discipline which knows nothing but giving and obeying orders, who understood better than anyone how to exercise this skill’.34 When an officer of 27th Reserve Infantry Regiment reported to him with reinforcements, his response was dismissive: ‘You men of the 27th Reserve are always a bit jumpy, to be sure. If there is an attack, we can take care of things for ourselves.’35

  Many of his officers in the front line shared this confidence. Hauptmann (i.e. Captain) Wilhelm Wille was the commander of 1st Battalion, 84th Infantry Regiment, which held the village of Havrincourt – the main objective of the British raid if the prisoners were to be believed. However, it was obvious to him that the way to take such a strong position was not by assaulting it head-on, but rather by attacking the flanks to encircle the village and ridge from behind: ‘I envisaged not so much a frontal attack … as a thrust by the English on either side to cut off Havrincourt. On the map it was easy to establish that that was the probability.’36 His assessment may have been reinforced by the knowledge that on either side of the 84th the line was held by units of the Landwehr, made up of older men who had been recalled to the colours and whose fighting capabilities were dubious.

  Fortunately for them, the British knew nothing of this vulnerability, having refrained from raiding or other aggressive activity in the run-up to the offensive. In any case, the idea of a flanking attack had already been dismissed, according to the Tank Corps staff officer Lieutenant-Colonel John Fuller, who had advocated this approach but was overruled in favour of an unbroken line of men and machines: ‘The truth is, that the plan as devised by the Third Army was not a work of art but a work of force – not the thrust of a rapier but the blow of a battering-ram.’37

  To the left of Hauptmann Wille’s 1st Battalion (from a German viewpoint), the line directly in front of Flesquières was held by 2nd Battalion, 84th Infantry Regiment, whose officers were also sceptical about the threat. They had been through similar fire-drills in the past, and were well aware that the British would not attack without a long preliminary bombardment. Despite this they now had to look lively, as described by their ordnance officer Leutnant Johannes Langfeldt:

  The order came in to supply the men with five days’ rations and to distribute ammunition. That task kept me busy all afternoon on the 19th. The company commanders were called together for a conference. None of them took the matter completely seriously either. Towards evening the orders mounted up … There were comings and goings from the battalion dayroom: runners went to and fro, from the regiment, to the companies and back again. Closer contact was established with the Landwehr battalion next to us [i.e. the 387th to their left], and inquiries came in from the machine-gun company and trench mortars, with messages from them. Late in the evening several machine gunners from the 27th Regiment reported to us, having been put at the battalion’s disposal; they had to be allocated to their positions. Above all we tried to get hold of armour-piercing ammunition, but there were no supplies to be had.38

  The 2nd Battalion was commanded by Hauptmann Harro Soltau, who attracted even greater adulation from his men than Major R.O.C. Ward did from his. Only two years separated the two in terms of age, but there were few other similarities, for whereas Ward had been an accountant until the outbreak of war and was married with children, Soltau had spent his entire career in the army, which was in a sense his family. Ward’s greatest passion was sport in all its forms, but if Soltau had ever kicked a ball in his life, no-one saw fit to record the fact. At the same time, Ward’s reputation as a cast-iron disciplinarian was strangely at odds with that of Soltau, a pastor’s son who had a quicksilver quality we do not generally associate with the German army. He had been a strong-willed youngster with an outrageous gift for mimicry, and the decision to join up caused consternation to his parents, who joked that he should be on the stage but really wanted him to go into forestry. Major Hofmeister may represent our stereotypical view of the Prussian military machine, but it was also capable of fostering men such as Soltau, who was widely known as ‘tolle Harro’ (‘good old Harro’) and was renowned for exploits such as turning a winter training exercise into a huge snowball fight, and appropriating a horse-drawn carriage with a group of drunken colleagues for a breakneck cross-country drive on the Kaiser’s birthday.39

  Antics aside, he also had a solid professional reputation, and just as R.O.C. Ward was revered by his fellow company commander Major Watson, so Harro Soltau was praised by the other battalion commanders. Hauptmann Wille described Soltau as ‘the image of a dashing, agile officer, like a razor-sharp damascened blade, of daredevil audacity, unshaken by every danger thrown at him which he overcame with unsurpassed energy, sweeping everything before him – the idol of his battalion’.40

  However, there was one shadow hanging over Soltau: during the fighting at Verdun a year before he had been the most senior officer inside Fort Douaumont, which was captured from the French at the start of the battle and was now subjected by them to relentless bombardment, filling its shattered corridors with poison gas and threatening to detonate stockpiles of explosives. Cut off from the outside world and badly gassed himself, Soltau eventually ordered the depleted garrison to abandon the fort – a decision which handed the French a major symbolic victory, and for which he was held responsible by his own high command. Soltau avoided demotion thanks to the support of his divisional commander, Generalleutnant Freiherr von Watter, but he was still scarred by the events at Verdun and their aftermath.41

  As evening fell on 19 November, Hauptmann Soltau and his men could at least relax in the knowledge that they had done as much as they could to prepare. As things quietened down, ‘good old Harro’ gathered half-a-dozen officers around him to unwind in the battalion dayroom in the Stollenweg, a sunken road lined with dugouts which contained his command post and headquarters. As always his dog Thyra was by his side, her collar labelled ‘2nd Battalion Messenger Dog’ as a ploy by Soltau to get round the official ban on keeping pets at the front. Among the group was Leutnant Bernhard Hegermann, who had triggered the whole commotion by leading the raid in which the prisoners had been captured. Leutnant Langfeldt recalled: ‘I believe it was either his or his wife’s birthday, so the captain invited him to have a bottle of wine. This quiet, convivial hour on the eve of the fateful day shows, as in a mirror, the lack of concern we all felt despite every warning.’ After that Leutnant Langfeldt had to go round to check his sentries, and when he got ba
ck he found the battalion headquarters in a state of deep repose.42

  CHAPTER 24

  To Shake Mightily the Earth

  When the tank crews awoke on 19 November they were filled with a mixture of excitement and dread, knowing the attack would take place early the next morning, and they would have little if any sleep before then.

  In the morning, Major R.O.C. Ward called a parade and addressed the members of his company. His words were recorded by Second Lieutenant Macintosh:

  He reminded them of their last attack and the many obstacles they had encountered – bad ground, bad weather, bad luck. Now was their chance to show that as in difficult circumstances they could stolidly fight against their difficulties, so when fortune at last turned they could make the most of a good opportunity. Once again [No. 12] Company had been chosen for the task which demanded enterprise and staying power; for, whereas the other companies had definite objectives, they who formed the second wave were first to overcome a series of definite obstacles, and were then to push on with an unlimited objective. He had often before spoken of ‘pooping off into the blue’; at last there was nothing to prevent their doing so. The whole responsibility of the attack had been deliberately thrown on the Tank Corps; it was their supreme opportunity. England expected that every tank would do its damndest.1

  Map 6 shows the sector attacked by 51st (Highland) Division, with D and E Battalions of the Tank Corps, on 20 November 1917.

  On the left-hand side, the starting positions of D Battalion and the units of 153rd Infantry Brigade are shown, based on a detailed map in the brigade’s War Diary. This includes the six wire-crushing tanks which led the advance, followed by the first-wave tanks of Nos. 10 and 11 Companies. Further back are the second-wave tanks of No. 12 Company, including D51 Deborah.

  No similar map has been found for E Battalion and 152nd Infantry Brigade on the right-hand side, so their general presumed locations are shown.

  The map shows how the leading troops and tanks formed up in front of the British front line before moving across No Man’s Land to take the German outposts located there, and then attacking the first main system of trenches. Here a number of tanks broke down or became ditched, while two from E Battalion were knocked out by artillery early in the battle (approximate positions only are given for E Battalion tanks).

  Ahead lay the broad valley known as the Grand Ravine, beyond which the ridge rises gradually towards Flesquières. The second wave of tanks and infantry advanced up this slope, crossing the railway embankment before attacking the second system of trenches skirting the village.

  The German artillery batteries massed on the reverse slope of the Flesquières ridge are shown, though the available maps are sketchy and must be treated with caution. Map 6b shows the disposition of German forces, while Map 6c shows the plan for the British artillery bombardment which effectively laid down the timetable for the attack.

  Contour lines have been omitted from the map for clarity, but these are shown on Map 6a, while Map 6d gives an overview of the full offensive mounted on 20 November. See Map 7 for a detailed view of the next phase of the attack on Flesquières. A full order of battle is given in Appendices B and C.

  The last sentence was almost certainly not uttered by Major Ward, as it was a widely reported but inaccurate summary of the special order issued by Brigadier-General Elles to the Tank Corps before the battle.2 But ‘Tosh’ probably felt that even if R.O.C. Ward had not said it, he would have wanted to.

  After they had been dismissed, Frank Heap and his brother officers began preparing themselves for action, along the lines noted by ‘Tosh’: ‘Following his invariable rule, he destroyed all unnecessary papers, and packed his valise ready to go down the line in case of need. Having written a couple of field postcards and a letter, he cleaned and loaded his revolver, arranged his maps, packed his haversack with shaving-kit and money in case he should be wounded, filled his flask and cigarette-case, inspected his field-dressing, gave his servant instructions, and went into lunch.’3

  For everyone in Havrincourt Wood, 19 November was a day of ‘almost unbearable suspense’. They were aware that some men had been captured the night before, but could only hope they knew nothing, or had revealed nothing. Major Watson was caught up in the tension: ‘We did not know what the Germans had discovered from their prisoners. We could not believe that the attack could be really a surprise. Perhaps the enemy, unknown to us, had concentrated sufficient guns to blow us to pieces. We looked up for the German aeroplanes, which surely would fly low over the wood and discover its contents. Incredibly, nothing happened. The morning passed and the afternoon – a day was never so long …’4

  But for the crew of Deborah, the time passed in a blur as they made their final preparations, ready to leave the shelter of the wood and begin the slow move forward to their starting positions as soon as dusk fell. Before then they had to go over their tank methodically inspecting every tiny detail, checking the controls were working smoothly, stripping and cleaning the six Lewis guns, searching through the drums of ammunition looking for any speck of grit which might cause a blockage, and loading up supplies of petrol and water.

  At 3 p.m. they had to pick up their carrier pigeons from a drop-off point at the edge of the wood. Once the tanks had gone into action, these fragile creatures were the most reliable means of communicating with the staff who were directing operations, though it was strictly a one-way traffic. The tank crew would write a message on a tiny scrap of paper and attach it to the pigeon’s leg, hoping it would fly more than ten miles (or nearly twenty kilometres) back to its loft in Bapaume, from where the message would be telephoned to the headquarters of IV Corps. This was considerably more effective than the ‘makeshift and exceedingly clumsy’ wireless station which was to be carried forward in one of E Battalion’s tanks and then set up in the Grand Ravine, if all went well.5

  When all the preparations were completed, Frank Heap would have addressed his crew, running through the details of the operation with them once again, and doing his best to inspire them as he had done so often when his team was about to run onto the rugby or hockey pitch. There was a special occasion to be marked, since it was Gunner Joseph Cheverton’s twentieth birthday the next day, but as Frank probably remarked, the celebrations would have to wait until they had given a hell of a birthday present to the Boche. In the meantime no doubt Joe received greetings from his family in Cambridge, and one scented card which he kept to read in private, and about which he would have received much teasing from the others. After that, Frank dismissed the crew to their final meal before action, and everyone settled down to wait for the dusk.

  Earlier in the day, Second Lieutenant Horace Birks had noticed some unusual activity in the wood: ‘A table was set up quite near us. [We] wondered what on earth was happening, and it was the brigade padre, Talbot … he started communion.’ No gathering of more than ten men was permitted (the major’s parade presumably being an exception), so the Reverend Neville Talbot, who was the Fifth Army’s Assistant Chaplain-General, held one small service after another: ‘The people took communion throughout the day, and he ran the whole day with [ten] people. It was quite astonishing.’6

  Perhaps the Reverend Talbot used as his text a Biblical prophecy which he quoted in his book on religion at the Front, and which with God’s help would come to pass for the Germans the next morning. Its subject was the day of reckoning: ‘And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day … And men shall go … into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of the Lord and from the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake mightily the earth.’7

  * * *

  At 9.30 that evening the men paraded by sections, and a few minutes were spent giving them last-minute instructions. It was the final opportunity for Captain Graeme Nixon to address the crews of his three tanks, and after he had wished them luck they climbed aboard their machines, and fifteen min
utes later they began crawling out of the wood.8

  They were moving at last, but it was a painfully slow process. There were still eight-and-a-half hours to go before zero, and they had less than two miles (or three kilometres) to go to their jumping-off point, but the tanks had to clear the wood as soon as possible so that batteries of field guns could move into their pre-prepared positions. It was also vital to avoid making any noise that might alert the enemy, and the orders issued by Lieutenant Gerald Edwards to his crew in D34 Diallance stressed: ‘Tanks to go at minimum pace. Throttle down as slowly as possible. Absolutely no talking in the tanks. No steering by brakes.’9 The final point was vital to avoid revving the engine, but according to his grandson Brigadier Ben Edwards (a modern-day tank commander), it meant that steering would be a laborious process and the journey would be ‘tedious in the extreme’.

  The tanks of No. 11 Company led the way, followed by No. 10 Company,10 and Major Watson described how ‘At 8.45 P.M. my tanks began to move cautiously out of the wood and formed into column. At 9.30 P.M., with engines barely turning over, they glided imperceptibly and almost without noise towards the trenches. Standing in front of my own tanks, I could not hear them at two hundred yards.’11

  As Deborah and the other tanks of No. 12 Company swung into line behind, Second Lieutenant Macintosh looked back the way they had come:

  In this supreme hour of secrecy, not the glimmer of a torch might be shown, and tank commanders must strain their eyes in the dark and see as best they might. But in front of every tank was a glowing point of light – every pilot was smoking, and with his cigarette could signal to his crew. The irresistibly animal appearance of the tanks was greatly heightened as they loomed ghostly out of the darkness …