Deborah and the War of the Tanks

by John Taylor

  But as they crested the ridge, it was as though the tanks of E Battalion – like those of D Battalion on the other side of the village – had strayed into the path of a hurricane.

  * * *

  Ever since zero hour, the German gunners of 108th and 213th Field Artillery Regiments (FAR) had been standing by, desperately seeking news from the infantrymen who streamed past their positions in full-scale retreat. A number of guns had been destroyed by the British barrage, and the batteries that remained were short of ammunition, but they were still capable of putting up resistance. Leutnant (i.e. Second Lieutenant) Erwin Zindler of 108th FAR – referring to himself as ‘Lindemann’ – described the anxious wait at No. 1 Battery, on the extreme right of E Battalion’s advance, as the sounds of battle drew closer:

  Around 10 a.m. [i.e. 9 a.m. UK time] two wounded infantrymen from the 84th come back. They are agitated, half-crazy. We bombard them with questions. What’s going on, what’s going on?

  ‘The English are attacking in a solid mass. One tank right beside another, in two or three lines one behind the next. Tanks, as far as the eye can see!’

  Their eyes grow wider. They are ‘barrage eyes’. Lindemann recognizes once again the ‘Douaumont stare’ [i.e. from the fighting at Verdun]. Could it be true, what these people are saying? Is it fear of battle, exaggeration due to a temporary nervous breakdown? A solid mass of tanks? Impossible! Or could it be possible?

  And the noise of battle draws nearer.

  ‘The first [gun] on the left and the first on the right – out of cover!’ The gunners jump to. The gun-coverings are torn away.

  ‘Gunners to the wheels!’ With the first on the right, Oberleutnant [i.e. Lieutenant] von Köller joins in with his bare hands. Two guns stand free on the clayey turf. The wheels sink in. Officers and men haul ammunition at a trot.

  Nothing can be seen, though the fog is getting thinner all the time.

  In front of the battery there are scarcely 100 paces to the crest of the flat, extended ridge, behind which the guns are positioned …

  And the noise of battle draws nearer.

  Then two men from the battery run forward over the ridge, the last scouts. From far off, they are already shouting: ‘English tanks! The tanks are almost here!’

  Lindemann jumps to the first on the left, Köller to the other gun. In their faces is an unearthly tension. Lindemann feels the pulse racing in his neck and head and fingertips. He aims the gun himself. His hands clutch the elevation and traverse controls. His eyes check the panoramic telescope, gunsight, spirit-level and regulator.

  The shell-case is in the barrel. The gunner stands ready. The others wait as if spellbound.

  In front there’s a rumbling, as when heavy lorries start their engines. The racket is getting closer. The little group of men are shuddering with tension. When will the tanks come over the hill? Will they come together? Will they come one at a time?

  Then the superstructure of the first one appears over the ridge ahead. Rumbling, it slowly pushes its way higher. A tricky target, even at close range …

  If Lindemann aims a fraction of a millimetre too high, the shot will fall far away to the rear. If he aims too low by the same amount, it will be a rebound and will tear holes in the sky. He knows this.

  Bang … The shot’s away.

  Nothing? Their eyes strain forwards. Too high. Their pulses race.

  The second … crack! But where? There it goes, high in the air! A rebound! Too low!

  And the tank rumbles higher up onto the ridge. Its machine gun housings are already completely visible. Two machine guns are ripping up the turf towards the gunshield. The spokes splinter, turf is flying. And the machine guns clatter like riveting hammers on a hollow ship’s hull. A hundred paces separate the adversaries.

  The third shot … gone!

  In front the sparks are flying. Knocked out.

  There to the right, another tank! The range is longer. Turn the gun. The first is off target. The second is on.

  A huge explosion. Spurts of flame. Knocked out.

  More are appearing. Köller’s gun joins in heartily, the lieutenant and staff officer-to-be has turned into a gunner.

  The lads were as if transformed. They stood eye to eye with the enemy and his wall of tanks. But what a spirit possessed them! How intoxicatingly wonderful it was to be their leader. They tore into their work. No-one thought of taking cover. Standing free on the open ground, that was their place.

  ‘Gun forward!’ Exploit the momentary weakness of the enemy. Lindemann braced himself under the rear of the gun carriage, the others on the wheels. Many were hauling ammunition. Lindemann wanted to be up on the ridge, in the teeth of the enemy.

  He still wasn’t quite up there. There … two tanks in motion! Fifty paces! The carriage is in position. In a matter of seconds both tanks are knocked out.5

  Silhouetted against the skyline, the lumbering tanks were easy prey for the field guns and their crews waiting in the dead ground beyond.

  In charge of E17 Edinburgh II was Second Lieutenant Miles Linzee Atkinson, with his section commander Captain Shirley Spreat beside him. Like R.O.C. Ward, Atkinson had played rugby for Cambridge, though he was seven years younger, and Captain Spreat called him ‘the best type of a sporting British officer’. The captain described what happened in a letter to Atkinson’s father, who was Mayor of Leamington in Warwickshire:

  We reached the village, and came under the fire of a German field battery at point-blank range. Your son continued to fight his tank until we were put out of action; he consulted with me, and we decided to evacuate the tank. Just as he got out a shell burst almost on top of him. Although at the time we were under hostile machine-gun fire, I think it was this shell which killed him … I chose your son’s tank to go over in, having the greatest faith in him, and knowing that while he lived nothing would stop him.6

  Photographs taken shortly afterwards show the shattered hulk of Edinburgh poised above a German trench, proving they had at least gained their objective. A few yards away, frozen in motion by the shells that struck them at almost the same moment, stand E18 Emperor II and the wire-crusher Euryalus, with other wrecks visible beyond. Of the seven tanks that had given such vital support to 6th Bn Seaforth Highlanders, all but one were destroyed, with four of the commanders and many of their crew dead or wounded.7

  When the other wire-crusher Exquisite was knocked out, the battalion history told how ‘the crew evacuated their useless bus and bravely rushed forward to attack a German gun. Unfortunately the officer was killed and the surviving members of the crew were captured in this thrilling but forlorn effort.’8 The tank commander was Second Lieutenant Thomas Wilson, and this seems to be the same incident described by Major Alexander Gatehouse, who told how an officer, ‘wounded and dazed from the concussion’ after his tank was knocked out, nevertheless ‘advanced single-handed upon the German gunner with a large track-spanner in his hand. He fell after going about 15 yards shot by [the] gunner’s revolver.’9

  Not all the tanks headed towards the ridge. Second Lieutenant Wilfred Bion and the crew of E40 Edward II had crossed the front-line trench and were approaching the woodland in front of the village when machine-gun fire hammered into them with an ‘appalling din’:

  Taking control I drove the tank so that the bullets struck in front of me; they could do no harm against our armour, and I argued that so long as the bullets were striking on the armour in front of me we must be heading straight for the machine gun. As each bullet struck off a red-hot splinter from the armour, we had an improvised direction finder provided by the bullets themselves. Feeling my face pouring with a greasy sweat I put up my hand to wipe it away. Allen [the driver] looked white-faced and scared as I saw him looking at me. I noticed that my hands were covered with blood.10

  This was the phenomenon known as ‘splash’, in which bullets striking the steel walls caused a hail of tiny metal fragments to fly off into the faces, hands, and sometimes eyes of the crew. The ma
chine-gun fire was followed by a roar on the left side of the tank:

  ‘Put it in reverse! Fire the left 6-pounder’ – at anything, anywhere, to make them think we’re fighting someone, I thought to myself.

  The moment the breech was opened to load, such a storm of bullets came up the barrel that gunner Allen [who had the same surname as the driver] left it in panic. At once the inside of the tank was an inferno. Richardson managed to close the breech and thanks to him we had nothing but a couple of flesh wounds amongst us.

  ‘God damn your soul Allen you bastard!’ I yelled at the cowering boy. I was blubbing with rage and fear myself.

  No sooner had the gun causing us such havoc been silenced, or had silenced itself, than an explosion from the rear of the tank rocked us all. The tank stopped.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Won’t go’, yelled Allen [the driver].

  What on earth had happened? I had no idea and couldn’t think.

  ‘I think it’s catching fire by the petrol tank’, reported O’Toole.

  ‘Every man with a Lewis gun and as much ammo as you can carry. Now out you go! Richardson first – we’ve only one door – the left one. Fall out, firing your gun as you go. Into the trench!’

  Richardson tumbled out with only one bullet through his thigh. The enemy must have been as surprised as we were; all eight of us arrived safe in a bay of the enemy’s trench system.

  When I could look back I saw that the tank had a shell hole where the right rear driving mechanism had been; it was effectually [sic] out of action, but the destruction of the gears had saved the petrol tank and ninety gallons of petrol from exploding in flames.11

  What happened next led to Bion being recommended for the highest gallantry award, the Victoria Cross, though in the end he received the Distinguished Service Order. Taking a Lewis gun and four drums of ammunition, he climbed on top of the tank and opened fire on the enemy from the shelter of his fascine. Before them was a long brick wall, lined with German machine-gun posts, beyond which lay the wooded grounds of the château farm. From his vantage point, Bion was able to pour fire over this wall onto the enemy behind:

  By this time my escapade had stirred up a veritable hornets’ nest in the copse. I do not know what I expected would happen – probably nothing – but I was surprised to find German troops, led by an officer, pouring out of a gap in the left distant corner of the wall. An officer pointed his swagger stick to direct his troops to me. I swung round and opened fire on them as they were coming through the gap. At the same moment my gun jammed.12

  It was time to go, and Bion fled with his crew back to the nearest trench where he reported to the officer in charge, Captain George Edwards of 6th Bn Seaforth Highlanders, who had himself won the DSO a year before during the capture of Beaumont-Hamel. ‘While I was talking to him in the trench there was the loud crack of a near bullet. He fell forward and I saw blood and brains bulge out at the back of his skull.’ Captain Edwards had apparently been shot by a sniper hiding in a tree, who was himself brought down by Lewis gun fire. After this Bion, who was the only officer present, took charge of the infantry for a time until the Seaforths’ commanding officer told him: ‘Since you have no tanks you and your bloody Lance Corporal are no good to me. Get back to your HQ.’13

  The newspaper correspondent Philip Gibbs described Bion’s bravery in an article – without naming him – and concluded: ‘That episode reveals the high quality of courage of the young men who take our tanks into action.’14

  * * *

  For the Germans manning the second-line trenches in front of Flesquières, the arrival of the tanks caused as much consternation as in the first line, but with two major differences: the defenders now knew what to expect, and they were supported by field guns which engaged the tanks at close-range. The contest therefore felt less unequal to Unteroffizier Senftleben of 27th Reserve Infantry Regiment (RIR), now manning a trench after returning from a failed counter-attack:

  The cry is already ringing in our ears: Tanks! Tanks! – Where, where? – There, out of the fog, which the English have artificially thickened with smoke shells, the clumsy leviathans are sliding towards us; the road is just right for their advance. Rifles and machine guns large and small direct their fire against the tanks. To our right the 2nd Machine Gun Company set up their weapons to provide cover. And though many a brave man falls, they continue firing to good effect. A tank is set on fire. Six or seven brown figures pour out of the opening at the rear. Those who are still standing surrender to our men …

  Help is on its way. Not far from the trench, almost directly behind us, a battery sets up its guns and points the barrels towards the tanks. In our sector alone we can count five, with three beside them to the left. Now they are coming close. Where a hole or trench blocks their way, they go down deep into it. Then the front part rears up high and the obstacle is overcome. Now the battery opens up. Already the second shot hits home. Rending metal, a pillar of fire. There the monster lies. And with cheers and waving of helmets we greet every shot as it strikes.15

  A lance-corporal in 27th RIR, Gefreiter Zimmers, told how they had driven the attackers back down a communication trench when a tank moved round behind them:

  At first a paralysing fear grips us, since it’s scarcely fifty metres away and we have no armour-piercing ammunition with us. Its machine guns hammer away unsettlingly, the dirt is thrown high in the air, the bullets whistle past our ears, and here and there a comrade sinks down silently. The same goes for us. Just wait, Tommy, you’ll pay for this. And if we can’t do any damage with our rifles, that’s why we’ve got hand grenades … I pull out one grenade after another, they fly in an arc through the air, and explode in front, beside and on top of it. ‘Good, very good,’ shouts the section commander, ‘Let’s make it as hot as hell for them.’

  I had to use about twenty of them, and the sweat was pouring from my brow, but success was obvious: soon the rat-a-tat-ing stopped and spurts of flame shot up, so the petrol tanks were hit. A few Tommies hurriedly baled out but were shot down by accurate fire. The monster now lay silent and still, with plumes of fire pouring from its innards. A smoking wreck with a few partially decapitated Tommies hanging out, such are the pitiful remnants of Albion’s invincible tanks.

  I was able to take out a second tank in this way during the attack, as a result of which four prisoners were brought in, and for this I was promoted to Vizefeldwebel [i.e. Company Sergeant-Major]. Eleven tanks, all destroyed, lay before our company’s sector and won tremendous praise for our amazing artillery, who consistently knocked out the creeping monsters with their third shot.16

  No doubt the tanks that Gefreiter Zimmers claimed to have knocked out with hand grenades were actually hit by field guns, but either way, the outcome was the same.

  * * *

  For the British infantry, the destruction of so many tanks turned what had been an orderly advance into a struggle for survival. Those supporting 6th Bn Seaforth Highlanders had been virtually wiped out before their eyes, and to their right, the 6th Gordons were also making their way uphill when they had, in the words of their regimental historian, ‘a perfect view of one of the most dramatic episodes of the war’. It was the same story: ‘As the six tanks moving in front of the battalion reached the wire in a straggling line, one after the other was knocked out by a 77 mm. battery firing at a range of about 500 yards. It was pretty cool shooting, and other tanks coming up later were treated in the same way.’17

  E Battalion were less fastidious about their record-keeping than D Battalion, which makes it hard to establish exactly where the tanks met their fate, but it is clear that a total of sixteen machines were destroyed by direct hits at this stage of the battle. Second Lieutenant Fred Dawson found himself in the thick of the fighting in his tank E45 Elles II:

  On gaining the crest of the ridge, we seemed to walk ‘right into it.’ Tanks were all over the place; some with noses up, some afire, but all motionless. At the time we hardly realised what had h
appened. However, we spotted the offending trench packed with Huns, fully exposed, and all their fire seemed concentrated on our tank. The trench was protected by a belt of wire about 50 yards deep. My gunners, in spite of the enemy’s fire, were getting well on to their targets, and I could observe the 6-pounders bursting on the parapet. About twenty yards in the German wire, we received a direct hit, which left a gaping wound in the side of the tank, and which wounded every one except the driver and myself, but fortunately, left the engine still running.

  As my gunners were out of action, and another shell had landed amongst the sprockets, I ordered my driver to reverse out of the wire. We just reached the fringe when my engine petered out. A hasty examination showed the carburettor pierced by a splinter. Meanwhile, a fire started on the top of the tank, amongst some spare ammunition we were carrying. There was nothing left but to evacuate, which we did one by one, carrying the badly wounded back to our infantry.18

  Second Lieutenant Stanley Cohen, who suffered appalling burns to his face and hands in a later attack, also had a narrow escape in his tank Ewen:

  When within sight of my objective, the second line, I realised that I was ahead of my companions and rather isolated, an undesirable condition. So as all seemed quiet I turned round to seek the others. Almost at once we were hit in the right side, by the driver. Some plates were buckled and he could not drive. In [fact] the tank came to a halt. Then another shell hit the roof immediately behind my head. I had a mighty clout, turned and saw a gaping hole only one inch from my head. The shell had struck where two plates met at an angle and where they were riveted by an angle piece, so making it specially strong … There was nothing for it but to evacuate, take what we could and seek the shelter of the sunken road. There they found I was wounded in the back and I was sent back to a dressing station and eventually to Manchester.19