by John Taylor
Back in Cambridge, Florence Coote never forgot Joseph Cheverton, the cheeky young lad who had been her fiancé and who died inside Deborah. His family placed a message in their local newspaper on the second anniversary of his death:
In loving memory of our only dear son, Gunner J. Cheverton, of the Tank Corps, killed in action, November 20th, 1917, on his 20th birthday.
Two years have passed our hearts still sore,
As time goes on we miss him more,
His loving smile, his cheerful face,
There’s none can fill that vacant place.
From his broken-hearted mother, father and sisters, also Florrie.24
She eventually married in 1924 and they had a son, Derek Leland, who remembers seeing the letter sent to Florrie informing her of Joe’s death and enclosing a Tank Corps cap badge. The letter was destroyed after her death in 1955, but the badge was kept and has now been passed to the descendants of Joseph Cheverton.25
Some years after Joe was killed, Florrie posed for a studio photograph wearing a pretty white outfit that might have been her wedding dress, apparently with the Tank Corps badge on a chain round her neck. She is alone, but beside her is a pot of rosemary. The significance of the photograph is clear, for this is a plant whose symbolism was known to Shakespeare: ‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray you, love, remember.’26
* * *
At the end of the war, the men who had been taken prisoner began to return home, bringing stories of the hardships they had endured in captivity. The tank crews captured on 22 August came home, including Lieutenant David Lewis and the crew of D46 Dragon, as well as Captain Arthur Arnold from F Battalion, though he had developed tuberculosis as a result of poor medical treatment after being shot through the chest, and finally settled in South Africa, where he worked as a farmer until his death in 1969.27
There were also a small number of former prisoners-of-war who had been less tight-lipped under German interrogation, and who might have been expected to face questioning on their return, since the British were well aware of the breaches of security that had occurred. Among them were the men of 1st Bn Royal Irish Fusiliers who had been captured in the trench raid on 18 November, and whose information had been so crucial in helping the Germans to repel the attack on Flesquières. As we have seen, a group of six men were captured, and the interrogation report did not specify how many, or who, had given away vital information – though it did state that Irish bitterness at British rule was their primary motivation. In fact, there is no sign of official retribution against any of them, English or Irish, once the war was over. Perhaps an inquiry did take place and proved inconclusive, or more likely, the authorities were so busy managing the flood of repatriated prisoners and demobilized soldiers that they had neither the energy nor the appetite to reopen old wounds.
Sergeant William Whitaker, who had been in charge of the group, returned home to North London at the end of 1918 and left the army a few months later, but when he married in 1920 he was working as a clerk at the War Office, which indicates that no blame was attached to him for what happened. They had two children and he was working as a clerk at an engineering company in Surrey when he died in 1960, aged sixty-three.28
Lance-Corporal Frederick Rowe also came home in late 1918 but stayed in the army, returning to his original unit which was now renamed the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, and he was serving with them in India when his first child was born in 1922. A photograph shows him with sergeant’s stripes and medal ribbons, every inch the proud old soldier, and again it is impossible to believe he would have done anything to harm his country. Fred later became a postman and factory worker before dying in 1959. His grandson could shed no further light on his military past: ‘I knew nothing of Fred’s war life, I was 17 when he died and he never spoke about the war to me.’29
Of the prisoners from Northern and Southern Ireland, none seems to have attracted any special attention after the war. All were sent the appropriate campaign medals in recognition of their military service, and James Cope also applied for a prisoner of war helper’s medal, though this was reserved for French and Belgian civilians who had given support to captured soldiers.30
Like a number of them, Private Cope married soon after the war, but died in 1938 aged just forty-five from pneumonia and heart failure. He was treated in Craigavon House in Belfast, a hospital set up for members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, and his profession was given as ‘ex-soldier’, so again there is no sign of any concern about his wartime record.31
The others have proved more elusive, apart from Laurence O’Brien, who was the only Southern Irishman among the prisoners, and one of only two Catholics. After returning from captivity he went back into the armed forces in 1920, when he enlisted in the RAF as an Aircraftman 2nd Class and worked as a stoker at various air bases in England. His character was initially described as ‘good’, but this did not last, and two years later he was dismissed for misconduct, the cause being given as ‘violence to superiors’. A month later, in October 1922, he volunteered to fight in Ireland’s new National Army and after that he disappears from view. His war medals were returned unclaimed, but by then Ireland had become a Free State, and there were few who wanted to advertise the fact that they had fought for England’s glory.32
Another prisoner who made his way home at the end of the war was Sergeant Sam Phillips of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and despite the anger felt by some in the Tank Corps, there is no evidence of any action being taken against him. He was demobilized in August 1919, and seems to have simply returned to his little terraced house in Wales, and resumed his work and family life. Like many other soldiers he was awarded the campaign medals that were commonly known as ‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred’ after the popular cartoon characters, including the 1915 Star which he had earned by virtue of his service overseas in December 1915.33
But if there was such a thing as retribution, perhaps it came twenty-five years later, when another Sergeant Phillips was killed fighting the Germans during the Allies’ victorious advance across Europe at the end of the Second World War. He was the eldest son of Sergeant Sam Phillips, and whatever his father may have done in the previous war, no-one could deny that he had fully repaid the debt of honour.34 According to his family, Sam Phillips – who worked as a timber loader – was ‘profoundly affected’ by the tragedy, and died of heart disease two years later. His descendants had no knowledge of his actions in the First World War, could not believe that he might have been involved in any wrongdoing, and were distressed by the suggestion. Some personal details have been withheld from this account to avoid identifying them.35
As for Second Lieutenant Brommage, who led the disastrous trench raid in which Sergeant Phillips was captured, he spent the rest of the war in the Indian Army, eventually being promoted to captain. The coming of peace meant his services were no longer required and he left the army in 1921, but the colonial civil service provided an alternative career.36 In 1972 The Times noted the death of ‘Mr Joseph Charles Brommage, CIE, OBE, who was Additional Financial Adviser, Military Finance, India, from 1944 to 1947 … He became Military Accountant General, India, in 1947.’ It is unlikely that he ever heard of Sergeant Phillips again, or would have wished to.37
Did a deputation of tankmen ever visit Sergeant Phillips after the war to express their opinions, as some of them had proposed? Again this seems highly doubtful, though it would have been easy enough for Sir Clough Williams-Ellis to call in person, since the renowned architect was a fellow Welshman who wrote the official history of the Tank Corps at a country house near his most celebrated creation, the Italianate village of Portmeirion. But Sir Clough’s own son had been killed in action in 1944,38 and if he ever made the journey, one hopes it might have concluded in mutual comfort rather than recrimination.
CHAPTER 39
Weapon of Friendship
Deborah had gone into the ground, and might have remained there for ever, were it not for a small plastic
model of a First World War tank. As he assembled the Airfix construction kit, an interest was fired in the mind of a young Cambrai schoolboy called Philippe Gorczynski, and out of this grew a lifelong passion which ultimately led to his quest to find a real-life tank.1 This youthful inquisitiveness may not seem surprising in a place renowned as the setting of the first great tank battle, but in the 1960s there was little awareness of what had happened there half a century before, and few ways of finding out.
Philippe – who was born and brought up in Cambrai, though his surname derives from the grandparents who left Poland in search of a better life in the 1930s – grew up surrounded by the legacy of war, but his early attention was focused on the better-known battlefields of the Somme away to the west where he went hunting for relics, a fascination that proved fatal to a number of his friends who showed insufficient respect for the rusting ordnance still littering the fields.
This hobby triggered a curiosity about the military cemeteries surrounding his hometown, and his attempts to find out more led to a local shopkeeper called Michel Bacquet, widely known as the ‘Homme de Fer’ (or ‘Ironman’). His nickname came from the sign above his hardware store, but was also appropriate for someone with a long-standing interest in the armoured clashes that had taken place around Cambrai.
Sitting in the lounge of the Beatus, the thriving hotel he owns and runs with his wife Sandrine, Philippe recalls an event in 1977 that was to prove a turning-point: ‘Michel Bacquet did something which was absolutely fantastic at that time – because of his passion, and his interest in the human side, he decided to contact all those men who wrote history not with a pen, but with their blood.’
Almost single-handed, the Ironman began lobbying British service organizations and French civic authorities to organize a visit commemorating the 60th anniversary of the battle. It was the final reunion for the ageing veterans of Cambrai, and more than sixty men took part, with an average age of eighty-two. Among them were some of the last survivors of D and E Battalions of the Tank Corps: William Levy, Ernest Hayward, Charles Homfray, and Jason Addy – the gunner who had gone to war in Delysia on 22 August 1917, and sat out the attack on 20 November after his tank broke down in the German lines.
The veterans were given an ecstatic welcome, not least by pupils from local schools who lined the streets, as described by one newspaper reporter: ‘The children came and gave them presents and pinned little flags in their buttonholes and cheered them and many of the old men blessed the cold wind that bit into their faces and gave their eyes an excuse to water. At one stop the children waved a Union Jack with the motto stitched across it in English: “Our children understand how their fate was changed and by whose hand.” Some of the old men cried unashamedly.’2
The visit was inspiring for Philippe, though also frustrating as he was unable to question the elderly visitors about their experiences. ‘It was not easy for me as a teenager. My English was not so good and I was not able really to establish contact. It was a friendly time for them to share with one another rather than to collect information. It’s a shame, but for me it was really a missed opportunity.’ Nevertheless, the gathering had further fired his imagination, and Monsieur Bacquet published a book containing some of the men’s reminiscences which provided further information and an all-important map.3
This was followed by another crucial meeting for Philippe, this time with a local schoolteacher called Jean-Luc Gibot who had extensive knowledge of the battle, and in the 1980s they began to collaborate on research. This culminated in the publication of a history of the battle called En Suivant les Tanks, or Following the Tanks.4
Their inquiries took them to libraries and archives across Britain and France, while Philippe also began scouring collectors’ fairs for books and documents, including many photographs taken by German soldiers. ‘It became like a drug to find them, and they were fantastic because no-one really was using the German documents, including British historians.’ Sometimes it was possible to work out from photographs where a tank had been destroyed, and as Philippe explored he began to uncover rusting fragments of the tanks themselves.
Other people had tried to find a complete tank, including the Ironman himself, who had once hired divers to search the Canal du Nord to investigate rumours that a tank had fallen in during the war. All they found was a lorry engine, and when the remains of a tank called Abou-Ben-Adam II were unearthed by workmen building the A26 motorway near Cambrai, it was scrapped before the historians arrived, and all they recovered was the unditching beam and some fragments of the engine and track.
As Philippe scoured the battlefield, he would also visit nursing homes and seek out the oldest inhabitants to gather their wartime memories. When he arrived in the village of Ribécourt in 1992 he met a lady in her nineties called Marthe Bouleux who had previously lived in nearby Flesquières. What she told him on that first visit made his hair stand on end.
‘She said, “Yes, my family was running a cafe in Flesquières and in front of the cafe there were some soldiers who buried a tank.” Now I understand she was confused because she said they were German soldiers, but maybe her memories were a little misty. But in any case she remembered seeing some soldiers pushing a tank into a hole. I said: “Do you think it’s still there?” and she said: “Yes, maybe!”’
Mme Bouleux was housebound, and although she did her best to describe the spot, Philippe was unable to identify it in a field of around ten acres. Other residents had also heard the story, among them a retired farmworker called Jean Lavallée: ‘He said the man who owned the field always asked him to put in some earth because there was a little dip in the ground.’ Another clue came from the letters preserved by the widow of Michel Bacquet, the Ironman, who had died in 1986. ‘One day I found a note from a man who stayed in Flesquières during the Second World War, and he said at the exit of the village there was a place where the grass didn’t grow, and some people said it was possible that a tank was buried there.’ The final piece of evidence came in the form of an aerial photograph taken in 1948 and discovered by Jean-Luc Gibot, which showed a mysterious square area in the same field south of the château.
The time had come for action if Philippe was to achieve his dream of finding a tank – not as a mere souvenir, but as a unique way of commemorating the battle that had taken place on his doorstep. ‘For me the tank was important because it could be a way to establish a monument to explain the story of the Battle of Cambrai. It would show that a big battle took place here, and nobody could forget that.’
Once he had gained the backing of the landowners, it was necessary to locate the spot precisely, and the local military helped out using aerial infrared photography and powerful metal-detectors. This confirmed there was something substantial buried in the field, but Philippe still had to contain his excitement: ‘I was always suspicious, because it could be a heap of corrugated iron.’ Official permission was needed to investigate further before an excavation could take place, and this was obtained with the support of Yves Desfossés, head of the Regional Archaeological Service, assisted by Alain Jacques from the Arras Archaeological Service.
Following further negotiations, an excavator finally moved onto the site on 5 November 1998, and less than three hours later it struck metal. The tank’s roof hatch was exposed two metres below ground, and once it had been forced open, the interior was examined to make sure there were no bodies within. Then Philippe lowered himself inside: ‘It was completely wet, it was dark, it was just like going down into a cellar. The first thing I could see by torchlight was the radiator, and I said, “My God!” Then I saw the engine, and a large pile of blue and white powder where the aluminium from the engine had disintegrated. It was possible to see the wooden floor, still with its grey paint, but completely rotten.’ He also realized there were large holes in the tank’s superstructure that had been covered with sheets of corrugated iron before the hole was filled in, suggesting it had been used as a shelter. The discovery of the buried tank had change
d Philippe’s life for ever, and he now dedicated himself to excavating and preserving her for posterity.
The first step was to refill the hole so a proper excavation could begin ten days later. Security was now a major concern as news of the discovery had spread far and wide, fuelled by worldwide media interest, and souvenir hunters had already stolen some items even though the site was fenced off. Volunteers remained round the clock during the dig, which lasted five days as earth and debris were removed, including a large number of poison-gas shells which had been dumped in the hole.
Finally, on 20 November 1998 – the 81st anniversary of the battle – the rusting, battered hulk of a female tank stood fully exposed, and three days later the twenty-three tonne load was hoisted from its grave by a contractor’s crane. It was six years since Philippe’s first meeting with Madame Bouleux, and sadly she had died months before her youthful memories were proved so accurate.
A few relics were found in the soft mud inside the tank: hand grenades, both British and German, the remains of an army service cap, some tools, a pair of signalling discs, and part of a machine gun. But apart from a number ‘1’ faintly visible on the petrol tank, there was no evidence of her identity, and the red triangle painted on her side – apparently the emblem of 29th Division – has never been explained, since this unit attacked some way to the south.
The tank was buried in the area where D Battalion had suffered heavy losses to the west of Flesquières, and Philippe investigated various possible identities for the tank using military records and aerial photographs, until the mystery was solved a few weeks later thanks to an incredible stroke of fortune. Far away in the north of England, a civilian defence contractor called Will Heap was working with an officer from the Royal Tank Regiment, Major Charles Hunt, who mentioned that he would be attending the annual Cambrai Day dinner at Bovington. Will recalls what happened next: ‘I said, my grandfather won the Military Cross at Cambrai, could you dig out a copy of the citation for me? And by the way, I have a photograph of his tank – you could take that down and see what they make of it.’5 The photograph, marked simply ‘Mr Heap’s bus’, was passed to the Tank Museum’s historian David Fletcher, who immediately made a crucial connection. The damage shown in the photograph exactly matched that on the tank recently excavated at Flesquières, which must therefore be D51 Deborah commanded by Second Lieutenant Frank Heap.