by John Taylor
On gaining the road one turns left, following Deborah’s route along the quiet village street, and then turns right at the crossroads to reach the spot where her short journey, and the lives of half her crew, came to an end. It is rare to meet anyone on the walk, and Flesquières remains ‘a peaceful, unexceptional place’ with nothing to show that it was once the setting for one of the most epoch-making events in history.
Nothing, that is, apart from the cemetery with its rows of headstones, and Deborah herself, a mute witness to tragedy that has re-emerged from the grave to bring so many people together, and to bring the past so vividly to life. It is appropriate to end this story with the words of Philippe Gorczynski:
Deborah was for a time a terrible war machine, but now she is an amazing ‘weapon’ of friendship. You can understand why I am eternally indebted to her for what she has given to me, and what she continues to give to all of us.
APPENDIX A
Order of Battle of D Battalion Tank Corps, and associated infantry and tank units, at Battle of Passchendaele (22 August 1917)
Order of battle shown roughly north-west (top of table) to south-east (bottom of table)
Grey highlights: More details about unit / individual / tank given in text
* The tanks shown in brackets are those put out of action at Bellevue on 21 August, with the names and numbers of the G Bn tanks taken over their crews. In most cases the names of the original D Bn tanks are not known for certain, including D51.
† Schuler Farm is shown as a tank objective for D Bn, but it was not an objective for infantry of 5th Bn Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Instead, on passing Winnipeg and approaching Schuler Farm, the crews of tanks G22 (formerly D51) and D52 would cross over into the sector being attacked by infantry units of XIX Corps and tanks from F Bn.
APPENDIX B
Order of Battle of British and German units at Flesquières in Battle of Cambrai (20 November 1917)
Order of battle shown roughly north-west (top of table) to south-east (bottom of table)
Grey highlights: More details about unit / individual / tank given in text
APPENDIX C
Order of Battle of D Battalion Tank Corps at Battle of Cambrai (20 November 1917)
Grey highlights: More details about individual / tank given in text
Notes
Foreword (pp. xii–xv)
1. Precis notes by H. L. Birks for War Office battlefield tour in March 1935, in Tank Museum (E2006.342). Published as ‘The Tank in Action’, in Royal Tank Corps Journal (November 1935). A number of minor edits have been made.
2. ‘Tales of a Gaspipe Officer’ by ‘Despatch Rider’ (W. H. L. Watson), Blackwood’s Magazine (February 1916), p. 257. His service record in NA (WO 339/23425) shows he was evacuated home after being wounded in May 1915.
3. Steuben, pp. 31–2 – article by Leutnant B. Hegermann.
4. From Part Three in a series of articles entitled ‘Return to Hell’ by Henry Williamson in Evening Standard, 1 July 1964.
Chapter 1: A Vision of the World’s End (pp. 3–11)
1. Modern Flemish spellings are used here, but the British referred to Poperinge as Poperinghe, De Lovie as La Lovie and Ieper as Ypres.
2. Harvey Cushing, From a Surgeon’s Journal 1915-1918, London, 1936, p. 165.
3. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 104.
4. Bion, War Memoirs, pp. 26–8.
5. Bion, The Long Week-end, p. 124.
6. Gibbs, From Bapaume to Passchendaele 1917, p. 13.
7. Martel, pp. 20–1.
8. See Official History – Passchendaele, p. 138. This shows that 4,283,550 shells of all calibres were fired along the 15-mile front from 15 July to 2 August.
9. Baker-Carr, From Chauffeur to Brigadier, pp. 226–7.
10. War Diary of 184th Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers in NA (WO 95/336).
11. Ibid.
12. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 118.
13. War Diary of 3rd Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/106).
14. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110). Note that the name Deborah is not recorded before November 1917.
15. Ibid.
16. Browne, pp. 105–6.
17. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 122.
18. Baker-Carr, From Chauffeur to Brigadier, pp. 238–9.
19. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’. This series of articles was published anonymously, but extensive research has enabled the author to be identified.
20. Official History – Passchendaele, pp. 177–8.
21. Report on Action of Tanks on 31st July 1917 in War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/92). A slightly different analysis of the figures is in Official History – Passchendaele, p. 179: ‘Of 117 fighting tanks which had gone into action, 77 had been ditched, bellied or had broken down mechanically, and 42 of these, including those receiving direct hits by shell, had become a total loss.’
22. Preliminary Report on Tank Operations on 31st July, 1917 in War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/91). This comment does not seem to have found its way into the final report.
23. Report of Action of Tanks on 31st July 1917 in War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/92).
24. Ibid.
25. Report upon the action of the Tanks in the battle of the 31st July, dated 14 August 1917, in War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/92).
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/92).
Chapter 2: Temporary Gentlemen (pp. 12–18)
1. Gough, p. 193.
2. 6th Tank Battalion War History in War Diary in NA (WO 95/107).
3. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
4. Browne, p. 191
5. Anon., H.Q. Tanks 1917-1918, privately printed 1920, pp. 4–5. Although anonymous, this has been identified as the work of Captain Evan Charteris.
6. Ibid., pp. 5–6.
7. Ibid., pp. 7–8.
8. Bion, The Long Week-end, p. 121; sentences from ‘I heard’ to ‘one’s heart’ added from Commentary in Bion, War Memoirs, p. 206.
9. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, p. 13.
10. The Mark IV tank carried Lewis guns, whose ammunition was fed from a drum rather than a belt, and were therefore not machine guns in the strictest sense. However, this term was often used at the time, as it is in this book.
11. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, entry by Graham M. Miller and Richard L. N. Greenaway, available online at Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
12. Angus Macdonald, George Macdonald, Gentleman – Sometime Farmer – Sometime Historian, unpublished biography.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Service record in NA (WO 339/29568).
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Letter dated 26 August 1915 in Christchurch City Libraries (Archive 825).
20. Ibid.
21. Service record in NA (WO 339/29568).
22. Ibid.
23. The Press, Christchurch, 6 November 1916.
24. Service record in NA (WO 339/29568).
25. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
26. Service record in NA (WO 339/74665).
27. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 9–10.
28. Service record in NA (WO 339/80502).
Chapter 3: A Very Fine Lot Indeed (pp. 19–24)
1. Baker-Carr, From Chauffeur to Brigadier, p. 288.
2. Arthur Jenkin, A Tank Driver’s Experiences, or Incidents in a Soldier’s Life, London, 1922, p. 122.
3. Organisation of the Heavy Section of the Machine Gun Corps later known as the Tank Corps in NA (WO 158/804). The Heavy Branch was originally known as the Heavy Section.
4. Interview in Liddle Collection (278).
5. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 16.
6. Harold A. Littledale, ‘With the Tanks’, The Atlantic Monthly (December 1918), p. 836.
7. Details from ser
vice record in NA (WO 363); father’s obituary in The Cornishman and Cornish Telegraph, 29 May 1930; US Censuses; immigration/emigration records; Elizabeth A. Brennan and Elizabeth C. Clarage, Who’s Who of Pulitzer Prize Winners, Phoenix, Arizona, 1998.
8. Bion, War Memoirs, p. 8.
9. Bion, Commentary in War Memoirs, p. 201.
10. Birks, ‘Cambrai – The Attack on Flésquières Ridge [sic]’.
11. Letter from Charles E. Foot in City of Westminster Archives Centre (991/15).
12. Family recollection from Charles Foot.
13. Details from birth certificate, census records and The Bucks Herald, 9 December 1916.
14. Gibbs, Realities of War, p. 316. In an earlier book (The Battles of the Somme, p. 256) Gibbs describes a more upbeat meeting with a tank ‘skipper’ who referred to his tank as ‘my beauty’ – he is said to be a ‘young officer (who is about five feet high)’, which makes it fairly certain this was George’s tank commander.
15. Alan H. Maude (ed.), The 47th (London) Division 1914-1919 – By Some Who Served with it in the Great War, London, 1922, p. 64.
16. Letter in Tank Museum. In view of the critical comments I have elected not to identify the commander of Foot’s tank, or the author of the letter.
17. Interview in IWM Sound Archive (870).
18. Pidgeon, p. 105.
19. London Gazette, 14 November 1916.
20. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
21. Service records, held by Ministry of Defence; family recollections.
22. Notebook of Captain A. G. Woods in Tank Museum (E1963.38.1). Evidence of their friendship comes from a studio photograph showing them together in August 1917, now in the possession of Russell Enoch.
23. War Diary of 2nd New Zealand Infantry Brigade HQ in NA (WO 95/3693).
24. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/ 110).
25. See Pidgeon, p. 168 – original source not identified, but widely quoted in contemporary accounts such as Gibbs, The Battles of the Somme, p. 264, and Captain Basil Williams, Raising and Training the New Armies, London, 1918, p. 217.
26. Official History – Somme, p. 366.
27. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
28. Ibid.
Chapter 4: Dracula’s Fate (pp. 25–28)
1. Notebook and Diary of Captain A. G. Woods in Tank Museum (E1963.38.1), This is one of a number of documents that use the alternative spelling ‘Foote’.
2. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
3. Service record in NA (WO 339/45302).
4. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
5. Colonel H. Stewart, The New Zealand Division 1916-1919 – A Popular History Based on Official Records, Auckland, 1921, pp. 111–12.
6. The Times, 6 October 1916.
7. Official History – Somme, p. 430.
8. Service record in NA (WO 339/45302).
9. Letter from grandson of Second Lieutenant William Sampson in Tank Museum (E1972.81.2).
10. Citation in Supplement to the Tank Corps Book of Honour.
11. Service record in NA (WO 363). Glaister may have been one of those who stayed in the shell crater with Wakley and Foot, but the wording of his medal citation and the dates of his wound and treatment make it more likely that he mounted a rescue attempt from the British lines.
12. Official History – Somme, p. 432.
13. Gibbs, The Battles of the Somme, pp. 322–3.
14. Notebook and Diary of Captain A. G. Woods in Tank Museum (E1963.38.1).
15. The Bucks Herald, 9 December 1916.
16. The Times, 6 October 1916.
17. Citation in Supplement to the Tank Corps Book of Honour.
18. Service record in NA (WO 363).
19. Letter in Glaister’s file in Tank Museum (E2003.36).
20. Information from Shaun Corkerry and Stuart Nicholson in Whitehaven.
21. Letter in Glaister’s file in Tank Museum (E2003.36).
22. Service record in NA (WO 363).
23. Service record in NA (WO 339/45302).
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Divorce file in NA (J 77/1702/2962).
27. The Times, 2 May 1921.
28. The Times, 8 May 1922.
Chapter 5: Of Knaves and Jokers (pp. 29–34)
Thanks to Cliff Brown and Ron Clifton for their assistance in Cambridge, and to Nigel Henderson, Lester Morrow and Robert Corbett in Belfast.
1. Photograph in possession of family.
2. Birth certificate, baptism register, census returns.
3. From Rupert Brooke, The Old Vicarage, Grantchester.
4. Census records; family recollections and photographs.
5. Riddell and Clayton, pp. 5 and 280–1.
6. Cambridge Independent Press, 23 April 1915.
7. Medal index cards.
8. CWGC records.
9. Riddell and Clayton, p. 29.
10. Adam, p. 195.
11. Riddell and Clayton, p. 30. He added: ‘Subsequent events proved that this estimate of the value of the 1st Cambridgeshires was hopelessly inaccurate.’
12. Ibid., p. 34.
13. Ibid., p. 44.
14. Ibid., pp. 48–9.
15. Adam, pp. 242–3.
16. Cambridge Chronicle, 12 December 1917.
17. War Diary of 1/1st Bn Cambridgeshire Regiment in NA (WO 95/2590/1).
18. Riddell and Clayton, pp. 74–5.
19. See Adam, Arthur Innes Adam 1894-1916 and In a World I Never Made, London, 1967, p. 46 by his sister Barbara Wootton.
20. Shown by consecutive entries in medal register in NA (WO 329/1775).
21. Census records.
22. Belfast Evening Telegraph, 15 December 1917.
23. Census records.
24. Service records in NA (WO 363); they had consecutive service numbers showing they joined up at the same time.
25. Medal index card.
26. War Diary of 13th Bn Royal Irish Rifles in NA (WO 95/2506/3).
27. Ibid.
28. Falls, The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division, p. 59.
29. War Diary of 13th Bn Royal Irish Rifles in NA (WO 95/2506/3).
30. CWGC records.
31. War Diary of 13th Bn Royal Irish Rifles in NA (WO 95/2506/3).
32. Date of transfer known from the single surviving page of his service record in NA (WO 363).
Chapter 6: The Sword of Deborah (pp. 35–39)
1. Photographs in possession of family.
2. Census records.
3. He gave this as his occupation in the 1911 Census, though in 1916 Wright’s Directory still listed him as a warehouseman.
4. Employer’s name given in Nottinghamshire Guardian, 22 December 1917.
5. Photographs in possession of family.
6. War Diary of 1st Bn King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) in NA (WO 95/1506/1).
7. Census records.
8. Family recollections.
9. Service record in NA (WO 363).
10. Medal index cards and service records for George and Charles Dimler in NA (WO 363 and WO 364).
11. War Diary of 9th Motor Machine Gun Battery in NA (WO 95/1038).
12. Ibid.
13. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 16.
14. Photographs in possession of family.
15. D Bn Battlegraph for 22 August 1917 in Tank Museum (E2006.1861).
16. Birth records for England and Wales.
17. Judges 5:31 in Authorised King James Bible.
18. Henry VI Part I Act I Scene 2. The Sword of Deborah – First-Hand Impressions of the British Women’s Army in France is the title of a book by F. Tennyson Jesse (London, 1918).
19. Names from War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
20. Service record in NA (WO 339/99800).
21. Names from War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
22. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, p. 13.
&n
bsp; 23. Coghlan, ‘Cambrai Day’.
24. Letter in the possession of Mme Bacquet, Cambrai.
Chapter 7: In Honour Bound (pp. 40–46)
1. Tank Corps Summary of Information for 5 August 1917 in NA (WO 157/239).
2. Fifth Army Intelligence Summary in NA (WO 157/213).
3. War Diary of 113th Infantry Brigade HQ in NA (WO 95/2553).
4. Service record in NA (WO 339/64664).
5. War Diary of Fifth Army HQ General Staff in NA (WO 95/520).
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. War Diary of 14th Bn Royal Welsh Fusiliers in NA (WO 95/2555/2).
10. Aussagen zweier englischer Gefangener vom XIV/R.W.Fus. in Militärarchiv, Freiburg (PH3/584).
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. War Diary of 113th Infantry Brigade HQ in NA (WO 95/2553).
14. CWGC records.
15. War Diary of Fifth Army Adjutant and Quarter-Master General in NA (WO 95/525).
16. Ibid.
17. Williams-Ellis, p. 77.
18. Browne, pp. 107–8.
19. Baker-Carr, From Chauffeur to Brigadier, p. 239.
20. Mitchell, p. 101.
21. Service record in NA (WO 339/64664).
22. Letter in The Daily Telegraph on 6 July 1934, from ‘George E. Mackenzie, Minister of Kirkhope, and late Lt., 153rd Bde., R.H.A., B.E.F.’
23. W. H. A. Groom, Poor Bloody Infantry – A Memoir of the First World War, London, 1976, p. 127.
24. Rorie, p. 147.
25. War Diary of 3rd Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/106).
26. Aussagen zweier englischer Gefangener vom XIV/R.W.Fus. in Militärarchiv, Freiburg (PH3/584).
27. Browne, p. 107.
28. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 119.
29. Williams-Ellis, p. 77.
30. Brigadier-General J. Charteris, Memorandum: Prevention of Espionage and Leakage of Information, GHQ 27 December 1916. A copy is preserved in the papers of Sir John Monash in the Australian War Memorial (RCDIG0000617).
31. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 119.
32. Nominal Roll of N.C.O.’s and Men of the 14th Bn. Royal Welsh Fusiliers who embarked with the Battalion on Dec. 1st, 1915, in Bangor University Archives (BMSS/7060).
33. Medal index card.
34. International Committee of the Red Cross records.
35. Y Seren, 15 September 1917.