Some soldiers on their way to the line had even managed to hitch a lift and, as Billy Banks and Roland Otley remarked – or rather roared to each other above the unearthly clatter of the tank – it was not unlike riding on a hay-wain. This time last year, at harvest-time in England, most of the boys who were now in the 21st Battalion of The King’s Royal Rifle Corps had been doing exactly that, for they were the Yeoman Rifles. It was the Earl of Feversham who had the idea of raising a battalion of farmers’ sons and country lads from the north of England but, by the time he had obtained official approval, arranged his own transfer from the Yorkshire Hussars and enlisted young hopefuls of his acquaintance as fledgling officers – young Anthony Eden fresh from Eton was one of them – it was already September 1915. So many lads of military age were already in the Army that, although the most remote farms and villages were scoured for recruits and although there were accommodating Recruiting Sergeants who needed little persuading to sign up farm-lads whose tender years were belied by a hefty physique, there had not been quite enough ‘Yeomen’ to make up a full Battalion. They had come in dribs and drabs and it was not until their numbers had been swelled by a draft of recruits of less exclusive origin that they had started training in earnest. And that was months later.
They had come to the front in May, to the quiet, still bucolic surroundings of ‘Plugstreet’ Wood and one young farmer, standing sentry for the first time in the line, had neatly summed up the Battalion’s collective attitude to the war. An officer on his accustomed round stopped by the firestep.
‘Well, Sentry,’ he enquired, ‘do you see anything?’
‘Aye,’ replied the Sentry. ‘I see a bloody good field of hay going to waste!’
This saying had tickled the Battalion and like its first ‘battle’ was always good for a laugh. It had happened while they were training on Lord Feversham’s estate, Duncombe Park at Helmsley in Yorkshire, under the beneficent eye of Lord Feversham himself, who was struck by the happy idea that the Battalion might practise advancing in open order against a herd of deer which, fortuitously, he wished to move to another part of the estate. The deer were not keen to go. They were not encouraged by the sight of a hundred or so men advancing to the attack! They stood their ground and then turned and charged the Yeomen in a counter-attack, so purposeful that there was no question of dignified *etirement* It had been a total rout.
Moving up to Delville Wood under the shrieking bombardment intended to deafen the ears of the enemy to the cacophonous progress of the tanks, the Yeoman Rifles were hoping for better luck in the morning. They were to be supported by the tanks of D Battalion.
At the very head of the long column of machines crawling towards the line, the leading tank – officially known as Di – was to have the distinction of being the first tank in history to go into battle. It was to cross the front line on a special mission one hour and five minutes before Zero. Len Lovell and the other Bombers of A Company were to go with it, for the ‘special mission’ was to break the grip of the Germans’ last tenuous hold on the edge of Delville Wood and to push them out of Hop Alley and Ale Trench before the start of the main assault.
The noise of a passing tank was deafening. Inside, it was earsplitting. Even a full-pitched bellow had no chance of being heard above the beat of the mammoth engine, 105 horsepower, the clank and slap of the caterpillar tracks, the crash of the giant gears, the grinding of brakes so powerful that it took all the strength of the brakesman to operate them. At least he benefited from a little light from the narrow slit in the up-front ‘cab’ where he crouched behind the driver and the officer in charge. The gearsmen were less fortunate. Low down in the middle of the tank it was dark even in daylight. It was hot and it was airless, and on the long haul up, instead of circulating fresh air, the fans were showing a nasty tendency to pick up heavy petrol fumes belching from the exhaust of the vehicle in front and to send them billowing through the tank. Before they had progressed a quarter of the way, the crews were gasping for air, choking and spluttering as they would later choke and splutter in the fumes of the smoke bombs and poison gas.
Of the eight men squeezed into the claustrophobic gloom, the gearsmen were the worst off. They had to have their wits about them, ears pressed close to the sides of the sponsons, alert for orders tapped out by the driver on the cover of the engine, and woe betide them if they failed to pick them up. The gunners’ place was in the sponsons themselves. They had a little light, a little air, and just sufficient field of vision to operate the guns that were mounted in the two vast protuberances which stuck out on either side of the tank.1 They weighed a ton apiece and every man in every tank crew had cause to curse them. With the sponsons fitted, the tanks had been too wide to pass through the tunnels on the French railway system. There had been nothing for it but to take them off and to put them back again at the end of the journey. Their muscles were still aching.
Corporal A. E. Lee, MM, No. 32198, A Btn., Heavy Section, Machine Gun Corps (later Tank Corps)
We joined up with our tanks at Yvrench, a small village near Abbeville, and then came the job of bolting on the sponsons which carried the guns on each side of the tank. They were carried on small trolleys and they had to be manhandled into position, the sponsons lifted off the trolley and manoeuvred into position until the bolt holes in tank and sponson coincided exactly. Then the bolts were inserted and tightened. It sounds easy, and so it was – in theory! But, have you ever tried to lift a ton of metal into a position where not one but every pair of bolt holes must exactly coincide? If the fit was not absolutely perfect, even to one-sixteenth of an inch out, the bolts wouldn’t fit. Sometimes the first bolt did go in but, perhaps because the sponson had warped slightly, none of the others would! Then it was a case of using drifts, levers and brute force! But it was done eventually.
Nick Lee, like every other man in A Company, was bitterly disappointed to be held back in reserve while D and C Company were even now on their way to the line and the glory of the tanks’ first action. The crew of D1, on the other hand, arriving at the eastern edge of Delville Wood to lead the infantry in its preliminary action against Hop Alley and Ale Trench, were disconcerted to discover that they were quite alone. Of the three tanks which should have been at the rendezvous, only D1 had made it. At a quarter-past five it left its starting point on the Longueval-Ginchy Road and with machine-guns firing, with black clouds of smoke snorting from its exhaust, with a noise that sounded as if all the furies of hell had been let loose, it lumbered down the edge of Delville Wood lurching, dipping and rearing its mountainous bulk above the German trenches. For a full half-minute the Germans were paralysed with shock. Then they began to run.
The Bombers of the 6th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry waited as near as they dared to the edge of the wood. It was a good ten minutes before the tank reached a point opposite their position, changed direction, circled to the right and began to blunder forward up Hop Trench. Smartly and on schedule, the Bombers jumped up and went forward behind it.
Lance-Corporal Len Lovell, No. 18692, A Coy., 6th Btn., King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
It was marvellous. That tank went on, rolling and bobbing and swaying in and out of shell-holes, climbing over trees as easy as kiss your hand! We were awed! We were delighted that it was ours. Up to now Jerry had supplied all the surprises. Now it was his turn to be surprised!
The tank waddled on with its guns blazing and we could see Jerry popping up and down, not knowing what to do, whether to stay or to run. We Bombers were sheltering behind the tank, peering round and anxious to let Jerry have our bombs. But we had no need of them. The Jerries waited until our tank was only a few yards away and then fled – or hoped to! The tank just shot them down and the machine-gun post, the gun itself, the dead and wounded who hadn’t been able to run, just disappeared. The tank went right over them. We would have danced for joy if it had been possible out there. It seemed so easy! Hop Trench was ‘kaput’ and in a very few minutes Ale Alley got the
same treatment. We were elated.
A Company Bombers were having a thoroughly good time. They were more than a little bit sorry to leave their glorious private victory and to rejoin the Battalion for the main attack. They got back just in time to line up in Delville Wood and just in time to miss the German bombardment which started up in retaliation. The tank was not so fortunate. A shell caught it fair and square and D1, the first tank across, became the Tanks’ first battle casualty.
But Hop and Ale which for so long had dominated the eastern edge of Delville Wood were, as Lovell had gloated, ‘kaput’ and the way had been cleared for the troops. Over at the Quadrilateral, in a similar operation, things had gone badly wrong.
They had planned to send three tanks in to subdue the Quadrilateral twenty minutes before the troops went over at Zero. One tank broke its tail on the way up. Another developed engine trouble. The third appeared but, unlike the solitary tank which so dramatically subdued the Germans’ resistance at Delville Wood, it made a tragic error. Lurching along beside what its crew took to be the Germans’ front-line trench, they sprayed it with machine-gun fire. The trench was packed with soldiers. The kill was enormous. But it was a British assembly trench and the soldiers were men of the 9th Norfolks waiting to go over the top. It was Captain Crosse who put a stop to that. He leapt out of the trench and rushed up to the tank whose guns were still blazing. It was difficult to make himself heard above its pandemonium, but furious gesticulation was enough. The tank swung away and was last seen turning to the north, moving parallel to Straight Trench. Possibly it did a little damage. Straight Trench was the German front line running between the Triangle and the Quadrilateral. But on the Quadrilateral itself not a shot had fallen. The tank moved off leaving it untouched and inviolable in its wake. When the infantry attacked it, the Germans had no difficulty in holding out.
But they were perhaps unnerved. In spite of their losses before the battle even started, the 1st Leicesters and the 9th Norfolks succeeded in rushing Straight Trench and rushed on over the crest beyond. And there they stuck in front of a belt of barbed wire, so formidable, so wide and so deadly that it looked to the astonished troops as if no single shell of the long preliminary bombardment had fallen within a mile of it. They lay all day in front of the wire, waiting for orders, for reinforcements, for the tanks to come up to pave the way for a fresh attack, and as they lay there they were shelled. They could not understand why no British guns were retaliating on their front. But the reason was simple. They were lying in a ‘lane’ in the barrage. The tanks should have been forging ahead. The artillery had been ordered to leave wide gaps in the supporting barrage rather than run the risk of destroying them or holding up their triumphal progress. But, on the 6th Division Front, no tanks came.
If the Guards Division had waited for their tanks to appear they would never have advanced at all. They had been allotted no less than ten of them, for their task was the hardest of all. They were to make straight for Lesboeufs and Morval – but the Triangle, twin fortress to the Quadrilateral, stood slap in their path. Three of the tanks were to help them subdue it. But, when Zero came, the Guards were on their own. And on their own they advanced.
Private Charles Coles, No. 12245, 4 Platoon, 1st Coy., 1st Btn., Coldstream Guards
We manned the parapets at Zero Hour waiting to go over and waiting for the tank. We heard the chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk. Then silence. The wretched tank never came. There was split-second timing. We couldn’t wait for it, so we had to go over the top. We got cut to pieces. Eventually the tank got going and went over past us. The Germans ran for their lives – couldn’t make out what was firing at them. The tank did what it was supposed to have done, but too late! We lost hundreds and hundreds of men. Well, what was left of our three battalions of Coldstreams, didn’t know what to do. We were all over the place in shell-holes and bits of trenchline, anywhere there was cover. Then Colonel Campbell of the 3rd Battalion Coldstreams got up on the trench and he’d got a hunting horn. He stood right up there in full view and he blew the hunting horn and got us together. He stood on top of the trench. The Germans was firing everything at us! But they say God was in the trenches. If ever God was in the trenches He was there then. Colonel Campbell won the Victoria Cross. He was only yards away from me. I saw that VC won. If ever a man deserved it, that man was Colonel Campbell.
The Guards had lost direction. Confused by the creeping barrage (which was actually intended for the adjacent 14th Division) they had strayed to their left and come under enfilade attack from Pint Trench. It was to knock out this danger that Colonel Campbell had rallied the scattered troops.
Private John Bouch, No. 11776, 1st Btn., Coldstream Guards
They were firing and slinging these bombs at us. We had to knock them out and we didn’t know where we were really. You’re firing at one and firing at another as you run forward and, what with getting on and getting a Lewis-gun Section up to deal with them, you didn’t think of anything else. We made a mistake there, because we went off slightly to the left, following this group of Germans. We took prisoners. A lot of them threw up their hands and came forward and the rest of them started to run back and we followed them, rather to the left, when the main attack had gone to the right – and we followed them a long way.
The right flank of the Grenadier Guards attacking the Triangle alone and unsupported were not worried that they were not in touch with the Coldstreams who should have been advancing ahead of them. They assumed that, having captured their objective, the Coldstreams had pressed on and that all the Grenadiers would have to do was to occupy and consolidate the captured position. In fact the Grenadiers were advancing into a gap in the line. The Germans were still in possession of the ‘captured’ strongpoint.
But, by eleven o’clock, the Triangle had been subdued. The Guards paid a high price for it. Of the officers and men who had gone into action, two-thirds were killed or wounded or missing.
Some of the ‘missing’ who had wandered to their left were still trespassing in the sector of the 14th Division whose fortunes too had been mixed.
Lance-Corporal Len Lovell, No. 18692, A Coy., 6th Btn., King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
We Bombers moved off with the first line and we got to within ten or fifteen yards of Jerry’s position. I had a Mills bomb ready in my hand. I pulled the pin out and I was holding down the lever ready to throw it when a Jerry seemed just to pop up out of a hole and let fly. I was struck in the left forearm below the elbow and it spun me round like a top. I fell into a shell-hole with two other fellows. One of them had half his left ear gone and he was drenched in blood, and he was yelling and screaming, hanging on to his ear with blood pouring through his fingers. The other chap had been hit in the right arm. By some miracle I was still clutching my bomb in my right hand – without the pin of course. My big problem was how to get rid of the bomb. My hand and fingers were getting stiff. I couldn’t hold on to it for much longer and if I let go of the lever it would explode right away. Besides we knew we must get away quick before Jerry’s barrage began to fall behind us to keep our reserves from coming up. I took the risk of standing up to make sure that there was no one else in holes behind us. Then I waved at my two chums to keep low and threw the bomb away into another shell-hole, praying for the best.
We shed our equipment, and took a drink of water out of our bottles. You could hardly make yourself heard above the din but I yelled to the other two that it was time we were off – or else! We hopped in and out of shell-craters as best we could and after a lot of effort we managed to get to the dressing station at Bernafay Wood corner. We thought we should be about the first. But there were hundreds there before us. We joined the queue and there were so many of us that when it came to my turn to reach the doctor there were no splints left. He had to make do with corrugated cardboard and a sling.
It was some hours before Ted Gale reached the same dressing station. His wound was worse than Lovell’s and it took a long, long
time to walk, to stagger and even, for part of the way, to crawl the best part of two miles to the dressing station at Bernafay Wood. He was losing blood and was half-fainting before he had gone halfway. When he saw the tank parked by the roadside Ted wondered, in his light-headed state, if he might already be delirious. The crew was standing in the roadway and he recognized – or thought he did – an old chum from Chichester. He hadn’t seen George Hopkins since their schooldays; he was hardly certain if he was seeing him now, but he took a chance and hailed him with a yell that emerged as a croak. George came running and caught Ted just as he passed out. When he came to he was lying on a stretcher outside the dressing station. There was no sign of the tank. He was still not quite sure that it had not been a dream. But there was nothing dreamlike about the tank he had seen earlier in the morning as his Battalion lay waiting to go over the top in the second wave.
It was one of three that should have led the advance. One had broken down on the way. Another was late. Only D3 arrived – but it was enough.
Corporal E. Gale, No. 3774, D Coy., 7th Btn., The Rifle Brigade, 41st Brigade, 14th Division
The whole Brigade, that’s between three and four thousand men, went over on part of the front that would normally have been a one battalion front – so you can imagine how crowded we were. Our job was to take the second line, so we were lying back a bit from the trenches, among the stumps in Delville Wood, ready to go forward. I was keeping a close eye on all this new lot in my platoon, because they were going across for the first time.
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