So much for George Macdonald and his fellow officers, but what of the men who made up the other seven-eighths of each tank crew? These were the so-called ‘other ranks’, the private soldiers (often referred to as ‘gunners’ in the Tank Corps, though it came to the same thing), and non-commissioned officers such as sergeants, corporals and lance-corporals who were – and remain – the backbone of the British Army.
This is a frustrating area, since there are very few records listing the crew of an individual tank, apart from in the very first actions of September 1916 when the adjutant of D Company jotted their names down in his notebook. Other than this, a combination of chance and careful research sometimes enables us to link a man to a particular tank, and in this way we can name with certainty four members of Deborah’s crew in November 1917. While we cannot be sure they were the same men who fought with D51 in the Third Battle of Ypres in August 1917, this is entirely plausible, bearing in mind that strenuous efforts were made to keep the same crews together so they could become an efficient fighting unit.
In the words of Colonel Baker-Carr, commander of 1st Tank Brigade which included D Battalion:
The members of a tank crew were the most highly and most widely trained men in the British Army. Every man was a skilled machine-gunner; most of them were trained six-pounder gunners; most were fully competent drivers; most, if not all, were able to read a map and steer by compass; every single man was, to a greater or lesser degree, a mechanic.
It took many, many months to train a man to be a competent member of a crew, even from the theoretical standpoint. Actual experience in battle was further needed before he could be regarded as a real, reliable tank man.
Each tank crew was a definite, permanent entity and was encouraged to regard itself as such. Tremendous rivalry existed between crews, with the happiest results to efficiency. If, through casualties in action, sickness, promotion, or any other cause, a tank crew lost one or more of its members, some little time elapsed before that crew regained its previous standard of efficiency and the mutual confidence which was essential for its welfare.1
One driver experienced this when he joined the Tank Corps: ‘Each tank crew had become one of many little families; they ate, drank, worked, and slept together around their armoured steed, the absolute product of this great mechanical War. Under the conditions which existed, the family-like character of these crews, as regarded their everyday relationships, had no parallel in the whole British Army.’2
So where were these men from, and how did they come to be thrown together in this extraordinary new force? The answer, as with the officers, was that they were from all over Britain and Ireland, and sometimes from further afield, and had previously served with a wide range of units, and in the early days (at least) they had volunteered to join the tanks out of a varied mixture of ambition, curiosity, disillusionment and hope.
The so-called Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps had lofty principles for recruitment, as set out in an early report: ‘The physical and educational qualifications for the Heavy Branch were to comprise good muscular development, a high standard of intelligence and good eyesight as essentials, but short stature and such defects as flat foot or varicose veins were not of themselves to [be] a bar of selection. Mechanical knowledge or aptitude was desirable, but not indispensable.’3 However, the expansion of the unit meant a more rough-and-ready approach was often taken, and men were drafted in from other units without much choice in the matter. One of D Battalion’s gunners, Private Jason Addy, told how he was undergoing infantry training when the smallest men in his unit were selected, the only additional criterion being whether they knew anything about motorbikes.4
Major William Watson, who we met when his tanks were being unloaded in Oosthoek Wood, described the situation when he took command of No. 11 Company:
The men were of three classes. First came the “Old Tankers,” those who had been trained with the original companies. They had been drawn for the most part from the A.S.C.: M.T. [this was the Mechanical Transport section of the Army Service Corps, to which George Macdonald had belonged]. Some had been once or twice in action; some had not. They were excellent tank mechanists. Then came the motor machine gunners – smart fellows, without much experience of active operations. The vast majority of officers and men were volunteers from the infantry – disciplined fighting men.5
A more personal perspective was given by Sergeant Harold Aylmer Littledale, who was a tank driver in E Battalion, the sister unit of D Battalion:
We came from the infantry, from the cavalry, from the artillery, from the Machine-Gun Corps, the Motor-Machine guns, the Flying Corps, the Army Service Corps, and even from the navy … The spirit of adventure called most of us to the Tanks. This was not because we were any braver than our comrades-in-arms, but because our natures demanded a change to new conditions; for we were of that kind whose natures always demanded a change. And so the call for volunteers found us ready, and when the word of acceptance came, our hearts beat quickly and our hopes rose high; for we were tired of the monotony of the trenches and the monotony of the guns.6
As his literary style suggests, Sergeant Littledale’s own background was more varied than most, having been born in India where his father – who was a professor of English Literature – helped to establish the system of primary education. The family returned to South Wales, but Harold’s own demand for change soon manifested itself, and at the age of seventeen he headed to Canada and then the USA where he became a journalist. While working for the New York Evening Post he had himself imprisoned to investigate the state of New Jersey’s gaols – a story for which he became one of the first recipients of the Pulitzer Prize. He returned from the USA to fight, serving in the infantry before transferring to the Tank Corps in September 1917.7
Winning the Pulitzer Prize was hardly a standard qualification for a tank driver, but although Sergeant Littledale’s background was unusual by any standards, it does illustrate the tremendous range of experience found among the crews. It is noteworthy that Second Lieutenant Wilfred Bion, who was critical of many of the officers in E Battalion (including himself), was full of admiration for his men. He wrote of the unit before it left England: ‘The officers were, I thought, patchy. There were good ones there, and more came out to the front when we got to France. The others were largely men who had seen a good deal of fighting and had gone into tanks to avoid it. Later, when the tanks got into action, their low morale etc. let them down, and they were gradually weeded out … The men were a very fine lot indeed. We got a lot of training, and a good deal was expected of us.’8 (However, he later withdrew the comment that some officers wanted to avoid fighting: ‘I am ashamed and would like to cross it out.’9)
The fact was that the inside of a tank was a democratic place, and the discomforts and dangers were the same for the officer in command – who had often originally served in the ranks – and for his crewmen, a number of whom went on to be commissioned as officers. The crew had to operate as a close-knit team, with the survival of each depending on the courage and vigilance of his comrades, or to quote Second Lieutenant Horace Birks: ‘The crews fought each action as a separate entity, relying on the mechanical efficiency of the machine and their own ready wits and stout hearts.’10 It was an overwhelming responsibility, and not everyone was capable of it; but for those who were, the experience of going into action together had an intensity that nothing in their lives would ever equal again.
* * *
So, what can we learn about the individual crewmen who we glimpsed at work on their tank, D51, during our clandestine visit to Oosthoek Wood? Firstly, we should expect to find among them a young man with a clear, radiant face whose tunic (assuming he was not wearing overalls) bore the blue and crimson ribbon of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, showing that despite his air of angelic innocence, he had already been decorated for bravery in battle. This was Gunner George Charles Foot, and although he was not yet twenty, he was a veteran of the very first tank action and therefore one of the ‘Old Tankers’ referred to by Major Watson.
George Foot had been born in the thriving North London suburb of Camden, which happened to be the world centre of piano-making, and grew up surrounded by music, for his father was a clerk and then commercial traveller with a firm of musical instrument makers, and later commercial manager of Hawkes & Son, one of the precursors of Boosey & Hawkes.11 This was an era when a hardworking family could rise up the social scale through thrift and enterprise, and George’s parents were soon living in a more salubrious North London suburb, with a second home, idyllically called ‘The Roses’, in the Buckinghamshire village of Great Missenden – which was connected to the capital by the Metropolitan Railway, and becoming increasingly popular with Londoners seeking to escape the cacophony of city life.
All the signs were that George would follow his father into the music business, as his younger brother did later, but the harmony of their pre-war existence was about to be shattered, and instead he travelled to the nearby town of Aylesbury to enlist in February 1916. A number of army documents indicate he used the surname ‘Foote’, a slightly more refined spelling which hints at some social aspirations. He was posted initially to the Welsh Regiment, which may seem strange given his background, but most units were now searching far and wide for recruits, and the so-called ‘Pals’ Battalions consisting of men who had grown up and joined up together were both a rare breed and an endangered species. Like a number of his future comrades in the Tank Corps, George got his first taste of military life as a despatch-rider, carrying messages from one headquarters to another by motorcycle. It was a responsible and initially exciting role that gave an insight into the world of command, and a knowledge of the internal combustion engine that would stand him in good stead when he made his next move. Young men and motorcycles are often a dangerous combination, and George’s family recall he had a wild streak, apparently earning the nickname ‘the mad bugger of the Welsh Regiment’.12 Perhaps this explains why, in May 1916, he answered the call for volunteers to join a new and secret unit that promised even greater excitement, and so became one of the first members of the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps.13
George was with the unit at the very start, before they had even seen a tank or knew very clearly what it was, and then when the first prototype reached them in June. He shared the glorious days when consignments of Mark I machines, shrouded in secrecy, were delivered by rail from factories in Lincoln and Oldbury (in the West Midlands) to the country estate near Thetford, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, which had been sealed off for their training.
Finally, the time came for the new arm to receive its baptism of fire, and George’s D Company was one of the first units to cross to France in August and early September 1916. The Allied push on the Somme, which had begun with such high hopes on 1 July, had ground to a halt, and Sir Douglas Haig believed his new secret weapon could prove a decisive factor in the latest phase of the offensive, known as the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. There was an argument that the British should not show their hand until more tanks were available, but such was the urgency of the hour that the first twenty-five tanks from C and D Companies made their way into action on 15 September 1916.
The story of that battle has been told many times, but suffice to say that it demonstrated both the potential and the limitations of the new weapon, and although it delivered a formidable propaganda coup, the physical gains that resulted were disappointing. Too many of the tanks suffered from mechanical failure, or became inextricably bogged down, or were knocked out by artillery fire, to provide much more than a moral benefit to the attacking infantry, though in a few cases they were able to provide valuable support and even terrify the defenders into submission.
For George Foot, after so much preparation and anticipation, the day ended in anti-climax. The trepidation of his tank commander before the attack was recorded by the war correspondent Philip Gibbs, who did not name him but recalled meeting ‘a tiny fellow like a jockey who took me on one side and said, “I want you to do me a favour,” and then scribbled down his mother’s address and asked me to write to her if “anything” happened to him.’ Gibbs continued: ‘He and other tank officers were anxious. They had not complete confidence in the steering and control of their engines. It was a difficult and clumsy kind of gear which was apt to break down at a critical moment, as I saw when I rode in one on their field of manoeuvre. These first tanks were only experimental, and the tail arrangement was very weak.’14
George’s tank – the commander of which was just over five feet tall – was ordered to advance through what had once been High Wood, now devastated after months of fighting, but in the event they only managed a few hundred yards before becoming trapped among the ‘broken tree-stumps and deeply-pitted ground’.15 This was well short of the British front line, let alone the German trenches they were supposed to attack. A letter written in 1971 by the grandson of another officer contains a shocking claim about the commander of George’s tank, which had become ‘stuck … at the start’: ‘Everyone believed he had ditched his tank by putting cotton wool in the oil – pieces of string being found in the oil-feed.’ As a parting shot, the writer added: ‘After the war [my grandfather] had to go from Ahmednuggar to Poona where he was introduced to [him] as having commanded a tank battalion – having never commanded a section!’16
There is no way of establishing the facts about this alleged sabotage, but the human frailties of certain officers were recognized by Second Lieutenant Horace Birks, who joined D Battalion nearly a year later and whose vivid recollections opened this book. ‘There were people who were sort of keen on getting there, and people who were not so keen. And the not so keen had all sorts of mechanical failures and so on. The people who were keen managed to get there. Of course, there were people who were so frightened, like myself, one didn’t know what to do.’17
It is worth noting that the tank accompanying George’s managed to go only a few hundred yards further before it also became stuck in a British trench, the disorientated crew then opening fire in the belief that they had reached the German lines, killing a number of British soldiers.18 Despite this the tank commander, Lieutenant Frederick Robinson, was awarded the Military Cross for having ‘fought his tank with great gallantry’ and then working for fourteen hours to dig it out under heavy fire.19
The fact was that all too many tanks became ditched on that first day of battle, and on the days that followed. Two other men who would play a prominent role in the story of Deborah also went into action on 15 September, only to meet similar setbacks. Lieutenant Alfred Enoch was in command of D7, one of ten tanks that set out to attack the strongly-held German positions around the ruined village of Flers. No fewer than half of the group foundered early on, including D7 which became ditched before it had even reached the start-line. As frantic efforts were made to extricate the tank, its engine developed ‘a bad knock’ and eventually had to be recovered by the ASC.20
The experience was a frustrating one for Lieutenant Enoch, a twenty-five year-old Midlander whose war had so far been confined to defending Tyneside against possible invasion as a member of a reserve infantry battalion. He now took charge of another tank which had been hit by a shell and whose commander was suffering from shell shock. All that remained was to bring it back safely, but at least Alfred Enoch had emerged unscathed, and even gained confidence from his initial experience of combat. He had previously been self-conscious about his humble origins compared to other officers he encountered, but his son Russell described how ‘there was a very heavy bombardment, and one of these young men broke down and started to scream and scream. My father suddenly realized “I’m as good as any of them”, and that gave him some encouragement.’21
Enoch’s section commander was his friend Captain Graeme Nixon, who was only twenty-one but had already survived several months as an infantry officer in Gallipoli. Four of the six tanks in his section were to attack to the west of Flers, including D12 which he commanded, supporting infantry from New Zealand who had also been blooded at Gallipoli.22 On this front the tanks were relatively effective, particularly D11 Die Hard commanded by Second Lieutenant Herbert Pearsall, and the New Zealanders recorded that two of them ‘did excellent work and were a great help to the infantry and had a very demoralising effect upon the enemy who in several cases ran like sheep before them.’23
Graeme Nixon was less personally successful, since D12 reached the village but was then hit by a shell which disabled the twin-wheeled steering mechanism at the rear, identified as a source of potential weakness by George Foot’s commander, among others. As the tank withdrew it became ditched, before being hit again and set on fire while the crew were trying to dig it out. Nixon returned minus his tank, and minus one crewman who they lost trace of while escaping over the devastated battlefield.24
It was left to another tank on the same front – D17 Dinnaken, commanded by Lieutenant Stuart Hastie – to penetrate the village, observed by an airman whose report was seized on by an ecstatic press: ‘A Tank is walking up the High Street of Flers with the British Army cheering behind.’25 The reports did not mention that Dinnaken was later hit by a shell and had to be abandoned, though fortunately without serious injury to the crew. In fact, as the day drew to a close, there were few who could have foretold that tanks would one day become a decisive weapon of war. Although we have focused on their role here, they made a relatively small contribution to the battle and the official verdict was that they had achieved ‘very limited success’ in their first action.26
Despite their impregnable appearance, their many vulnerabilities had also been exposed. Chief among these was the hazard of ditching or bellying in the broken ground, which left the infantry unsupported and the crewmen in mortal danger as they tried to dig out their machines, or abandoned them and fled on foot. Not far behind came the risk of a direct hit by an artillery shell, whether deliberately aimed or falling by chance, against which their steel walls gave little protection – a danger that was driven home the next day when three surviving tanks pressed forward their attack on the far side of Flers, or what remained of it. All of them were knocked out, with the worst fate reserved for the tank commanded by Second Lieutenant Gordon Court which was ‘absolutely blown to bits’, killing the entire crew of eight.27 Even if they avoided disaster on this scale, the tank crews were still vulnerable to injury from shell splinters or bullets that penetrated cracks or loopholes in the armour, or temporarily blinded them by shattering the glass prisms that gave limited visibility, while one man was even injured by a German soldier who crept up and shot him through a loophole.28 The infantry had also discovered that a tank was at best an unreliable friend, and could turn out to be a veritable enemy since it attracted artillery and small-arms fire from all over the battlefield.
No-one could tell at this stage whether tanks would turn out to be a daring but unsuccessful experiment, though some who recognized their potential were already beginning the gradual learning process that would lead to improvements in their design and performance, and to more effective tactics for co-operation with infantry and artillery. The Germans, after the initial shock of their first encounter, were also learning, and would soon possess more effective anti-tank weapons, although it would take two decades to demonstrate that they had absorbed the most fundamental lesson of all: that the tank, if used appropriately, had the potential to win wars.
Meanwhile, for men such as George Foot, Alfred Enoch and Graeme Nixon, their fate was now tied to the tanks for good or ill, and they were numbered among the ‘Old Tankers’ even though none of them was older than twenty-five. During the years to come they would face even greater dangers, and as we shall see, their lives would eventually be bound together through a tank called Deborah.