When the tank crews awoke on 19 November they were filled with a mixture of excitement and dread, knowing the attack would take place early the next morning, and they would have little if any sleep before then.
In the morning, Major R.O.C. Ward called a parade and addressed the members of his company. His words were recorded by Second Lieutenant Macintosh:
He reminded them of their last attack and the many obstacles they had encountered – bad ground, bad weather, bad luck. Now was their chance to show that as in difficult circumstances they could stolidly fight against their difficulties, so when fortune at last turned they could make the most of a good opportunity. Once again [No. 12] Company had been chosen for the task which demanded enterprise and staying power; for, whereas the other companies had definite objectives, they who formed the second wave were first to overcome a series of definite obstacles, and were then to push on with an unlimited objective. He had often before spoken of ‘pooping off into the blue’; at last there was nothing to prevent their doing so. The whole responsibility of the attack had been deliberately thrown on the Tank Corps; it was their supreme opportunity. England expected that every tank would do its damndest.1
Map 6 shows the sector attacked by 51st (Highland) Division, with D and E Battalions of the Tank Corps, on 20 November 1917.
On the left-hand side, the starting positions of D Battalion and the units of 153rd Infantry Brigade are shown, based on a detailed map in the brigade’s War Diary. This includes the six wire-crushing tanks which led the advance, followed by the first-wave tanks of Nos. 10 and 11 Companies. Further back are the second-wave tanks of No. 12 Company, including D51 Deborah.
No similar map has been found for E Battalion and 152nd Infantry Brigade on the right-hand side, so their general presumed locations are shown.
The map shows how the leading troops and tanks formed up in front of the British front line before moving across No Man’s Land to take the German outposts located there, and then attacking the first main system of trenches. Here a number of tanks broke down or became ditched, while two from E Battalion were knocked out by artillery early in the battle (approximate positions only are given for E Battalion tanks).
Ahead lay the broad valley known as the Grand Ravine, beyond which the ridge rises gradually towards Flesquières. The second wave of tanks and infantry advanced up this slope, crossing the railway embankment before attacking the second system of trenches skirting the village.
The German artillery batteries massed on the reverse slope of the Flesquières ridge are shown, though the available maps are sketchy and must be treated with caution. Map 6b shows the disposition of German forces, while Map 6c shows the plan for the British artillery bombardment which effectively laid down the timetable for the attack.
Contour lines have been omitted from the map for clarity, but these are shown on Map 6a, while Map 6d gives an overview of the full offensive mounted on 20 November. See Map 7 for a detailed view of the next phase of the attack on Flesquières. A full order of battle is given in Appendices B and C.
The last sentence was almost certainly not uttered by Major Ward, as it was a widely reported but inaccurate summary of the special order issued by Brigadier-General Elles to the Tank Corps before the battle.2 But ‘Tosh’ probably felt that even if R.O.C. Ward had not said it, he would have wanted to.
After they had been dismissed, Frank Heap and his brother officers began preparing themselves for action, along the lines noted by ‘Tosh’: ‘Following his invariable rule, he destroyed all unnecessary papers, and packed his valise ready to go down the line in case of need. Having written a couple of field postcards and a letter, he cleaned and loaded his revolver, arranged his maps, packed his haversack with shaving-kit and money in case he should be wounded, filled his flask and cigarette-case, inspected his field-dressing, gave his servant instructions, and went into lunch.’3
For everyone in Havrincourt Wood, 19 November was a day of ‘almost unbearable suspense’. They were aware that some men had been captured the night before, but could only hope they knew nothing, or had revealed nothing. Major Watson was caught up in the tension: ‘We did not know what the Germans had discovered from their prisoners. We could not believe that the attack could be really a surprise. Perhaps the enemy, unknown to us, had concentrated sufficient guns to blow us to pieces. We looked up for the German aeroplanes, which surely would fly low over the wood and discover its contents. Incredibly, nothing happened. The morning passed and the afternoon – a day was never so long …’4
But for the crew of Deborah, the time passed in a blur as they made their final preparations, ready to leave the shelter of the wood and begin the slow move forward to their starting positions as soon as dusk fell. Before then they had to go over their tank methodically inspecting every tiny detail, checking the controls were working smoothly, stripping and cleaning the six Lewis guns, searching through the drums of ammunition looking for any speck of grit which might cause a blockage, and loading up supplies of petrol and water.
At 3 p.m. they had to pick up their carrier pigeons from a drop-off point at the edge of the wood. Once the tanks had gone into action, these fragile creatures were the most reliable means of communicating with the staff who were directing operations, though it was strictly a one-way traffic. The tank crew would write a message on a tiny scrap of paper and attach it to the pigeon’s leg, hoping it would fly more than ten miles (or nearly twenty kilometres) back to its loft in Bapaume, from where the message would be telephoned to the headquarters of IV Corps. This was considerably more effective than the ‘makeshift and exceedingly clumsy’ wireless station which was to be carried forward in one of E Battalion’s tanks and then set up in the Grand Ravine, if all went well.5
When all the preparations were completed, Frank Heap would have addressed his crew, running through the details of the operation with them once again, and doing his best to inspire them as he had done so often when his team was about to run onto the rugby or hockey pitch. There was a special occasion to be marked, since it was Gunner Joseph Cheverton’s twentieth birthday the next day, but as Frank probably remarked, the celebrations would have to wait until they had given a hell of a birthday present to the Boche. In the meantime no doubt Joe received greetings from his family in Cambridge, and one scented card which he kept to read in private, and about which he would have received much teasing from the others. After that, Frank dismissed the crew to their final meal before action, and everyone settled down to wait for the dusk.
Earlier in the day, Second Lieutenant Horace Birks had noticed some unusual activity in the wood: ‘A table was set up quite near us. [We] wondered what on earth was happening, and it was the brigade padre, Talbot … he started communion.’ No gathering of more than ten men was permitted (the major’s parade presumably being an exception), so the Reverend Neville Talbot, who was the Fifth Army’s Assistant Chaplain-General, held one small service after another: ‘The people took communion throughout the day, and he ran the whole day with [ten] people. It was quite astonishing.’6
Perhaps the Reverend Talbot used as his text a Biblical prophecy which he quoted in his book on religion at the Front, and which with God’s help would come to pass for the Germans the next morning. Its subject was the day of reckoning: ‘And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day … And men shall go … into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of the Lord and from the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake mightily the earth.’7
* * *
At 9.30 that evening the men paraded by sections, and a few minutes were spent giving them last-minute instructions. It was the final opportunity for Captain Graeme Nixon to address the crews of his three tanks, and after he had wished them luck they climbed aboard their machines, and fifteen minutes later they began crawling out of the wood.8
They were moving at last, but it was a painfully slow process. There were still eight-and-a-half hours to go before zero, and they had less than two miles (or three kilometres) to go to their jumping-off point, but the tanks had to clear the wood as soon as possible so that batteries of field guns could move into their pre-prepared positions. It was also vital to avoid making any noise that might alert the enemy, and the orders issued by Lieutenant Gerald Edwards to his crew in D34 Diallance stressed: ‘Tanks to go at minimum pace. Throttle down as slowly as possible. Absolutely no talking in the tanks. No steering by brakes.’9 The final point was vital to avoid revving the engine, but according to his grandson Brigadier Ben Edwards (a modern-day tank commander), it meant that steering would be a laborious process and the journey would be ‘tedious in the extreme’.
The tanks of No. 11 Company led the way, followed by No. 10 Company,10 and Major Watson described how ‘At 8.45 P.M. my tanks began to move cautiously out of the wood and formed into column. At 9.30 P.M., with engines barely turning over, they glided imperceptibly and almost without noise towards the trenches. Standing in front of my own tanks, I could not hear them at two hundred yards.’11
As Deborah and the other tanks of No. 12 Company swung into line behind, Second Lieutenant Macintosh looked back the way they had come:
In this supreme hour of secrecy, not the glimmer of a torch might be shown, and tank commanders must strain their eyes in the dark and see as best they might. But in front of every tank was a glowing point of light – every pilot was smoking, and with his cigarette could signal to his crew. The irresistibly animal appearance of the tanks was greatly heightened as they loomed ghostly out of the darkness …
After half an hour’s slow running, the tanks swung across a road. Like every other road on that fateful night, it was a solid mass of slow-moving traffic. The thousands of empty gun-emplacements would not still be empty at zero! As they went forward the night was stealthily alive with chinks of harness and rumble of wheels, and everywhere they passed groups of men busy with mysterious activities. Occasionally a star-shell floated in the distant air, its light revealing that the country was full of men and horses; then darkness closed down again, and only their stealthy noises betrayed their presence.12
The infantry were also moving up, as the Tank Corps staff officer Captain Evan Charteris discovered when he drove to the 1st Tank Brigade wireless station near Metz-en-Couture, a few miles behind the front line.
When we got back to the motor, we could hear the tramp of men descending the road we had just passed over. Presently a section of the night seemed to be advancing slowly towards us, an indistinguishable mass of the darkness; they came at a pace which just on the active side of standing still. As they passed us we learned that they were a Highland battalion, part of the 51st Division … None of them spoke, and their silence, the weight and slowness of their tread, and the solemnity of their passing by, bore such an implication of fate, and were shrouded with so much mystery by the night, that one felt as if one were hailing men no longer of this world.13
* * *
Meanwhile, Deborah and the other tanks of D Battalion continued their laborious progress, following white tapes laid by the reconnaissance officers to guide them towards the front line. The occasional chatter of machine guns now sounded very close in the darkness as they picked their way across the British support trenches, with infantry advancing in the open around them.
Some time after midnight, Major William Watson met up with D Battalion’s commander, Lieutenant-Colonel William Kyngdon, and together they paid a final visit to the headquarters of the infantry battalions they were working with. Watson observed that ‘the trenches were packed with Highlanders, and it was with difficulty that we made our way through them’.14 After this Kyngdon went off to the infantry brigade headquarters in Trescault, where he would await the start of the attack.15
Some time between 4.30 and 5.30 am, the silence was shattered by a sudden bombardment away to their left, in the direction of Havrincourt.16 Second Lieutenant Macintosh described how ‘trench-mortars barked viciously, machine-guns took up the affray, and five-nines might be heard whining across, to crump methodically in the little village away to the left. What did it mean? Had the Boche heard? Did he suspect, or was it merely a case of nerves?’17 The shelling nearly caused disaster for 5th Bn Gordon Highlanders, one of the units attacking with D Battalion. Their commander told how the bombardment ‘caught many of our fellows as they were waiting in the open at the starting-point. I feared … this might seriously affect the whole scheme, as we had a number killed and wounded. Luckily the bombardment stopped as quickly as it had begun, and the situation – as far we were concerned – was saved. Whether this little attention had been due to suspicions which their captures of the night before had aroused, or whether it was merely an ordinary “strafe” may never be explained.’18 In fact the Germans were very much on the alert after the warning of an impending attack, and the bombardment was their response to a report that barbed wire was being cut in preparation for the expected raid on Havrincourt. They now assumed that any threat had been dealt with, and the attackers were able to resume their vigil and await the coming of dawn.
Also waiting anxiously were the crews of D Battalion, who had now reached their starting positions in No Man’s Land. Out in front were the six wire-crushing tanks from No. 11 Company which would lead the advance, while 150 yards behind them the remaining eighteen or so tanks of Nos. 10 and 11 Companies were drawn up in a long line abreast, each with their accompanying groups of infantry. Further back, just behind the British front line, were the twelve tanks of No. 12 Company including Deborah, ready to go forward in the second wave half-an-hour after zero.19
Unseen on either side of them in the mist and darkness, a continuous wall of men and machines extended for six miles (or ten kilometres) along the entire British front – a total of 378 fighting tanks, with tens of thousands of infantrymen behind them and cavalrymen moving into position further back, and 1,000 guns hidden in the woods and valleys, and the aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps preparing to take off from their airfields at the first glimmer of dawn. Incredible though it seems, this whole vast army had been brought into position without the enemy having the slightest warning, beyond what they had gleaned from their prisoners.
In the sector to be attacked by D Battalion, Major Watson described the scene ten minutes before zero hour: ‘At 6.10 A.M. the tanks were in their allotted positions, clearly marked out by tapes which Jumbo had laid earlier in the night … I was standing on the parados of a trench. The movement at my feet had ceased. The Highlanders were ready with fixed bayonets. Not a gun was firing, but there was a curious murmur in the air. To right of me and to left of me in the dim light were tanks – tanks lined up in front of the wire, tanks swinging into position, and one or two belated tanks climbing over the trenches.’20 For once the weather was on their side, and a thin mist concealed the attackers from view as night began to fade to the palest grey.
For some of the tank crews, exhaustion now overcame the tension as the minutes ticked past. This was the case with Lieutenant Gerald Edwards in one of the wire-crushing tanks, D34 Diallance: ‘I sat in the tank with my feet on the engine to keep them warm and had a nap.’21 It was the same for Second Lieutenant Fred Dawson in E45 Elles II, named after the Tank Corps commander: ‘“Wake up, sir” – my sergeant gave me a vigorous shake, and as consciousness slowly returned, I realised that I had been sleeping on the metal floor of the tank, that we were ten yards behind our front line, and due to attack in about 15 minutes … With the help of a generous “tot” of rum, we crossed our front line to take up position with “tails up.” Everything was dead quiet.’22
One of the infantry units supporting them, the 8th Bn Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, also found solace in army rum, or more likely their own native whisky, as they prepared to leave the sandbagged safety of their trenches: ‘Just about six o’clock, we of company headquarters finished the last of our “iron ration” in a mutual toast to “Over the bags, and the best of luck.” That done, we earnestly scanned our watches.’23
Further back, Frank Heap and the officers of No. 12 Company gathered round their commander, Major R.O.C. Ward, to await zero hour, as described by Second Lieutenant Macintosh:
It is a truism that the best way to overcome nervousness is to make a joke of it … every one there, from long experience, knew that his companions were experiencing the same symptoms, and was much too sure of himself to suppose that they indicated fear. But set the least imaginative of men in their position, a few yards from an enemy with whom in five minutes he will be engaged in a desperate struggle for life, and whether he be brave man or coward … he must feel some warning of overstrung nerves. Consequently as the officers sat round the rim of a shell-hole, they busied themselves with humorous descriptions of their own feelings, interspersed with gleeful pictures of the state of unpreparedness of the enemy, and the awful surprise which awaited him.
So passed ten minutes. It was now Z-10, and rising with one accord, they went forward beyond the tanks and peered into No Man’s Land. Somewhere ahead in battle array, [No. 10 and 11] Company awaited the signal which for them would be the beginning of the attack. In the grey dawn, the further ridge was just visible, but no tanks or infantry could be distinguished. Slowly, in ticks which might have been heart-beats, the seconds passed; five minutes to go, four minutes, three minutes, two minutes – a long breath.
‘Now for it,’ cried the Major.
With the words, as at some dread command, the silence was rent with stupendous clamour, as up and down the line for miles thousands of guns belched flame.24
