Lieutenant Reginald Charles Legge
D COMPANY, HEAVY BRANCH MACHINE GUN CORPS
THE FACE OF A MODERN battlefield would change forever on 15th September 1916. Caterpillar tractors had been used to shift heavy artillery pieces since 1908 in the British Army. The idea of a tank had been around before the onset of the Great War and, as ever, the Royal Engineers would be instrumental in its innovation. A determined major named Swinton had been trying to get the concept of a ‘machine gun destroyer’ off the ground since 1914. With Winston Churchill also pushing something similar in the Navy, research began, but ground to a halt when results were not encouraging. By the summer of 1915, though, the idea had reached exalted ears and Swinton now began to garner attention from GHQ and the War Office. By February 1916, his brainchild was undergoing secret trials at Hatfield in front of Kitchener and high ranking politicians. A hundred of the prototype were ordered and in May the Heavy Branch Machine Guns Corps came into being, intended to comprise six companies of twenty-five tanks with twenty-eight officers and 255 men allotted to each. All of this was unknown to the enemy, for it had occurred under a shroud of secrecy: ‘one of the most remarkable exhibitions of patriotic restraint in the whole course of the war.’
Haig had been kept fully informed about this new-fangled invention. He was ‘eager to employ them as soon as a sufficient number were ready’. To waste the element of surprise would have been criminal by introducing them one or two at a time, so it was in September 1916 that they would make their debut. It was the stuff of which dreams were made: an armoured vehicle that could withstand small arms fire or red hot splinters from shells; armed with two mobile 6-pounder guns and several travelling machine guns and capable of simply rolling over trenches, through wire entanglements, or crashing through walls. And what would it be able to do to the enemy machine-gun nests from which advancing men were torn apart? There would also be the effect on morale. This was a machine that the enemy did not even know existed that would amble towards them breathing fire and crushing all in its path. Rawlinson and Gough were given notes on tactics to decide how to use the tanks when they were making their battle plans for September. They were told the strength of them lay in getting tanks close to the enemy and employing them in conjunction with the infantry. They were told that they should be used against woods, villages, strong points and machine guns that were giving the troops particular problems. Thus, on the eve of the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, dozens of tanks were ready for action: 32ft long with their tails, nearly 14ft wide and 7½ft tall. Each weighed 28 tons and it was estimated they would be able to travel 23 miles without needing to be refuelled.
A C Company Mark I tank in September 1916. Note the ‘tail’, a feature that was later abandoned. (Authors’ collection)
Each tank was manned by one officer and seven men and in charge of one allotted to D Company, HBMGC, was a well-travelled adventurer in his thirties names Reginald Legge. From Linfield in West Sussex, Reginald, an only son, had been educated at Brighton Grammar School. As a teenager he had worked at a wholesale drapery at Cannon Street, but had later gone off to travel the world as a merchant. On the outbreak of war, he sailed from the Gold Coast just before Christmas 1914 and, having arrived back in England, attested at the end of November 1915 into the ranks of the Buckinghamshire Yeomanry. Later, Reginald applied for a commission in the regular army, citing his first choice as the Royal Sussex Regiment, but when the Machine Gun Corps began touting for officers to man their new tanks he made the transfer to the Heavy Branch in the spring of 1916.
By the end of August, Reginald had trained at Burley and Thetford and the men had begun overseeing their precious cargo aboard heavy trains bound for the coast. D Company’s tanks were ready for unloading at Rouen as September dawned and, despite the secrecy that was maintained around these new additions, shrouded in their tarpaulins, plenty of exalted personages such as Haig and General Joffre came to gawp at them ‘in embarrassing numbers’.
On the night of the 13th, the tank crews collected petrol, oil, water, rations and ammunition ready for their debut. The following day Reginald and the other officers reconnoitred the route they were to take up to the trenches, discovering that it was much damaged by shell holes and cut up by communication trenches, all of which they would need to traverse. ‘To move tanks over this ground in the dark would mean heavy work and careful manipulation and this was fully realised by crew skippers.’ The rest of the day was spent going over orders for the attack, before, at 8:30pm, the tanks began to move off to their starting lines, the low rumble of their engines cleverly masked by aeroplanes flying up and down the German front lines. The crews had had little rest for days and progress was difficult over the shell-torn ground with deep mud in places. Up and down the front thirty of forty-two tanks managed to reach their jumping off points, the others ditching in shell holes, dugouts or other weak spots, or breaking down.
Zero hour on 15th September arrived and tanks began to advance in front of the infantry. Seven of these metal beasts had been allotted to 41st Division, including D6 under the command of Reginald Legge. Together they would attempt to help Rawlinson’s infantry seize Flers, beyond High and Delville Woods and en route to Gueudecourt and held in the utmost regard when it came to plans to break through the German defences. The division’s first objective fell with little resistance at 7am and twenty minutes later the second had been overcome. With relatively easy progress, the tanks were of negligible use early on but as nearby New Zealanders were held up by German resistance, they arrived to turn the tide. As Rawlinson’s men made their way towards the village aided by Reginald and his comrades, enemy troops were running away in front of them. The tanks making for Flers were experiencing mixed fortunes. One had been hit by a shell and the whole crew killed or wounded trying to escape, another had ditched south of the village. A third had made good progress but, hit by enemy fire, had to withdraw later on. Four of the tanks allotted to 41st Division were still in action. Reginald’s was still lumbering its way to Flers, ‘belching forth yellow flames from her Vickers gun’.
D16 entered the village just before 8:20am, lurching up the main street. In the meantime, Reginald Legge had turned his tank and was rumbling along the eastern edge of the village to aid the infantry making for their objective north-east of Flers. ‘This tank was of the greatest material use and the party in charge of it distinguished themselves considerably,’ wrote one commanding officer who watched the 28-ton leviathan bump by, trashing strong points and the remains of houses which were filled with machine guns; ambling along wreaking havoc. The four tanks in and around Flers were causing panic to spread among the Germans, who had no idea what they were looking at. Many ran for Gueudecourt, where large numbers of prisoners were passing willingly towards cages at the rear. By 10am on 15th September, Flers had fallen.
Reginald was not finished. He had a reputation for being a hothead and now, deafened by the noise, suffocated by exhaust fumes in the tank and ignoring the German artillery, he pointed his tank towards the last objective, Gueudecourt. Leaving the infantry and any protection they could afford him behind, D6 dodged the fire of the German artillery and made it to Gueudecourt, taking out one enemy field gun with the tank’s guns. Unfortunately, there were three more in the vicinity and one scored a direct hit on Reginald’s machine, which promptly caught fire. One crewman was burned alive as the inside was destroyed. Reginald managed to get out and help the other six escape the flames, only to find that they were now on enemy ground and fully exposed to German fire.
Rawlinson was receiving conflicting reports as to where his troops were as the 15th wore on. On Reginald Legge’s front, Flers had fallen, but although D6 had made it to Gueudecourt, the infantry had never looked like taking it that day. That evening, Rawlinson issued orders for his Fourth Army to push on and take any outstanding objectives the following day. Just before midnight, the 41st Division was told to push forward on the left as per the original plan and join up with the New Zealanders alongside them. Rain poured down on the night of 15th September and made the muddy, shell-shattered ground even more difficult to negotiate. The following morning at 9:25am the attack continued on past Flers.
The tank had arrived. For a new technology, hurried to the front in its infancy, they had done reasonably well. The beginning of the Battle of Flers-Courcelette had generated varied results. High Wood, with its advantageous view, and Martinpuich next to it had fallen. After the misery of August and early September on the Somme this was something to get excited about, but to the south the attack on the area between Ginchy and Combles was far messier. The creeping barrage had fallen apart and in some areas the infantry were torn down as they made for their objectives. The desired break in the German line, the opportunity to defeat the Germans on the Western Front had not come to pass. Once again Rawlinson had allowed himself to be ordered to bite off more than he could chew. Nonetheless, a large portion of the attacked German front line had fallen and around Flers his men had advanced even further. The cost of Haig’s gains was high. His force had suffered 30,000 casualties. The Germans evaluated their prospects and then made a controlled retreat to the ridge running through Le Transloy behind them to dig their heels in.
In April 1917, Reginald Legge’s mother was still desperate for news. Reported missing on 16th September, his death had still not been accepted. A fellow D Company man in German hands made a statement to say that he last saw Reginald in a shell hole near the wrecked tank on 15th September and watched him crawl out of it, but he never saw him again. A wounded crew member in hospital in Bristol said that after the crew had escaped, Reginald refused to leave the tank.
There was confusion for some time as to whether Reginald had been captured or not, because the Germans had come into possession of his identity disc. They confirmed in September 1917 that they had no record of him being taken prisoner. The disc had either been removed from Reginald’s body and carried into Germany, erroneously suggesting that he might still be alive and a prisoner, or, mortally wounded, Reginald had died quickly in enemy hands and been buried, with no record of his internment having survived. The disc was transmitted by the Red Cross in Munich to the Bavarian War Office and completed its long journey into his widowed mother’s hands. Reginald received a fitting epitaph from a fellow tank commander. ‘Good old Legge,’ he wrote, ‘he came so close to being great.’ Reginald Legge’s body, if recovered, was never identified and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Pier & Face 5c & 12c.