Forgotten Voices of the Somme (32 page)

14th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers

I was sitting with my platoon, waiting to follow the front-line troops, who had just advanced into the village of Flers. I was sitting with my sergeant by the roadside, when all of a sudden there was an almighty noise, when a huge crater opened about three feet behind us. Fortunately, it was a gas shell, not a high-explosive shell – which is why I'm still here. At that moment, I turned round and I saw a strange thing looming up through the darkness. This enormous thing crossed the road in front of me and ambled on behind the troops. I was watching one of the first tanks going into action.

Lieutenant Cecil Lewis

3 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps

One afternoon the commanding officer said he wanted me to go off on a special job, and he gave me a designation on the map, and I and my observer went off. And when we arrived, we saw these curious sort of heavy-looking iron vehicles, and they were lumbering over the ground at about two miles an hour, with a whole lot of chaps standing round, and a kerfuffle going on. And these vehicles were, of course, tanks. And so, from that moment on, we started doing mock attacks with them – in order to get them to light their flares, note where they were and take back records to the brigade headquarters.

Private Leonard Gordon Davies

22nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers

I was in a long, narrow trench, waiting to advance, when all of a sudden these tanks rose out of the ground behind us. They were terrifying-looking things, and they came over and went right over our heads. When the Germans saw them coming over, they didn't know what they were, they got scared. Superstitious race, the Germans. They turned tail and ran, and we chased them right back.

Captain Philip Neame VC

Headquarters, 168th Infantry Brigade

We had been allotted one of the first tanks to land in France, to do some training with our brigade, and everybody was staggered to see this extraordinary monster crawling over the ground. We did what training we could with

this one tank: one or two sections of the infantry – a platoon or less – following the tank, because we knew it had to make gaps in the enemy barbed wire, and a little column of infantry had to follow through the gap. It was a very limited amount of training you could do with one tank. Everybody thought it was a terrific thing, but then my brigade rather lost our faith because only one managed to get across our front line, and it broke down before it reached the German front line. But just to the north of us there was a tank that had a great success, at a place called Flers.

Second Lieutenant Hatton

D Company, Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps

On September 15, 1916, at approximately five-thirty in the morning, a barrage of terrific intensity opened up in front of Flers. Assembled in front of Flers were twenty-five tanks of D Company, all commanded by lieutenants who had been volunteers for this mission. They were assigned to launch an almost direct assault on Flers. Three tanks were given orders not to deviate, but to go straight to Flers. These three tanks, were D9 – commanded by myself, D14 – commanded by
Lieutenant Court
from South Africa, and D16 – commanded by Lieutenant Hastie from Edinburgh.

We were warned that the barrage would be something –
and it was
. Jerry fled but it was surprising how many Jerries were alive in spite of the previous bombardment, which had gone on for two or three days. On the previous day, we had been taken to the front line and shown what we had to go through. It was terrifying. There were shell-holes there that you could put houses in. They were running one into the other, and most of them were full of slime and water. The rain had been incessant, and the land was practically impassable. We decided amongst ourselves that we should never get there. But we had volunteered for the job, and we had a go, and so we three tanks who had been given these special instructions started up.

Court in D14 started. Before he had gone two or three hundred yards he attempted to cross a disused support trench, and as he crossed it, the tank – weighing twenty-eight tons – crumbled the parapet beneath him, and the tail end of his tank disappeared into the trench. He scrambled out of the tank, quite a job, and came to me. Now, we had been equipped with very large hooks on the stern of our tanks, and we had wire hoses coiled on the roof, and Court was a particular friend of mine, so I manoeuvred alongside of him

A C Company Mark I tank photographed on September 15 – the day that tanks first rolled into action.

The new and the old: a
carrier pigeon
is released from the porthole of a tank on the Somme.

and attempted to tow him out. But in manoeuvring alongside of him, my sponson (which was a protrusion on the side of the tank) got tangled with his and the two tanks were locked together. Hastie, behind us, crossed the same support trench, but he was successful; he didn't attempt to come near us, and Hastie on that lovely September morning went on.

Court and I climbed out of our tanks, and we turned our crews out to attempt to dig a tunnel. Both the crews dug with entrenching tools, which were in the tanks, and attempted to free the belly of the tank, which was trapping the fly wheel and immobilised the engine. When we gave up, Court and I climbed to the top of our tanks and watched the remaining tanks of D Company attempting to get to Flers by various routes. The last I saw of Hastie was as he headed in a straight line for Flers.

Second Lieutenant Stuart Hastie

D Company, Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps

It was up to me to carry on alone. Having crossed the front German line, I could see the old road down into Flers which was in a shocking condition, having been shelled by both sides. At the other end of this road, about a mile away, which was about the limit of my vision from the tank, I could see the village of Flers, more or less clouded with smoke from the barrage which had come down on top of it, and the houses, some of them painted white, some seemed to be all kinds of colours.

Across the front of the village, we could see the wire of a trench named Flers Trench and this formed a barricade in front of the village on the British side. We made our way down the remnants of this road with great difficulty. Just as we started off, our steering gear was hit and we resorted to steering by putting on the brake on each track alternately, and trying to keep the tank following the line of the Flers–Delville Wood road. When we got down to Flers Trench and were passing into the village, there was a great deal of activity from the eaves, under the roofs of the cottages, and also from a trench which appeared to be further through the village but which we couldn't just locate at that point.

The engine was beginning to knock very badly and it looked as if we wouldn't be able to carry on very much further. We made our way up the main street, during which time my gunners had several shots at various people who were underneath the eaves, or even in the windows of some of the cottages. We went on down through the high street, as far as the first right-angle bend. We turned there, and the main road goes for a matter of two hundred to three hundred yards, and

then turns another right-angle to the left and proceeds out towards Gueudecourt. But we did not go past that point.

At this point, we had to make up our minds what to do. The engine was really in such a shocking condition, that it was liable to let us down at any moment. So I had a look round – as far as it was possible to do in the middle of a village that was being shelled by both sides. I could see no signs of the British army coming up behind me, so I slewed the tank round with great difficulty on the brakes, and came back to Flers Trench, and turned the tank to face the Germans again.

Lieutenant Wilfred Staddon

East Surrey Regiment

From this tank, the commander had opened a little door from behind the port gun, and he called out to me for directions. I told him – straight up the main street of Flers and bear right for Gueudecourt. I did mention that I didn't know where the flanks were but I don't know whether he heard that or not because the door was soon closed. My attention was then diverted by a group of Germans coming out of a cellar. There were a lot of them; my imagination made them nearly an army corps. Anyhow, I saw almost at once that they were unarmed. I went along to them, and I formed them up into a platoon. There were exactly eight times four. I reluctantly spared a corporal and sent them back.

My attention then was diverted by a slow-moving plane coming across from the direction of
Les Boeufs
towards Thiepval. I think I was the only man who possessed a red flare in my pocket, and I put it on a wall and it ignited at once. The observer in that plane could hardly help seeing it. I have no doubt he saw the tank, and in spite of all the smoke and brick dust he probably saw this group of Germans.

I found myself approaching the wire. I think it must have been about an hour after zero hour. There were very few officers left. I only saw one other company officer. The wire was hardly cut, or at least, shall we say, half cut. My companion,
Lieutenant Chesters
, was urging his men forward with conspicuous gallantry really, and paid the penalty. He was too conspicuous and I saw him die in the wire. The method I adopted to get through the wire was to get on my back and pull it over me, and my fellows did the same. We got through the wire and, of course, there was quite a considerable approach to the trench.

It was a sunken road actually, and we gathered together and rushed it. I had already seen a white handkerchief; perhaps it gave us a little courage.

Anyhow, we got to the trench. There was not a little slaughter, mostly the Germans, which we were not a little bit pleased about, given the casualties which we'd incurred on the way. I found myself chasing the German commander. I took aim at the German commander, but he spotted me, dropped his revolver and ran. I found myself chasing him. He made for a dugout and dived into it, and threw a phosphorus bomb after him. I forgot there was an exit, and he came out, dodging behind walls again.

At that moment my attention was drawn to a shout that a tank was proceeding up the high street of Flers, with a group of laughing Tommies behind it. This was not true. Those laughing Tommies were actually a group of Germans with chattering teeth. I had never seen chattering teeth before but I did then. The tank, in the meantime, had gone further up the road. We followed, peering behind walls, not knowing what we were going to meet. We were rather slower than the tank, but then he had a nice steel waistcoat, and I hadn't. Eventually, we got to the exit of Flers. There was nobody around but my little group who were with me. A Lewis gunner all of sudden said, 'Look sir!' I looked – and there was my opposite number again – the German commander – walking towards Ligny with his sergeant major. I took aim and I missed him. I should have gone for the sergeant major. They fell into the ditch, and I advised my Lewis gunner not to be lavish with his ammunition.

Second Lieutenant Hatton

D Company, Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps

On the morning of the sixteenth, an attack had been ordered on Gueudecourt, which was a fortified position. I had orders to report to an Australian division, and when I reported I was told, 'Take your bloody stink box out of it, you are drawing the enemy fire on the Australians!' I went back to Lieutenant Court, who commanded D14, and told him our attack was cancelled. We were jubilant that it had been cancelled, but
Major Summers
, our commanding officer, came along and told us that though the main attack had been cancelled, those orders did not apply to the tanks. Furthermore, as the four other tanks that should have attacked with us had become ditched, therefore Major Summers had no option but to order our two tanks to carry out the attack on Gueudecourt, unsupported and alone.