A COMPANY OF TANKS. BY MAJOR W. H. L. WATSON, D.S.O., D.C.M., Author of 'Adventures of a Despatch Rider.' CHAPTER XVI. -THE HINDENBURG LINE. (August 27th to October 8th, 1918.) We had become masters of our tanks. Faults had been traced and eliminated; defective parts had been replacedthree tanks had received complete new engines - and invaluable experience had been acquired not only in the upkeep and repair of tanks, but in the art of extorting "spares from Field Stores, in preserving the necessary "stock" in the Technical Quartermaster - Sergeant's stores, and in arranging for the correct "part," even if it were an engine complete, to be rushed forward by lorry to the invalid tank. I knew now that, if I ordered a tank or a section of tanks to trek any reasonable distance within a reasonable time, there was no need for me to wonder how many of my tanks would reach their destination. This may seem a small thing, but you must remember that five months before not half a dozen of my men had had the slightest idea of a petrol-engine's insides. I took the opportunity of indulging in a little Paris leave. On the second night Paris was bombed. I was awakened by a discreet tap at the door of my room. Sleepily I heard the calm voice of the unruffled Swede who owned my favourite hotel in Montparnasse "It is an air-raid, and my clients gather below; but M. le Commandant, who is accustomed to war's alarms, will doubtless prefer to continue his sleep." It was too absurd to be bombed when stretched comfortably in the softest of beds with a private bathroom next door. I thought that I must be dreaming. Anyway, nothing on earth or above it could have induced me to leave that bed. . . My car met me at Amiens on the 25th. The driver told me that my Company had moved forward to Manancourt, a village a few miles south of Ytres, and was expecting shortly to take part in an attack. So with the famous air from that sophisticated operetta, "La Petite Femme de Loth," running in my head, I drove through Villers-Bretonneux and Warfusée to Proyart, where I dropped an austere American Staff Officer, who had come with me in the train, and thence over the Somme through the outskirts of Peronne, to a tidy little camp on clean grass by a ready for action. small coppice half-way between tion of Carrier tanks was Manancourt and Nurlu. I ordered to assist. Ryan, who found the Company making had been in command of the At Boisleux we had come under the orders of the 4th Tank Brigade, which had suffered such heavy losses during the battle of Amiens, both in a series of actions with the Canadians and later in the Happy Valley, that it had been placed in reserve. The stern defence of Bullecourt by the enemy, who held it as desperately in 1918 as they had in 1917, nearly drew the Brigade from its rest; but at last even Bullecourt fell, and the British Armies swept on to the suburbs of Cambrai and the Hindenburg Line. It was with the Hindenburg Line that the 4th Tank Brigade was concerned. On the front of the 4th Army, with which our Brigade was operating, the Hindenburg Line, a series of defences 7000 to 10,000 yards in depth, was itself defended by the St Quentin Canal. For three and a half miles, between Vendhuille and Bellicourt, the canal passes through a tunnel, and this stretch it was determined to attack. But before the main operation could take place, it was urgently necessary to capture certain outlying points of vantage known as The Knoll and Quennement and Guillemont Farms. Already we had attempted unsuccessfully on three occasions to carry them by storm. A final attempt was to be made by the 108th American Infantry Regiment on September 27th, and one sec Company during my absence, had detailed his own section for the job. On the afternoon of the 25th, Ryan and I reported at the Headquarters of the American Division concerned, the 27th. We found to our gratification that Australian Staff Officers were "nursing" the Americans -there were a number of Australians with each American unit-and we soon obtained the orders and the information which we required. The Australians knew us and we knew the Australians: nothing could have been more satisfactory. The Americans, on the other hand, had never heard of Carrier tanks, although they appreciated their use at once. My tanks moved by easy stages to a copse three-quarters of a mile from Villers-Fancon, where they were loaded on the 26th with ammunition, wire, water, and sandbags. They were joined by unloading parties of American infantry, eight men to each tank, bright young fellows who had not previously been in action. I doubted whether they would be of use: to follow a slow Carrier tank into action and to unload it in sight of the enemy under heavy fire needs the coolness and skill of veterans. On the night before the battle the tanks moved up to points in the rear of our posts, and thirty minutes after "zero" they followed the fighting tanks and the infantry. The shelling was severe. The first tank under Sergeant Broughton reached its objective, but as the unloading party had lost touch with it on the trek forward, the crew were compelled themselves to unload the tank. Apparently the attack had been checked, for Sergeant Broughton found that he was so close to the enemy that he could see them firing. He completed the dump, swinging the tank to give the men as much cover as possible from machine-gun bullets, though without help it was painfully slow work, and half his men were wounded. On the way back the tank struck a land-mine, and was set on fire, The second tank, under Thomas,1 became "ditched." It was so heavily loaded that the unditohing beam could not be used, and such intense machine-gun fire was directed at the tank that Thomas quite properly did not ask his men to attempt to unload the roof. It would, in any case, have been a laborious job, since the unloading party had missed the way. Three attempts were made to extricate the tank from the crater into which it had slipped, but each attempt failed. The German gunners were more successful, for by dusk they had blown the tank into a fantastic tangle of twisted wreckage. The third tank struck a land-mine on the way forward. Two of the crew were killed instantly, and a third man was severely wounded. Ryan, who was walking beside the tank, was badly injured-his ankle was shattered by the force of the explosion. were Read and I had tramped up to Ronssoy, a large industrial village in which were the headquarters of the 108th Regiment. It was a damp steamy day. The Americans puzzled and disconsolate. Their infantry, led gallantly by tanks of the 4th Battalion, had undoubtedly advanced, but the reports were so conflicting that no one could say definitely how the Line ran. It appeared that the Americans had not "mopped up" with any success, since there were parties of the enemy between the Americans who had attacked and the posts which they had left at "zero." In places the Germans seemed to be farther forward than they had been before the attack commenced. Of the fighting tanks the majority had received direct hits, and the crews, mostly wounded, were staggering back by twos and threes into Ronssoy. It was no wonder that Sergeant Broughton had found himself under the very noses of the enemy. With the main attack still to come, the situation could not have been more unsatisfactory. Even the headquarters of the 108th Regiment were to suffer. We had noticed a little nervously that although a German observation balloon was looking into Ronssoy, a crowd of orderlies and officers were collected in the road outside the headquarters. The lesson was sharp. Twenty minutes after we had left the village in an ammunition lorry a salvo of 5.9's, entirely without warning, burst among the crowd. 1 Lieutenant (later Captain) S. A. Thomas, M.C. 2 It was in these local attacks that tanks suffered most severely. Of the land-mines which had proved fatal to two of my tanks and to several tanks of the 4th Battalion we had received information, but the information was found to be inaccurate, Warning had reached us of a British anti-tank minefield laid in March, and we had marked the mines on our maps. The minefield, however, was in fact five hundred yards from its supposed position, and its full extent was not discovered until on the 29th ten American tanks endeavoured to pass across it and were destroyed. On the 28th it was clear enough that, although parties of American infantry were out in front of their original line, The Knoll, together with Quennemont and Guillemont Farms, remained in German hands. The attack of the 108th Regiment was more than unsuecessful. If it had never been launched the attack on the 29th might have taken place, at least under cover of a barrage; but now that scattered bodies of Americans, surrounded by the enemy, were ahead, no barrage could be employed. While the survivors of Ryan's section, under the command of Thomas, were salving what remained of their tanks' equip ment, the three remaining seotions moved forward from Manancourt with the battalions to which they had been allotted. Fortunately, my officers reconnoitred their own routes, for two of the convoys with which they were trekking temporarily lost their way. My tanks were detailed once again to carry supplies for the fighting tanks, a dull and thankless task. Two hours after "zero," on the 29th, my car felt its way through thick mist inte Hargicourt, a dilapidated village a mile or so from the "infantry start line." The Brigade had ordered that the Refilling Point for tanks should be an open stretch of rough pasture on the farther side of the village. The map reference of the point was L5b4.1. It was intended that on the afternoon of the battle lorries should bring supplies to the Refilling Point, that the loads should there be transferred to my tanks, and that my tanks with a day's supplies on board should follow the fighting tanks across the broken, desolate country of the Hindenburg system of trenches. I had decided in consequence to make L5b4.1 my headquarters. The enemy did not approve of this decision. As soon as the mist began to clear Hargicourt itself was shelled methodically, while the proposed Refilling Point, which was surrounded by a number of half-concealed batteries, was the object of a bitter hate. A wireless tank, destined for the same unhappy spot, had reSoon it became clear that for once the battle was not proceeding in accordance with plan. Obviously the enemy was still olinging to the Quennemont Ridge, and the left flank of the attacking infantry was uncovered. The direction from which the bulk of the shelling came could not be mistaken. Hargicourt itself was being shelled with light stuff, while, if we had reached our objectives to time, the village would by now have been out of range. tired into the garden of a captured Quennemont Ridge, cottage, and I accompanied which for so long had defied the wireless tank. It belonged to my old battalion. We heard all the news, and the driver knew how to make tea. The news was melancholy. The wounded, streaming back through the village, told us that the enemy machine-guns were murderous; reports from tank officers showed that an appalling number of tanks had received "direet hits": of the Americans nothing had been heard. From our right, however, came the astounding rumour that the 42nd Division had achieved the impossible by forcing the passage of the canal and capturing Bellenglise. I instructed my sections to concentrate at certain points in the rear of the village, and pushed forward along the Quennemont road. In a few minutes I met Major Hotblack, the intelligence officer at Tank Corps Headquarters. He had been wounded in the head. Later I learned that he with two tanks had just us. And the tank crews had held the ridge until they were relieved. I obtained as much information as I could from the many walking wounded-our attack on the left had been checked - and returning to my headquarters, which were rapidly becoming distasteful, despatched a report by wireless. There was an element of humour in this delay to our advance. It was so unexpected that many headquarters found themselves farther forward than they had intended. Puzzled mess-sergeants, pushing on blindly to villages which were still in the enemy's hands, were puzzled and indignant when they were warned to return. The neighbourhood of Hargicourt was crowded with pathetic little camps and disconsolate staff - captains. Personally I had no wish to remain even in Hargicourt. The enemy had begun to use gas shells, and one heavy howitzer at least made Hargicourt its target for a time. The Refilling Point could not come into operation; the surviving tanks would find plentiful supplies at the dumps which my sections had already made. On the other hand, two miles back, there were some excellent quarries at Templeux-le-Guérard, where we could rest in safety and comfort until we were wanted. You will remember that, as we were not "fighting troops," but merely a humble collection of "supply tanks," we could retire from |