TOPSY TANKS.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 250, 21 October 1919, Page 7

TOPSY TANKS.

TRYING TO TRACE BIRTH. LONDON", October 7. Kvidcnrc before the I'ominitwion wlii( is to deride who is entitled to a bow as the inventor of I lip tanks showed till Lord Kitchener experimented in Kcbri iiry. 1015, villi eattcrpillar tractors wit j the. idea of conveying men. jjoods. ar over lire-swept zones. lie ahal doned tlio idea i:i June beeauae tl truvtorri would not ero«s 12-fo< treiiehes. Sir fiordon llew.irt, tlie Atlorne General, snid that Mr. Churchill : nntfd the idea in .January. 1015, in I letter to Mr. Anquitb, pursuing it wit : imagination and enerjry until resul : were arliieved. j .Mr. Cliiirchill, Minister for War, ! liia evidence stiitinl that the Admiralty I'xperiinonts umler Sir .Kiistaeo Trniiyrr d'Kyncourt. produced a mother tank i 15110. The idea wuh murli assisted by gueatV L'lianco ii3c of the word laiidslii] at the Duku of Westminsters dinm party. 'Pliis iired the imagination th; led to action. The old idea was to build uiidorlt tanks, which Mr. 11. G. Wells visualwi years u>co. (It was impossible to nay tli: anyone invented the weapon which Wi the culmination of numerous proressc but Major-General Swinton first ised the place of the tank in mode warfare. Mr. (.'hurchill added fhat at the ci of tlic war tanks were being fitted wi apparatus which would enable the d charge of jrreat volumes of smoke.