THE FIRST OF THE “TANKS”

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 180, 26 April 1921, Page 5

THE FIRST OF THE “TANKS”

AND WHY IT WAS NEVER USED. The first tank—the tank that was never used, though, as we have just been officially reminded, "it was a brilliant invention which anticipated and in some respects surpassed that wlich was actually put into use in 191G”—was designed by Mr. L. E. de Mole, a draftsman for the South Australian Government railway. Mr. de Mole, writes a representative of the "Observer,” hod the idea, long before the war, that what we now call a tank would be a very useful machine for rough country which could not be crossed by any other form of conveyance. He designed a kind of tank which would go over logs, stumps of trees, bogs, wells, ditches, and similai obstacles, and would climb practically anything and everything. Even at that time it was obvious that there were great military as well as commercial possibilities in the invention. Mr. H. Leslie Boyce, an officer in the Australian forces, went into partnership with Mr. de Mole, and helped him with his Invention on the military side. Between them they succeeded in bringing to England in 1918 a model which was on the lines of that which had been reduced to practical shape and submitted to the War Office in 1912.

Many strange things happened to this model. It was always going to be given a chance, but the right moment never came; it was perpetually shelved. Yet its points of superiority over the tanks in use were many and manifest. To begin with, this first tank was much faster than any other. It was proved in the Munitions Inventions Department that it could almost keep up with cavalry. And, unlike the tanks that were in use, winch had to be wrenched round when they turned, it could be steered at full speed in any direction. The secret, in fact, of Mr. de Mole’s invention was what has been described to me as its "three-ways lissom chain.” It could carry a whole company of men; it had a much larger grip on the ground than our tanks; and it could cross trenches 18 or 29 feet wide.

It was, in fact, as the royal commission has described it, a "brilliant” invention, but a Government Department "forgot” it, with the result that wo lost its use at a time when it must have been of enormous value; and the inventors, through its being held up month after month and year after year, were prevented from offering it to any of the Allies, and not only lost their chances of any award, but had to pfly a thousand pounds or more out of their own packets for making the model and bringing it here from Australia. Admiral Fisher, who became acquainted before his death with the whole circumstances of this extraordinary ease, remarked, I am told, that if the inventors had had influence their tank would have been used. As it was, they stood alone on its merits, and merit does not always commend itself to Government Departments. The royal commission has expressed regret at being unable to recommend any award to Mr. de Mole, owing to the narrowness of their terms of references; their rule being that a claimant must prove that his invention was "a link in the chain of causation leading to tho use of the invention.”