MECHANICAL MONSTERS.
TANKS IN FLANDERS BATTLE. STIRRING EPISODES. Describing the work of the tanks during the Flanders battle in the beginning of August Philip Gibbs says :-It is hot inside the tanks with the engine going at full blast, and the crew is flung about over rough ground like fishermen in a wild gale. They are cramped up between their I engines and their guns, and there is no l head space, and their air is thick with smoke and the fumes of oil. They stare through the periscopes till their eyes ache, watching the ground ahead of the enemy's barrage and the signals of tho infantry, and though men shout to each other they cannot hear in the roar of tho engine and the rattle of machine-guns. Seventeen hours of this work, with more than a chance of death all the time, and a high tension of mind and body, pitching and swaying and bumping and battering is a severe test, even for the strongest man; and it was 17 hours that one of the tank pilots ami his crew stayed out, fighting all the time, and 24 hours that another crew went through, not with incessant fighting, hut bogged and unbogged, and struggling <n and getting into action, and slouching bark again after a good record of achievement. Like a Herd of Hippopotami. Before the battle I saw many of these tanks in their lairs, corralled in a hollow square at night with a house to each one of them, alter a long day's work in tho practice fields, over trenches and breastworks, and a. homeward trail like a herd of hippopotami going down to the waterpools through French villages, where the women and girls watched ,them with laughter in their eyes because of their fantastic way of progress. But some of us knew the'grim work that lay ahead of them, and looked at the crews about them as one looks at men who are bound on a perilous adventure. The way of our advance was hindered by a number of little concrete forts, built it the ruin of farmsteads which had withstood our gunfire. At Plum Farm and Apple Villa, and in stronger, more elaborate fortified points, like the Frezeuberg and Pommern Castle and Pommern Redoubt, the enemy's machine-gunners held out when everything about them was chaos gpd death, and played a barrage of bullets on our advancing men. Platoons and half platoons attacked them in detail at a great tost of life, and it was in such places that the tanks were of most advantage. It was at Pommern Castle, east of St. Julien, that one of the tanks did best. One of them attacked and helped to capture a strong point west.of St. Julien, from which a good many Germans came out to surrender, and afterwards some tanks went through the village, but had to get out • again in a hurry to escape capture in the German counter-attacks. Aeroplane Fights Tank. It was not easy to get back in a hurry, as in the afternoon the rain had turned • the ground to swamp, and the tanks sank " deep in it, with wet mud half-way up their flanks, and slipped and slithered back when they tried to struggle out. Many 'of the officers and crews, had to. get cut of their steel forts, risking heavy shell'.kg, and machine-gun fire, to dig out their .way,' and in the neighbourhood of St. julien they worked for two hours in the • open to de-bog their tank while German gunners'tried to destroy them by direct its. In a farm somewhere in this neigh- ' bourhood no fewer than 60 Germans came "cut with their hands up in surrender as '"""soon as the tank was at close quarters, ■ ; ' : and a 'story is told, though I haven't the exact details, that in another place the mere threat of a tank's approach was :. enough to decide a party of eight to give ' in. In this battle there is not a single '.' case of an attack upon a tank by in- '. fantry, though we know, that they ha»jp been given special training behind their "" lines -with dummy tanks, according to definite rules laid down by the German command. One aght did take placer with a tank, and it is surely the most fantastic duel that has ever happened in. war. It was oueer enough, as I described a day or two ago, when "one of our airmen flew over a motor-car and engaged in a revolver duel with a German officer, but even that strange picture is less weird than when a German aeroplane flew low over a tank, and tried to put out its eyes by bursts of machine-gun bullets. Imagine the scene— that muddy monster crawling through the slime, with sharp stabs of fire coming from its flanks, and above an engine, with wings, swooping round and about it like an angry albatross, and spattering its armour with bullets. It was an unequal fight, for the tank just ignored that waspish machine-gun fire, and went on its way with only a scratch or two. The talis were in action around the marshes and woodlands by Shrewsbury Forest. Here, as I have already said, there was very severe infantry fighting, Mid the enemy made a desperate resistance, followed by many counter-attacks, so that the progress of our men was slow and difficult. The tanks helped them as best they could. A Strange Collision, One trouble of the tanks is their limited vision, and this and the darkness before the battle was the cause of an unexpected collision which adds to the strange history of these mechanical monsters so that it is all beyond the wildest flights of a drunken imagination. On- of our tanks was crawling up to get into position for the attack, and was unaware that it was bearing steadily down upon one of those light railway engines which I saw steaming along in the centre of the Ypres salient on the morning of battle. It was grunting and whistling so that it could be heard a mile, away, but not a sound of it came to the ears of the pilot and crew in a tank, where an engine was also labouring with a rattle of steel. The tank bore on through the darkness, and its mighty batterimr ram hit the light engine fair and square and knocked it off the rails. There were explanations and apologies, and much tugging and heaving with all the powers of a tank before the engine was righted again and went on its way to the guns.
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New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16657, 29 September 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)
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1,102MECHANICAL MONSTERS. New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16657, 29 September 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)
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