"Teddy" Tanks to Storm "Fritz"

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1164, 3 November 1917, Page 6 (Supplement)

"Teddy" Tanks to Storm "Fritz"

xa hrfgyfciEßCUl EAN battles between droves of Allied and Teuton "tanks" will /SK^^^ 1 be "as common as air fighting" 'on IrKvllW tn e Western front soon, Colonel E. timll)ws D. Swinton, commander of the first 3Z*y\# British "tank" squadron in France predicts. Colonel Swinton, who is here with Lord Reading's commission, originated the now famous British fighting monsters. He believes the Germans are building these land cruisers and the day is not distant, he thinks, when it will be a question of survival of the fittest between "Fritz" and "Teddv" tanks. He then drew a word picture of these future struggles between the steel monsters. "There will be both male and female tanks — so called," he said. "We will have 'Mary' and 'Mollv' tanks, along with their lords and masters, the big 'Teddv' tanks. The males will lumber into battle surrounded bv their harems. "Wives" Save "Teddy." "With the destruction of machine guns as his chief objective, the male tank starts across No Man's Land. Shell craters, embankments, barbed wire entanglements, trenches, and even small forests are no barrier. With his two six-pounders he blasts his way forward. Being bullet-proof, it is seldom that he is checked until he has accomplished his mission—destroying machine gun emplacements. , "However, he is more or less useless at close fighting and often gets into a place where he cannot extricate himself. It is here that his better halves' get into the game. "The female tanks—dubbed thus because or their man-killing propensities—tag along behind, in advance, and on all sides, fighting like mad. Thev beat off the enemy trying to storm the big Teddy.'" „ , „ , Onlv Deadlock Breakers. Thus far "tanks" are the only means that have been devised in breaking the deadlock along stronglv entrenched infantry fronts. Colonel Swinton stated. Great improvements are being made in their construction and defects remedied. The tank of the future will be a "perfect' fighting machine, capable of feats more startling than heretofore dreamed of, he said. Of the development of the crawling fortresses which have changed modern warfare, Colonel Swinton said: — , ~ "During that awful first year every soldier realised that something had to be devised to stop the earnaee. The fulilitv of a 'naked man' attemptina to cross No Man's Land was apparent to Allies and Germans alike. It was an impossibility !o sweep that pock-marked batch of hell with men alone. How Idea Was Developed. "I had seen one of your Yankee inventionsHolt's tractor. I remembered its feats in navigating rouflh country, and simply applied the idea. At about the same time some one else got a similar idea and wrote Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiraltv. "Independently of each other the war and navy branches began perfecting the same idea. Naval officials, unknown to me. worked on a land cruiser,' while we struggled with the 'tank. Then we oot together with the result you have read about."