Armortek

On the Eve of Cambrai Day, greetings to all tank men. As the World's first tank regiment, the Royal Tank Regiment, celebrates Cambrai Day, we remember those crewmen who have passed through the "Mud and Blood to the Green Fields beyond".

Special Order Number 6

by Brigadier General Hugh Elles, Commanding, the Tank Corps, 19th November 1917:

The night before the battle commenced, Commander Royal Tank Corps, Brigadier General Hugh Elles issued a special order to all of his tank commanders that is today, recited by the youngest Trooper in the Regiment on Cambrai Day. Special Order Number 6 holds significant importance to members of the RTR:

"Tomorrow the Tank Corps will have the chance for which it has been waiting for many months, to operate on good going in the van of the battle.

"All that hard work and ingenuity can achieve has been done in the way of preparation.

"It remains for unit commanders and for tank crews to complete the work by judgement and pluck in the battle itself.

"In the light of past experience I leave the good name of the Corps with great confidence in their hands.

"I propose leading the attack of the centre division."

Fear Naught.

On this day in 1917, the Tank Corps made its last attack of the Battle of Cambrai, before the Germans counter-attacked and recovered much of the lost ground. The target was Bourlon (the village and the wood) which had been recognised as key objectives from the start, but which had never been captured and held.

The attack was undertaken by 17 tanks from F Battalion and 3 Tanks from C Battalion (all Mark IV’s), in support of 62nd Division. At the end of the day, only 5 tanks returned to the start line.

Of the missing tanks, my particular interest is in F Battalion, 17th Company. The attacking tanks from this Company made it into Bourlon village, but then disappeared from history (the Battalion War History, published in 1919, merely mentions “no further information is available”). It is now known that the tanks effectively walked into a trap, where they were surrounded by infantry supported by anti-tank guns and forced to surrender (although there are some indications that they fought on for at least a day, taking multiple casualties, before finally succumbing to the inevitable). Lots of pictures exist in the Bundesarchiv. As the tanks were not severely damaged, the Germans were obviously keen to recover them as Beutepanzers, and at least one tank (Flaming Fire II) reappeared as Lotte, No. 3 tank of Abt. 14, being finally knocked out at the Fort de la Pompelle on 1 June 1918 but surviving until 1942.

Of the missing tanks, I am particularly interested in the following:

F21 Five Knights, a Female of 17 Company, 5 Section
F27 Fighting Mac II, a Male of 17 Company, 6 Section
F30 Flaming Fire II, a Female of 17 Company, 6 Section
F31 Fearnought, a Male of 17 Company, 8 Section

My current project (as you probably know ) is building Flaming Fire II. I have also recently bought a 1/6 scale scratchbuild which, when renovated, will become Fighting Mac II. These two tanks were pretty well ‘brother and sister’ having fought alongside each other throughout Cambrai.

I have also been trying to determine the names of the crews, by data-matching records from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the War History, ‘Following the Tanks’ and, in particular, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s recently released Prisoner of War records. There are an awful lot of assumptions to be made, but I’m reasonably confident of the following:

F21 Five Knights
2/Lt. Cyril James Hastings Tolley, MC (PoW)

F27 Fighting Mac II
2/Lt. Henry D. Curry (wounded, PoW) http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205293085
Corporal Benjamin Hunter, MM (wounded, escaped)

F30 Flaming Fire II
2/Lt. James Percy Wetenhall (wounded, PoW) http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205390607
Private Edward Tyson (KIA)

F31 Fearnought
2/Lt. Frederick George Eckley (KIA) http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205294181

To the Green Fields Beyond.
Their Name Liveth for Evermore.

So was Cambrai worth it ? Well, all the ground taken was recaptured, and casualties on both sides totalled around 95,000 (pretty well an equal split between the British Commonwealth and Germany). But it proved that the tank was an effective weapon when used correctly, paving the way for the successes of August to November 1918. And, like the 617 Squadron ‘Dambusters’ attack in 1943, it showed that nothing was impregnable (not even the much-vaunted Hindenburg Line) in the face of ingenuity and courage.

All the best,

Chris

Well said Chris, good to see your research bearing fruit and thanks for sharing it. As a footnote, it's relatively easier to tot up the human and material balance sheet than to work out the moral effect of the battle, which is important bearing in mind that small Frenchman's famous dictum that "the moral is to the physical (in war)as three to one".

The Allies developed a winning habit, which was desperately needed after the bloodbath of 1916. The by now conscript Army had grown up and become professional. The innovators, not just in the Tank Corps, had developed new and highly effective tactical and operational methods which seem to us today to be of a later period but were actually tried and tested in World War One.

I've never subscribed to the awful "lions led by donkeys" line that Alan Clark and others put about in the sixties. Clark attributed the remark to German generals Ludendorff and Hoffman but as Richard Holmes telling said of Clark's book The Donkeys "it contained a streak of casual dishonesty. Its title is based on the "Lions led by Donkeys" conversation between Hindenburg [sic] and Ludendorff. There is no evidence whatever for this: none. Not a jot or scintilla. Liddell Hart, who had vetted Clark's manuscript, ought to have known it".

If you look at Cambrai and Verdun the previous year you can see:

- air to ground communications
- radio communications on the ground
- infantry/tank co-operation
- air interdiction
- counter air campaign
- artillery fire on call
- specialised armour such as gap-crossing, resupply, communications
- close air support
- envelopment rather than frontal assaults
- exploitation in depth by second echelon forces

There are many more. I've used modern terminology because I think it makes the point more starkly about just how far they had come from the nineteenth century tactics of 1914/15.

More please of your good stuff.

Regards

Stephen