IV
The Reconnaissance Side had also been busy during the weeks of preparation.
To facilitate the movement of Tanks over the battlefield a new system was made use of, by which a list of compass bearings from well-defined points to a number of features in the enemy’s territory was prepared, thus enabling direction to be picked up.
This system was to prove invaluable when, later, the tides of battle had obliterated all the nearer landmarks, and men wandered hopelessly lost in the increasing desolation.
The Reconnaissance Officers’ methods of observation did not differ from those they had employed at Arras.
They used artillery O.P.’s, they flew over the enemy lines, a “supply of prisoners” for special examination was allotted to them, they talked to refugees, they observed, made and annotated maps, and drew many panoramas, and made detailed raised maps in plasticine.
By early July they had collected a great mass of information that was not only vitally important to the Tank Corps, but also of great use to the other arms.
Very carefully constructed from information collected from all sources, a huge sand model was laid out by the 19th Corps in Oosthoek Wood. Every hillock or depression, every road, railway, trench, stream, ruin, spinney, or other landmark, was faithfully reproduced to scale. The miniature trenches were formed in lengths of cast concrete, the trees were represented by little evergreen bushes, and real water lay in the pools and shallows of the Lilliputian Steenbeek.
The model covered nearly an acre—a man to the same scale would have been about the size of a normal mouse.
At one side of the model was a high wooden platform raised on a scaffolding and reached by a ladder, and from this point of vantage this Ypres Salient in little could be overlooked and memorised as from a kite balloon.
For several weeks before the day appointed for the battle, the platform was almost constantly occupied by groups of officers. Indeed, it was seldom unoccupied during daylight from the time it was erected to the eve of the great attack, and round and across the model perpetually wandered little groups of officers and N.C.O.’s with maps and notebooks and orders—discussing, pointing, explaining. Generals personally conducted their immediate subordinates over the mimic battlefield, whilst N.C.O.’s were coached by their Company Commanders.
From a liaison point of view the model was invaluable. Individual Tank Commanders there met the infantry officers with whom they were actually to fight, and would walk and talk over “the ground” together, until they were perfectly clear about their own and each other’s rôles, routes, objectives and time-tables, after which mutual esteem and confidence would be cemented and reinforced at the dinner table.
In this and similar ways a close and cordial entente was established between the Tanks and their partners the infantry, and there were many battlefield incidents that showed vividly how much success depended on this personal liaison and good fellowship.