IV
By the middle of June the British High Command had grown anxious to make some test of the position of things on the enemy’s side of the line. This they proposed to do by a more or less limited and tentative attack, an attack which might, if it was successful, be utilised as a dress rehearsal for larger ventures, or which, if it failed, would not commit us too deeply. The Australians had been constantly harassing their vis à vis on the Villers Bretonneux Front, and the High Command gave out that for this and other reasons they considered that a better place than the sector opposite Villers Bretonneux could hardly be found from which to launch our ballon d’essai. What those “other reasons” were did not appear for nearly a month after the battle had been fought. It was proposed that between sixty and seventy Tanks belonging to the 5th Brigade should be employed. Our attack was to have a strictly limited objective, its ostensible purpose being to capture the spur running from the main Villers Bretonneux plateau towards the Somme, on the east side of Hamel, and thus to gain important observation and incidentally a useful jumping-off place for any subsequent advance. “Z” day was to be on July 4.
Directly the attack had been decided upon, Tanks and Australians began their combined training in the area of the 5th Tank Brigade. Tank units were at once permanently affiliated to corresponding Australian infantry units with whom they were to fight, and by this means a very close comradeship was cultivated. It was (tradition relates), most necessary that some special steps should be taken to ensure the confidence of the Australian infantry in the Tank Corps, for, in the absence of artillery preparation, upon the Tanks would almost entirely depend the success and prestige of the Australians in this first Allied offensive since the March disaster.
Now the Australians, though having, as it were, a natural affinity for the activity and surprise of a Tank as against a prepared artillery attack, were not inclined to bestow their approval on the Tanks without due cause being given.
They still had vivid memories of the tragedy of errors of the Bullecourt incident in 1917.
They were, however, very open-minded, and the battle partners had not long been in training together before their relations were particularly cordial.
Coy and hard to please as were the Australians in the beginning, the triumphant success of their partnership in battle left them no memory of their earlier shyness, and made them vociferous in their praises of a combination that the Tanks had long felt would prove notably effective.
The plan of the attack soon took exact shape. It is worth more or less detailed consideration, as it was upon the lines of the Battles of Cambrai and Hamel that all set Tank attacks were afterwards based.
[63]“The operation was to be conducted as a direct advance of infantry and Tanks in two waves, under cover of a rolling artillery barrage. From a Brigade point of view, the points of chief interest lay, first, in the preliminary arrangements with the Australian Corps and the infantry concerned; secondly, in the somewhat intricate plans for assembling Tanks at their start lines with due provision for concealment; and, thirdly, in the methods devised for bringing up large quantities of infantry supplies to the final objective. At a conference held by the Australian Corps three days prior to the action the plans were finally settled and no alteration in these was permitted after that date. Thus infantry and Tank officers were able to confer in perfect faith that their mutual arrangements would be carried out without change, and this method was adhered to in all subsequent operations of a prepared type with the Australian Corps. Tanks were employed on a scale that was large in proportion to the front attacked, the saving of casualties to the infantry being made the most important factor in the plan.”
The main tactical features of the attack were the strongholds of Vaire Wood, Hamel Wood, Pear-shaped Trench and Hamel Village. There was no defined system of trench, except the old British lines just east of Hamel which the enemy now occupied, and which had, of course, been originally sited to face east. For the rest, the German defensive consisted in machine-gun nests.
The attacking forces were the 4th Australian Division and four companies of American infantry. The Artillery was to provide a rolling barrage, behind which the infantry were to advance, followed by the Tanks, which were only to pass ahead of them when resistance was encountered. This last arrangement did not prove a good one.
The going was good, and the fertile country lay still and smiling in its Midsummer pride. The camp allotted to the Tanks lay five miles behind the line in the angle formed by the meeting of the Somme and the Luce.
[64]“It was an ideal spot in which to spend the summer months. In the cool of the evening, looking toward the west over the uncut cornfields, we could obtain a wonderful view of the old city of Amiens, its large cathedral, with the numbers of smaller church spires and smokeless chimneys clustering around it, being outlined against the setting sun. Toward the east one saw the ruined village of Villers Bretonneux standing on Hill 104, its château dominating the surrounding wreck of houses. It was hard to believe that the line was so close until the view was suddenly obliterated by the familiar sight of bursting shrapnel and the heavy smoke of the gas shells.”
The sixty fighting Tanks which were employed in the attack were divided into two waves, the first of forty-eight, and the second of twelve machines. As the advance intended was but a short one, the usual gigantic system of supply dumps was not necessary. On the contrary, each fighting Tank carried forward ammunition and water for the infantry, and the four supply Tanks were detailed to carry up R.E. supplies and other stores.
[65]“Each of these four machines eventually delivered a load of about 12,500 lbs. within 500 yards of the final objective and within half an hour of its capture. The total amount of supplies delivered on July 4 at 40 lbs. per man represented the loads of a carrying party 1,250 men strong. The number of men used in the supply Tanks was twenty-four.”
No precise information as to time and place had been given to the Tank Corps till just a week before the battle; but as the area had been carefully reconnoitred for the last two months, very little had to be done to complete this side of the preparations.
On the night of July 1–2, the Tanks were moved up to the assembly point, an early move which was the result of the Australians’ last lingering doubts as to the capacity of the Tanks for arriving in time at rendezvous. No chance was thus given to any Tank of being late in the starting line.
Machines of “C” flight of No. 8 Squadron of aeroplanes were to make their début as honorary members of the Tank Corps on the morrow, for the wonderful potentialities of aeroplane and Tank co-operation were now fully realised, and the Tank Corps had been allotted a squadron of its own.