VII
All night, to the east beyond the limit of our advance, we could hear the enemy blowing up his ammunition dumps.
All night his transport and limbers streamed eastwards, and all night our airmen hung upon his retreating columns.
Next morning we attacked again along the whole line, no less than 155 Tanks being actually engaged.
The Australians advanced upon Lihons, Framerville and Vauxvillers, while on their right the Canadians continued the attack south of the Amiens-Chaulnes railway.
In the attack on Framerville, out of thirteen Tanks engaged, only one was hit.
This fact was attributable to the admirable co-operation between the infantry and Tanks.
[77]“Riflemen working hand in hand with the machines picking off the enemy’s field gunners, as soon as the Tanks came into observation. At Vauxvillers, seven Tanks went into action just before noon, unaccompanied by infantry and without artillery support. After the Tanks had gone forward a little way, the 5th Australian Division followed up and not only captured the high ground, but the village itself, which was not included in their original objective.”
Near Rosières the opposition stiffened, and here no less than eight Tanks were knocked out by a German battery which came into action near Lihons. It was not until 5 p.m. that this battery was silenced, and we did not reach Lihons that night.
[78]“The day’s operations were especially interesting through the rapidity with which the enemy got his field batteries into action from commanding positions against Tanks advancing in broad daylight. He also employed a number of low-flying aeroplanes against the infantry, but as these did not carry bombs their fire had no effect upon the Tanks. The resistance put up by his riflemen and machine-gunners was feeble, and showed clearly the moral effect of the victorious advance of the previous day.”
With the Canadians as many Tanks as possible were rallied and about fifty-five went into action. They went forward, as before, in waves, the same Tank Battalions working with the same Infantry Divisions as on the previous day.
North of the Somme, with the 3rd Corps (which included the 33rd American Division) the 10th Tank Battalion put sixteen Tanks into action.
They had a hard task round Chipilly, where the enemy had a large number of machine-guns cleverly concealed in woods and gullies. By the early evening, however, all the objectives were taken, and our positions advanced in line with those which we held south of the river, an advance achieved at a cost of five casualties to the sixteen machines engaged.
The Whippets’ action, in as far as they were billed to act with the cavalry, was disappointing. By some fault of liaison they were kept too long at Brigade Headquarters.
At Beaufort and Warvillers, however, they were able to give great help to the infantry by chasing hostile machine-gunners out of the standing corn and shooting them down as they fled.
On the whole August 9th was a successful day, for we continued to push forward steadily all along our line.