True Stories of the Great War, Volume 1 (of 6) / Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses

by Unknown

II—STORY OF THE TANKS THAT STORMED A CASTLE

Told by Philip Gibbs, War Correspondent, in France

After the battle of Flanders the tank pilots have been able to tell the tale of their adventures after a spell of rest, badly needed by the young men, who crawled out of their steel boxes speechless, bruised and dazed.

For seventeen hours one of the tank pilots and his crew stayed out, fighting all the time, and for twenty-four hours another crew went through, not with incessant fighting, but bogged and unbogged, and struggling on and getting into action and slouching back after a good record of achievement.

The tanks have justified themselves again and won their spurs—spurs as big as gridirons.

In the battle of Flanders they had plenty of chance to show what they could do. The way of the allied advance was hindered by a number of little concrete forts built in the ruins of farmsteads, which had withstood the British gunfire. At Plum Farm and Apple Villa and in the stronger and more elaborate fortified points like Frezenberg and Pommern Castle and Pommern Redoubt the German machine gunners held out when everything about them was chaos and death, and played a barrage of bullets on the advancing Allies. Platoons and half platoons attacked them in detail at great cost of life, and it was in such places that the tanks were of the most advantage.

It was at Pommern Castle, east of St. Julien, that one of the tanks did its best. Do not imagine the castle as a kind of structure with big walls and portcullis and high turrets, but slabs of concrete in a huddle of sandbags above a nest of deep dugouts. On the other side of it was Pommern Redoubt, of the same style of defense.

The British were fighting hard for the castle and having a bad time under its fire. A tank came to help them and advanced under the swish of bullets to the German emplacements, lurching up the piled bags over the heaped-up earth and squatting on the top like a grotesque creature playing the old game of "I'm king of the castle. Get down, you dirty rascals."

The "dirty rascals," who were German soldiers, unshaven and uncovered in the wet mud, did not like the look of their visitors, who were firing with great ferocity. They fled to the cover of Pommern Redoubt, beyond. Then the tank moved back to let the infantry get in, but as soon as it turned its back the Germans, with renewed pluck, took possession of the castle again.

The men who were fighting round about again gave the signal to the tank to "get busy" so it came back, and, with the infantry on its flanks, made another assault, so that the Germans fled again.

The Pommern Redoubt was attacked in the same way, with good help from the tanks.

Frezenberg Redoubt was another place where the tanks were helpful, and they did good work at Westhoek.

One of them attacked and helped to capture a strong point west of St. Julien from which a good many Germans came out to surrender. Afterward some tanks went through the village, but they had to get out again in a hurry to escape capture in the German counterattacks.

It was not easy to get back in a hurry, as by that hour in the afternoon the rain had turned the ground to a swamp and the tanks sank deep in it with the wet mud half-way up their flanks and slipped and slithered back when they tried to struggle out. Many of the officers and crew had to get out of their steel forts, risking the heavy shelling and machine-gun fire, to dig their way out; and in the neighborhood of St. Julien they worked for two hours in the open to debog their tank, while the Germans tried to destroy them by direct hits.

In a farm somewhere in this neighborhood no fewer than sixty Germans came out with their hands up in surrender as soon as a tank was at close quarters. The story is told that at another place the mere threat of a tank's approach was enough to decide a party of eight to give in. It is certain beyond all doubt that the German infantry has great fear of the "beasts."

In this battle there was not a single case of attack upon a tank by infantry, although we know that they have been training behind their lines with dummy tanks, according to definite rules laid down by the German command.

One fight did take place with a tank, and it was surely the most fantastic duel that had happened in the war. It was queer enough, as I described a day or two ago when one of the British airmen flew over a motor car and engaged in a revolver duel with the German officer, but even that strange picture is less weird than when a German airplane flew low over a tank and tried to put out its "eyes" by a burst of machine gun bullets.

Imagine the scene, that muddy monster, crawling through the slime with sharp stabs of fire coming from its flanks and above an engine with wings, swooping round and about it like an angry albatross and spattering its armor with bullets. It was an unequal fight, for the tank just ignored that waspish machine-gun fire and went on its way with only a scratch or two.

The tanks were in action around the marshes and woodlands by Shrewsbury Forest. Here there was very severe infantry fighting and the Germans made desperate resistance, followed by many counterattacks, so that the progress of the British was slow and difficult and the tanks helped them as best they could.

One trouble of the tanks is their limited vision, and this and the darkness before the battle were the cause of an unexpected collision, which adds to the strange history of the mechanical monsters, so that it is all beyond the wildest flight of imagination.

One of the tanks was crawling up to get into position for attack, and unaware that it was bearing steadily down upon one of those light railway engines which I saw steaming along in the centre of the Ypres salient on the morning of battle. It was grunting and whistling so that it could be heard a mile away, but not a sound of it came to the ears of the pilot and the crew in the tank, where their engine also was laboring with rattle of steel. The tank bore on through the darkness and its mighty battering ram hit the light engine fair and square and knocked it off the rails. There were explanations and apologies and much tugging and heaving with all the powers of a tank before the engine was righted again and went on its way. (Told in New York Times—Copyright, 1917.)