During the attack on Courcelles, Captain Richard Annesley West of the 6th Battalion took charge of some infantry who had lost their bearings in the dense fog. He gathered up all the scattered men he could find. He was mounted, and in the course of the morning he had two horses shot under him; but after the second horse had been shot he went on with his work on foot. Having rallied the infantry, he continued his original task of leading forward his Tanks, and our capture of Courcelles was chiefly due to his individual initiative and gallantry. He was awarded a bar to his D.S.O.
About eleven o’clock the greater number both of Mark V. Tanks and Whippets had reached the line of the railway. A few leading Tanks had even crossed it, when all in a moment the mist lifted with the suddenness of a withdrawn curtain. A blazing sun appeared, and each advancing Tank stood out clearly under its bright light. The German artillery, which was covering the railway, immediately directed a deadly fire on the Tanks, and each individual machine became the centre of a zone of bullets and bursting shells. The infantry as they advanced had to avoid these little whirlwinds of fire. It was at this time that most of the thirty-seven Tanks which were hit by shells during the day were accounted for.
It was a good day for the enemy from an anti-Tank point of view, such a day indeed as they were never to repeat.
Second Lieutenant Hickson of the 3rd Tank Battalion was one of the few who had got his Tank across the line just before the mist lifted. As the sun came out he found himself right in front of the enemy’s batteries at point-blank range. His Whippet was immediately hit, but he managed to get his two men away in safety. The artillery and machine-gun fire was extremely heavy, but without any thought of his own safety, he at once went back on foot to warn a number of other Tanks which were about to cross the railway at the same place. In this he was successful and undoubtedly saved a large number of machines from being knocked out. Later, though the spot was still under heavy fire, he made several ineffectual efforts to salve his Tank.
The weather could hardly have done us a worse turn. Had the mist lasted for half an hour longer the Tanks would have been able to overrun the artillery positions without being seen. However, the lifting of the fog at least enabled the aeroplanes attached to the Tanks to go up. The counter-gun machines at once flew out to attack the hostile batteries, and a good deal of execution was done.
All the rest of the day we fought under a blazing sun.
The German resistance was curiously patchy; here and there we found every inch of our advance disputed, the machine-gunners and artillerymen fighting their weapons till the last moment, and the reserves launching small counter-attacks whenever opportunity offered.
Here and there large parties, a hundred and more strong, would surrender before the Tanks had time to open fire.
The Tank crews,—especially of the Mark V.’s and the Whippets, whose ventilation was less adequate than the old Mark IV.’s—suffered greatly from the terrific heat.
In one or two instances the whole crew of a Mark V. seems to have become unconscious through the appalling heat, the fumes from their own engines, and the gas used by the enemy, the unconsciousness being followed by temporarily complete loss of memory and extreme prostration.