Still further fighting occurred, heavy machine-gun and rifle fire being opened on the advancing 6th Black Watch from the Grand Ravine. Individual skill and initiative were again displayed. The first machine-gun was put out of action by a private soldier, who, working towards it alone, killed five and wounded two of the team with rifle grenades. A tank at that moment arrived, and the Grand Ravine was cleared, 6 officers and 100 other ranks being taken prisoner.
Meanwhile Lieut.-Colonel N. D. Campbell, commanding this battalion, in making a reconnaissance of the captured ground, came across a dug-out which had not previously been noticed, and with the help of his orderly captured twelve prisoners in it.
On the extreme left the 5th Gordon Highlanders made a surprisingly big bag in the outpost line, capturing 21 prisoners in one sap-head, and capturing or killing 22 in another. The Hindenburg front line was entered without difficulty with the tanks, the bulk of the garrison having run back to Triangle Support. Up to this point 2 machine-guns and 200 prisoners had been captured.
It was some time before the garrison of Triangle Support could be overcome, as only one second-wave tank on the battalion front managed to cross the Hindenburg front line.
Subsequently the resistance collapsed on the arrival of some third-wave tanks, but not before odd platoons had gallantly fought their way into the trench.
Wood Trench and Mole Trench were occupied without particular effort; but beyond Mole Trench lay a sunken road, into which large numbers of the enemy had fled at the first sight of the tanks. This road was cleared with the assistance of a tank, which did magnificent execution with its 6-pounder gun, shell after shell bursting in the midst of parties of panic-stricken Germans.
By this time the 7th Black Watch, who were detailed to pass through the 5th Gordon Highlanders for the second phase of the attack, came up, and with some of the latter crossed the Grand Ravine and moved towards Chapel Trench. Here again the Germans fought stubbornly, some 40 of them being killed before the trench was occupied. The 5th Gordon Highlanders thus arrived on their objectives, having captured a total of 10 machine-guns, 2 trench-mortars, and 400 prisoners, including a battalion commander complete with his staff.
So far the attack had proceeded smoothly enough, but in the next phase the conditions under which the advance was to be carried out changed considerably. Up to the present the main difficulty of the tanks had been the width and depth of the trenches which they had to traverse, effective action against them on the part of the enemy having been negligible.
In the next stage the advance was to be carried out through the enemy’s gun line, with the result that the tanks had not only to contend with the crossing of the trenches, but were also exposed to the close-range fire of field-guns. As the infantry depended absolutely and entirely on the tanks for the crushing of the large belts of wire opposed to them, any losses sustained by the tanks, as will be seen, seriously prejudiced the infantry’s chances of success.