The Devil's Chariots

by John Glanfield

  The Scottish Group brought together the existing contractors there in October under the Director General of Munitions (Scotland). Production of the British Army Mk VIII and Medium C was to be concentrated with them. North British Loco was preparing to start volume Mk VIII assembly when trials in September revealed transmission and track-fouling problems. These apart, the formidable-looking but very heavy machine was raising doubts concerning its suitability for the fast strike planned for 1919. Fuller was instrumental in getting the Mk VIII sidelined in favour of a new run of Mk V construction.

  West’s Construction Group was at the end of the line for armour and skilled labour for the 1,500 Liberty Mk VIII hulls. Stern complained bitterly that the obligation to supply them for the Allied tank was being ignored in favour of the British type. He failed to persuade the Tank Board to let him take control of West’s group. Maclean responded by raising its monthly target from 280 to 500 hulls from November and offering the group a performance bonus. It was all fantasy. MWD had recently assessed the group’s construction capability for complete tanks at 40 per month. Making every allowance for hulls only, it could not get anywhere near 500. It was acutely short of riveters and fitters, telling Maclean that as none were forthcoming from the regional labour office its tank programme was ‘badly compromised’. West’s produced some 30 or 40 hulls in November before the order was cancelled. Capt Gelder, RAF, Maclean’s deputy, told Stern’s people that month that there was nobody in the MWD who could produce detailed information on parts or suppliers for Chateauroux.11

  Sir Douglas Haig noted in his diary that on 10 September he told Gen Seely they should aim to finish the war now and not delay the production of tanks until the perfect design had emerged. He added that he thought it was a waste of time talking to Seely. On the 17th the War Office instructed the Ministry to supply 3,500 fighting tanks, up to 1,800 of which were to be Mk V or V Two Star, and the balance Medium B or C. For supply work a mix of Mk V Star and Mk IX were requested, totalling 400 machines. Two-thirds of the order was wanted in France by 15 March and the balance by 15 June. Maclean forecast that for the March deadline his fighting tank deliveries would be nearly 1,000 machines (40 per cent) short of requirement, though this would be more than made good by the June date.

  Fast completion was promised for the new run of Mk V providing there were absolutely no design changes and all the original jigs could be used. Metropolitan was contracted on this understanding. Bermicourt HQ then asked for over 60 modifications, halting production and causing the much-changed machine to be designated Mk X. By the Armistice, none were completed. The Mk V Star had been relegated to supply because its extra track length and added weight reduced power and manoeuvrability. Attempts to carry forward four MG crews per tank were abandoned when the high temperatures and poor ventilation which dogged the V series left the gunners unfit to fight on arrival.

  More tanks meant more men. Fuller proposed a doubling of the Tank Corps to 34 battalions. When he was ‘personally and viciously’ obstructed by Gen Lynden-Bell, the Director of Staff Duties, he went straight to Sir Henry Wilson, the CIGS, who gave him a signed authority. Maclean believed he could boost production from 4,250 to 6,300 tanks over the 12 months to September 1919 if the army released a further 3,500 skilled men. They were not forthcoming. In the meantime, deliveries were still falling behind forecast. No tanks came out of Scotland between August and mid-October 1918 when three were received. The acute labour shortage drove Vickers to seek permission to employ boys of 14 to 16 years of age on nightwork, shaping and drilling track links at their Earlstown factory in Lancashire. The boys worked unsupervised because no men or women could be spared. Other firms were similarly stretched. Production of all types was averaging only 135 machines per month, whereas in April/May Mk V alone had run at 150 each month. (Monthly production had peaked at 200 in 1917 during Stern’s tenure.) If MWD was to meet the army’s March delivery deadline, output had to triple.

  Attempts have since been made to put a figure on the number of tanks which would have been available to Haig the following year if the war had continued. Walter Layton, the Director of Statistics and member of Council at the Ministry of Munitions, was exceptionally well placed to make the calculations. His assessment of 14 November 1918, using all the data at his disposal, was that on 1 June 1919, the date set for the great push, the army would have had some 2,450 heavy and medium fighting tanks as against an estimated WO requirement for 2,176 after allowance for currently serviceable machines and later wastage. Layton had thrown in the remaining and by then very obsolete Mk IV types before concluding that demand could be met by June. He also forecast delivery by then of 800 supply types (100 Mk IX and the redundant Mk V Star) against a WO requirement for 400. He did not comment on fighting tank completions for the period to March 1919 which were still expected to fall far below requirement.

  Almost a year to the day after the first build order for Walter Wilson’s ‘B’ Type was placed, the Tank Board decided on 24 October to accept it ‘as an alternative to no machine at all’ and relegated it to training only. The army had just received its first machine. The restricted access to the very small engine compartment was quite impracticable in emergencies and there were other shortcomings. Of the 550 on order, 80 in all were built. Tritton’s Medium C narrowly avoided a gearbox redesign after tests, but was then further delayed awaiting vacuum pumps for the Ricardo 150hp engines. First orders had gone to Foster’s, Patent Shaft and Coventry Ordnance as long ago as February, but none were delivered until January 1919. It was by far the most efficient tank to date. Although Johnson’s Medium D was still at the experimental stage, Maclean had plans in place for Vickers of London to build 2,000, starting in May 1919. Fuller accordingly secured adoption of the ‘C’ Type for the 1919 season. Orders were issued to North British Locomotive and Beardmore’s National Projectile Factory respectively for 1,440 and 1,190 Medium Cs, bringing the total on order to 3,230.

  The Tank Production Committee was the last of its kind to emerge before the Armistice. Control of the weapon’s design, production and development had variously passed through no fewer than nine specially constituted committees and boards in its brief wartime existence. The terms of reference and composition of most of those groups mirrored the power struggle between the supply side and the end user. The victorious tanks had left a trail of assorted bodies in their wake at home.

  The Allied tank programme was also moving slowly. Draine had reported in May 1918 that conversion of America’s Liberty engine for tank work was beset with problems. Deliveries from the only supplier, Trego Motors of Newhaven, Connecticut, were put back from August to November. In its place the Ricardo 300hp unit had to be got into production at speed. First deliveries were not made until October. The completion of other tank engines was disrupted by the changeover and output briefly fell to 184 per month. West’s Construction Group (the Manchester Tank Committee) was last on the list for jigs supply, and when they arrived the group could not get armour plate released through MWD. The American programme of parts production was equally behind schedule, none being expected to reach France until December. North British Locomotive built two prototype Mk VIIIs in mild steel. No. 1 was fitted with a 180hp Rolls-Royce engine pending receipt of a Ricardo unit and was first tested on 12 August at NBL’s Queens Park Works in Glasgow. Two cast-iron gearbox casings ‘blew’ and there were clutch problems, but nothing out of the usual at this early stage, save that it was found necessary to remove the engine to replace the clutch. No. 2 with the first Ricardo engine arrived at the Newbury testing station on 18 October. It broke down completely with engine bearing trouble shortly after starting a 1,000-mile trial.

  Stern’s greatest problem lay in getting the French plant built. It was to be geared to production of 720 tanks per month, the first 600 to go to the American Army and an undecided proportion of the next 900 to France, the balance to be split between Britain and the US. The MoM Department of Factory Construction failed to secure the necessar
y local labour and materials, the French government having contributed 1,000 very inefficient workers, a few huts and four lorries, one at least being a ruinous 1903 Thorneycroft steamer. Only one steam crane was available to erect the several thousand tons of structural steel which had arrived. A proposal from M. Loucheur in July that his Ministry should take over the construction was politely declined for fear that a French foot in the door now would lead to a later bid for production control. Instead, site management was split three ways between the commissioners, the Factory Construction Department and the main contractors, no one person having overall control of the work and the 1,300 men employed. It was a hopeless formula which was quickly corrected. Construction went forward only after Mr Hopkinson of Messrs S. Pearson & Company was secured in August as sole site manager.

  Stern set up a Mechanical Warfare Branch of the British War Mission in the United States that month. Norman Holden went out in October as deputy commissioner to run it. The branch would progress orders from MWD and secure materials and components for tank assembly in Britain and Chateauroux. Duckham’s deputy, Sir Percival Perry of Henry Ford, visited the US and felt compelled to cable London on 1 October:

  … my opinion Anglo-American programme in hopeless condition here. Neither engine gears nor other components in production. Armour plate supplies chaotic… If possible Stern should come to review whole … situation and condition. Unless drastic action taken forthwith am convinced that neither Allied Mark Eight nor American Renaults available for spring.12

  Perry acknowledged shortly afterwards that he had overstated the position, though American manufacturers were wrestling with red tape and loudly complaining. (Perry headed a programme to build 10,000 light tracked gun tractors for delivery to the army by 1 April 1919. Based on standard commercial engines and a simplified track already in production, they were to be further developed to replace the costly Mk IX supply tank.) Hopkinson had better news that day from Chateauroux where he confidently predicted the first phase of five bays would be fully operational to assemble tanks by the year end. Draine was able to pull the US operation together and confirm American readiness to ship 200 sets of Mk VIII components in December, rising monthly thereafter. Could the British match this? Maclean said he could, but there has to be doubt that he could deliver. The American Army had selected the French Renault ‘chaser’ as its light tank and was preparing to build 4,000 in the US. On completion of the Allied programme it also planned to ship parts from America and assemble a further 1,450 heavy tanks at Chateauroux. In October France claimed the first 600 tanks from the factory, though the French government offered no contribution to the costs of the plant and assembly. The Supreme War Council compromised, allocating France the balance of 900 Mk VIII tanks after the first 600 went to America. France and the US had also been pressing the War Office for Mk V tanks for nearly a year, having declined offers of Mk IV. The build-up of British tank battalions and high levels of battle damage left no margin for the Allies save a few token machines.

  With the Armistice, all work ceased at Chateauroux. The factory was roofed, a large new power station stood ready and components including track links were about to be shipped from Manchester for riveting there in December. Tank assembly would have followed in January. The complex passed to the French government in 1920.

  The accelerating Allied advance after Amiens and much hard fighting for the tanks soaked up spare parts and the slender reserves. Doubts of the tank’s effectiveness had shrunk to the point where almost every corps, divisional and brigade commander was pleading for armoured support. The 15 battalions should have been able to maintain a fighting strength of 720 tanks. They were 391 short in August, falling in September to 420 below establishment. Elles recalled that by 5 November all he could muster was one composite company.13 The Tank Corps had fought itself to a standstill by the time the Armistice was signed on the 11th. Since its first engagement in 1916 the Corps has lost 212 officers and 1,107 other ranks killed in action or died of wounds. Life expectancy in a tank, particularly in the closing months, was frighteningly low. Their sacrifice and the spirit and courage of all the tank men contributed immeasurably to the final victory. Sir Douglas Haig saluted them in his last despatch:

  Since the opening of our offensive on August 8, tanks have been employed on every battlefield, and the importance of the part played by them in breaking up the resistance of the German infantry can scarcely be exaggerated. The whole scheme of the attack of August 8 was dependent upon tanks, and ever since that date on numberless occasions the success of our infantry has been powerfully assisted or confirmed by their timely arrival. So great has been the effect produced upon the German infantry by the appearance of British tanks that in more than one instance, when for various reasons real tanks were not available in sufficient numbers, valuable results have been obtained by the use of dummy tanks painted on frames of wood and canvas.

  Nor should we forget the unsung visionaries and pioneers, military as well as civilian, and the silent army of designers, engineers and men and women in the foundries and factories who fought another kind of war and won another kind of victory. Had they lost their battles, many scores of thousands more would have died.

  14.

  POWER DOWN

  ‘Better to leave the tank where it properly stands, behind the British Museum, and spend our time more profitably adapting the internal combustion engine to the best advantage in other ways.’1

  Maj G. MacLeod Ross MC RE, 1931. Two years later MacLeod Ross was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Design (Tanks).

  Almost all tank construction was cancelled within hours of the Armistice. Only Tritton’s Medium C ‘Hornet’ and Col Philip Johnson’s experimental ‘D’ Types were retained, some 500 of the former being sufficiently advanced to justify completion. Three weeks later the War Office financial controllers raised objections on the grounds that the peacetime establishment of the Tank Corps had not yet been determined. The Army Council was under severe constraint from the Treasury as each branch fought for funds. The fledgling Tank Corps with its costly equipment was particularly vulnerable to cutbacks. Fuller realized that if he and Elles insisted on completing all the ‘C’ Types as previously approved, the chances of securing additional production funding for the promising Medium D would be next to zero. Elles was less impressed with Johnson’s untried design, but Fuller recommended abandoning the ‘C’ tanks to protect the Medium D. The General Staff disagreed, saying Johnson’s machine would be too fast for the infantry to keep up with it. Fuller won their approval after countering that it was a ‘cavalry tank’. Only 36 ‘C’ Types were built, all by Foster’s.

  The future of the Tank Corps remained undecided and in limbo for nearly five years after the Armistice. It was finally constituted as a separate arm within the army system in September 1923. Until then Fuller was its principal champion in the fight not only for funds but for its survival – by January 1920 the Corps faced difficulty in raising even two battalions. He was supported by Churchill who moved from the Ministry in January 1919 to become Secretary of State for War for the next 12 months. Fuller’s message was neatly expressed in the title of his essay on the future of mechanical warfare: ‘Racehorses Don’t Pull Up at the Winning Post’. It won the Gold Medal in 1920 in the first post-war Royal United Service Institution competition. He advocated the phased replacement of horsed transport by tractors, and the formation of a model division with tank-reinforced cavalry and a company of tanks attached to each of its 12 infantry battalions. This was hardly earth-shaking in the light of recent experience, but a storm of protests descended from the cavalry fraternity. Philip Johnson read a paper to the Staff that year on the use of tanks in undeveloped country which caused Gen Lynden-Bell, the Director of Staff Duties, to tell him publicly that he would never succeed in making the tank replace the horse. Even Maj Gen Sir Louis Jackson (knighted in 1918), who had so strongly supported Swinton and Tulloch against Holden in 1915, now turned his back on tanks. In a lecture
at the RUSI in November 1919 on ‘The Possibilities of the Next War’ he dismissed them in short order: ‘The tank proper was a freak. The circumstances which called it into existence were exceptional and are not likely to recur. If they do they can be dealt with by other means.’2 Jackson was on firmer ground in supporting the need for tracked transport vehicles, but as Director General of Trench Warfare Supply since June 1915 his opinion carried weight. It would not have escaped the notice of Lord Peel, the Under Secretary of State for War, who chaired the meeting.

  The War Office had already won its long battle with the Ministry of Munitions for control of tank design and development. It took over the operation from Maclean’s MWD in March 1919, though construction remained the Ministry’s responsibility for the rest of the year. The General Staff was to decide tank requirements and Gen Furse, the Master General of Ordnance, would arrange design and construction. The two liaised through a Tank Committee chaired by Furse which replaced his Tank Board. Members included Elles, Fuller and d’Eyncourt. Philip Johnson was to create and direct a War Office Department of Tank Design and Experiment (DTDE). It set up shop in a hut in Grosvenor Gardens, SW1. Johnson took over the trial ground at Dollis Hill and recruited senior members of the defunct MWD design team including Lt Frank Shaw – previously Joint Director of Design with Maj Wilson – and Lt George Rackham. The junior rank of these and the other highly experienced military members of the old tank design department reflects the point-blank refusal of the War Office to accept repeated requests for their promotion.

  Johnson continued to develop the 20-ton Medium D series. Draughtsmen were set to produce an expected 2,000 working drawings. Of the ten mildsteel machines ordered in August/September 1918, Fowler’s was to build four standard amphibious ‘D’ Types and Vickers a further four at its Wolseley motor works in Birmingham. Vickers was also to build one each of the widebodied Star and Two Star versions. The Two Star machine was built by the Variable Speed Gear Co., a Vickers subsidiary, at its Crayford factory near Dartford.3 No doubt it also constructed the Star.