Deborah and the War of the Tanks
Page 50
27. War Diary of 5th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/111).
28. Service record in NA (WO 374/36122).
29. Maurice, pp. 96–7.
30. Handwritten note by Lieutenant Gerald Edwards in Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 143.
31. War Diary of Fifth Army General Staff in NA (WO 95/520).
32. Official History – Passchendaele, p. 278.
33. Gibbs, From Bapaume to Passchendaele 1917, p. 292.
34. War Diary of 51st Division HQ in NA (WO 95/2846).
35. War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/92).
36. It appears Winston Churchill did not invent this memorable phrase, but he used it in a letter to Brigadier-General Sir James Edmonds dated 26 January 1938 in NA (CAB 45/200).
37. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
38. Coghlan, ‘Cambrai Day’.
Chapter 15: The Coming of Frank Heap (pp. 98–103)
1. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
2. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110). This is presumed to refer to Frank Heap as no other arrivals are recorded over this period.
3. Photograph in possession of family.
4. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, p. 2. He wrote ‘X Battalion’ and ‘X Company’ but the correct names have been inserted here.
5. Ibid, p. 3.
6. The photos are captioned ‘Tank officers in camp at Poperinghe, 26th September 1917’ (IWM refs. Q 2897, Q 2898 and Q 2899). A letter in The Tank (January 1956) identifies the officers as (left to right) unknown (seated far left), Lieut. William Struthers (standing), 2nd Lieut. Frederick King (seated), Major Richard Cooper, Capt. Wilfred Wyatt, Lieut. Gerald Edwards and 2nd Lieut. Gerald Butler. Round table (left to right): Lieut Edward Sartin, Capt. David Morris, Capt. Hugh Skinner, 2nd Lieut. Harold Puttock, Capt. Christopher Field, 2nd Lieut. Daniel Stevens seated on ground, and 2nd Lieut. Horace Birks second from right.
7. Watson, A Company of Tanks, pp. 148–9.
8. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
9. See photograph of Deborah sent to Frank Heap captioned ‘Uriah’s bus’; also dinner menu in possession of Edward Glanville Smith’s family signed ‘Uriah (F. G. Heap)’.
10. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
11. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
12. The Army List shows date of commission as 31 January 1917.
13. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
14. Bion, The Long Week-end, p. 133.
15. Belfast Evening Telegraph, 15 December 1917.
16. Letter from Frank Heap dated 26 November 1917.
17. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
18. Interview in IWM Sound Archive (870).
19. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
20. The ‘flapper’ was an impractical device called the Ayrton fan, intended to dispel poison gas.
21. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 14–19.
22. Elles, A paper entitled Man power in construction of tanks in NA (WO 158/819) says: ‘The cost of a large fighting Tank is taken at £5,000.’
23. Organisation and supply of tanks, etc, 1915 to 1918 in NA (MUN 5/391/1940/7) Chapter 5.
24. Elles.
25. Gwyn Evans, ‘De-coding Mark IV Serial Numbers – Part One’, Tankette: Magazine of the Miniature Armoured Fighting Vehicle Association Vol. 49 No. 6 (2014). Thanks to Gwyn Evans for his help.
26. History of No 20 Squadron, Royal Naval Armoured Cars 1915-19 in NA (MUN 5/391/1940/5).
27. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 19–20.
Chapter 16: Heap’s Progress (pp. 104–110)
1. Census records; Yorkshire Post, 30 January 1925.
2. Burnley Gazette, 15 January 1890.
3. Burnley Express, 4 July 1908, and George E. Martin, Breezy Blackpool, Mate’s Illustrated Guides, 1899.
4. American Register, 17 May 1914.
5. Manchester Evening News, 13 September 1899.
6. National Probate Calendar (1925) shows his estate at death was £66,094-3s.
7. Blackpool Gazette, 31 January 1925.
8. George E. Martin, Breezy Blackpool, Mate’s Illustrated Guides, 1899.
9. Blackpool Gazette, 31 January 1925.
10. Family recollections.
11. Census and birth/marriage/death records.
12. Sale particulars in Yorkshire Post, 4 April 1925.
13. Photographs in possession of family.
14. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
15. The Times, 4 July 1911.
16. Ibid.
17. Archives of The Leys School.
18. From Inside of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge by William Wordsworth.
19. George E. Martin, Breezy Blackpool, Mate’s Illustrated Guides, 1899.
20. Photographs in possession of family.
21. Family recollections.
22. Photographs in possession of family.
23. Council minutes in King’s College Archives Centre (KCGB/5/1/4/7), p. 179. Thanks to Dr Patricia McGuire, archivist of King’s College, Cambridge.
24. Priestley, p. 16.
25. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
26. Ewing, pp. 5–6.
27. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
28. Ewing, p. 11.
29. Ian Hay, The First Hundred Thousand, Edinburgh & London, 1915, pp. 170–80. This was the pen-name of Lieutenant, later Major, John Hay Beith of 10th Bn Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The Prime Minister Herbert Asquith referred to ‘a tempest which is shaking the foundations of the world’ in the House of Commons on 1 March 1915 – see Hansard.
30. Major-General R. F. H. Nalder, The Royal Corps of Signals – A History of its Antecedents and Development (circa 1800-1955), London, 1958, p. 92.
31. Ewing, p. 31.
32. Priestley, pp. 9 and 29.
33. Maurois, p. 122. The US edition credits the translation to Thurfrida Wake.
34. Ibid., p. 115.
35. Ibid., pp. 124–6.
36. Ibid., p. 131. CWGC records show Major-General George Thesiger, commanding 9th Division, died on 26 September 1915, aged forty-seven, and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial.
37. Ewing, p. 409.
38. Ibid., pp. 64–5.
39. War Diary of 9th Division Signals Company in NA (WO 95/1756/2).
40. Photograph in possession of family.
41. Blackpool Times & Herald, 12 January 1918.
42. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
43. Ibid.
44. See headline in The Times, 16 September 1916.
45. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
Chapter 17: ‘The Best Company of the Best Battalion’ (pp. 111–115).
1. Interview in IWM Sound Archive (870). The order of some sentences has been changed.
2. Letter from Horace Birks dated 3 December 1954 in Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives (LIDDELL 9/28/64).
3. Service record in NA (WO 339/12569).
4. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, p. 64. He does not name Captain Walter Smith, but refers to him as ‘the second in command’.
5. Ibid., pp. 64–5.
6. Interview in IWM Sound Archive (494).
7. Diary and family tree in possession of family.
8. Cambridge University Alumni 1261-1900.
9. The Times, 1 December 1917.
10. The Times, 12 September 1958.
11. Dorking & Leatherhead Advertiser, 10 November 1928.
12. Marriage certificate.
13. Ibid.
14. Unidentified newspaper article in possession of family.
15. Marriage certificate.
16. Wandsworth Borough News, 24 April 1909.
17. Census and birth/marriage/death records.
18. Service record in NA (WO 339/12569).
19. International Committee of the Red Cross records.
&n
bsp; 20. Moody, p. 71.
21. War Diary of 6th Bn Buffs (East Kent Regiment) in NA (WO 95/1860).
22. Ibid.
23. CWGC records.
24. Moody, p. 108.
25. Rugby History Society website.
26. War Diary of 6th Bn Buffs (East Kent Regiment) in NA (WO 95/1860).
27. Ibid.
28. Moody, p. 144.
29. Service record in NA (WO 339/12569).
30. Ibid.
31. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/ 110).
32. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 183.
33. Letter from Major-General Henry Burstall, commander of 2nd Canadian Division, dated 11 April 1917 in War Diary of 1st Brigade Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/97).
34. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 75.
35. Ibid., p. 81.
36. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
37. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 83.
Chapter 18: Redundant Oddments (pp. 116–121)
1. Fuller, Tanks in the Great War 1914-1918, p. xvi.
2. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 90.
3. Coghlan, ‘Cambrai Day’.
4. War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/91) – this was at Wailly on 21 July.
5. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
6. Ibid.
7. Col. K. W. Maurice-Jones, The History of Coast Artillery in the British Army, London, 1959, p. 161.
8. Captain J. E. E. Craster, Pemba, The Spice Island of Zanzibar, London & Leipsic, 1913, p. 15.
9. Ibid., p. 22.
10. Ibid., frontispiece.
11. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
12. With the Anglo-German Boundary Commission in West Africa 1912-1913 by Warwick Trading Co. in IWM Film Archive (MGH 2248),
13. Captain W. V. Nugent, ‘The Geographical Results of the Nigeria-Kamerun Boundary Demarcation Commission of 1912-13’, Geographical Journal (June 1914).
14. Hermann Detzner, Im Lande des Dju-Dju – Reiseerlebnisse im Östlichen Stromgebiet des Niger, Berlin, 1923, p. 350.
15. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
16. Official History – Togoland and Cameroons, p. 8 pic.
17. CWGC records.
18. The Times, 28 August 1914.
19. Sydney Morning Herald, 18 March 1915.
20. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
21. Official History – Togoland and Cameroons, p. 423.
22. Medical index card.
23. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
24. Swinton, pp. 220–1. This shows Major W. F. R. Kyngdon (Royal Artillery) commanded F Company.
25. Service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
26. Swinton, p. 274.
27. Major A. F. Becke, Order of Battle Part 4 – The Army Council, G.H.Q.s, Armies, and Corps 1914-1918, London, 1945, p. 267.
28. Swinton, p. 280.
29. Ibid., p. 286.
30. Ibid., p. 288.
31. See Movement Orders dated 22 October 1916 issued on behalf of the officer commanding the Heavy Section of the MGC and signed by Kyngdon, in War Diary of C Company Heavy Section in NA (WO 95/96/6).
32. Baker-Carr, From Chauffeur to Brigadier, p. 206.
33. Ibid., pp. 202–3.
34. Ibid., p. 232.
35. Bion, War Memoirs, p. 67.
Chapter 19: Out of the Salient (pp. 122–125)
1. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 75.
2. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
3. For more on ‘Operation Hush’, see Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, The Dover Patrol 1915–1917 Vol. 1, London, 1919, pp. 223–60.
4. Census records; US Army enlistment records; service record, held by Ministry of Defence.
5. C. D Baker-Carr, General Account of the Attack on and Capture of Poelcappelle in National Army Museum (2006-09-5-4-8-1).
6. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
7. See War Diaries of 1st Brigade Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/98) and 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110); Watson, A Company of Tanks, pp. 154–60; H.L.B. (i.e. Horace Leslie Birks), ‘The Brewery, Poelcapelle, October, 1917’, The Tank (October 1955); Coghlan, ‘Cambrai Day’.
8. Service record in NA (WO 339/99800).
9. Watson, A Company of Tanks, pp. 159–61.
10. Ibid., pp. 160–1.
11. Birks, ‘Cambrai – The Attack on Flésquières Ridge [sic]’.
12. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
13. Birks, ‘Cambrai – The Attack on Flésquières Ridge [sic]’.
14. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
15. CWGC records; War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
16. Baker-Carr, From Chauffeur to Brigadier, p. 255.
17. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 222.
Chapter 20: High Days and Highlanders (pp. 126–130)
1. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 54–5.
2. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
3. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 72–3. He refers to ‘C’ Company, which was the later name of No. 12 Company.
4. Bion, The Long Week-end, pp. 151–2.
5. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 162.
6. Ibid., p. 166.
7. War Diary of 153rd Infantry Brigade HQ in NA (WO 95/2873).
8. Baker-Carr, From Chauffeur to Brigadier, pp. 260–1.
9. Training Note. Tank and infantry operations without methodical artillery preparation, from Third Army dated 30 October 1917, in Official History – Cambrai, pp. 348–54 and various War Diaries. The note says ‘Infantry should keep from 25 to 50 paces behind the Tank as it enters the wire, so as not to get entangled in any trailing strands.’
10. Notes on Tank and Infantry Training in War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/92).
11. Instructions No. 1 dated 7 November 1917 in War Diary of 51st Division HQ in NA (WO 95/2846).
12. Ibid.
13. Order No. 21 dated 15 November 1917 in War Diary of 1st Brigade Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/98).
14. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
15. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
16. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 163.
17. War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
18. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
19. Birks, ‘Cambrai – The Attack on Flésquières Ridge [sic]’.
20. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 82–3.
21. Account from History of Cambrai compiled by Major-General Sir Percy Hobart in Tank Museum (E2006.381). The account is anonymous, but clearly by Birks as the details are similar to his other descriptions of the battle.
22. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
23. ‘L.I.’, ‘Cambrai, 1917 – The Impressions of an Infantryman’.
Chapter 21: Into Hiding (pp. 133–137)
1. War Diary of 5th Bn Seaforth Highlanders in NA (WO 95/2866).
2. Watson, A Company of Tanks, pp. 167–8.
3. Ibid.
4. See V. T. Boughton, History of the Eleventh Engineers, United States Army, New York, 1926.
5. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 90–1.
6. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
7. Details in War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/92).
8. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 90–1.
9. Anon., ‘The Wanderings of “D” in France’.
10. Photograph from Railway Construction Engineers Collection in IWM (Q 46939).
11. Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 169.
12. Baker-Carr, From Chauffeur to Brigadier, p. 265.
13. Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry in service record of Sapper Frederick Bird in NA (WO 363). The soldier who died was Private John McNally.
14. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 93–4.
15. Handwritten note by Lieutenant Gerald Edwar
ds in Watson, A Company of Tanks, p. 169.
16. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 93–4.
17. Macintosh, ‘The Tanks at Cambrai’, p. 183.
18. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 95–6.
19. Watson, A Company of Tanks, pp. 169–71.
20. War Diary of 7th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/100) shows two companies arrived on 15 November and one company on 18 November. War Diary of 5th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/111) shows their tanks arrived on 17 November.
21. Official History – Cambrai, pp. 27–8. This total was made up 378 fighting tanks, fifty-four supply tanks, thirty-two wire-pulling tanks, and twelve others carrying bridging and communications equipment.
22. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 97–8.
23. Watson, A Company of Tanks, pp. 169–71.
Chapter 22: On the Silent Front (pp. 138–144)
1. See letter from Elles in NA (CAB 45/118): ‘Fuller and I, for instance, never visited the area except in trench coats and black goggles.’
2. War Diary of 1st Bn Royal Irish Fusiliers in NA (WO 95/2502/2).
3. Falls, The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division, p. 141.
4. Steuben, p. 41.
5. Hülsemann, p. 57.
6. Ibid., p. 58.
7. Ibid., p. 64.
8. Ibid., p. 58. The corporal is described as ‘baumlang’ – literally ‘as tall as a tree’.
9. War Diary of 1st Bn Royal Irish Fusiliers in NA (WO 95/2502/2).
10. Diary of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig – copy in NA (WO 256/24). Entry for 18 November 1917.
11. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, p. 99.
12. Birks, ‘Cambrai – The Attack on Flésquières Ridge [sic]’.
13. Williams-Ellis, p. 102.
14. Letter from Elles in NA (CAB 45/118).
15. ‘L.I.’, ‘Some Reminiscences of a War-time Soldier III. – A Tank to the Rescue’.
16. Birks, ‘Cambrai – The Attack on Flésquières Ridge [sic]’.
17. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, pp. 99–101.
18. Hülsemann, p. 238.
19. Macintosh, Men and Tanks, p. 99.
20. Major Ward’s orders have not survived, but would probably have included this overview from the orders to D Bn dated 18 November 1917, in War Diary of 4th Bn Tank Corps in NA (WO 95/110).
21. War Diary of Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/92).
22. War Diary of 1st Brigade Tank Corps HQ in NA (WO 95/98).
23. War Diary of 7th Bn Tank Corps, including History of 7th Tank Bn, in NA (WO 95/100).
24. D Bn Battlegraph in NA (MFQ 1/1384).
25. Operation Order No 5 Section by Captain D. A. Morris in Tank Museum (E1992.68.3). The order of some sentences has been some changed, punctuation added and capital letters removed.