Find of British WWI tank dispels cowardice claim
THE first major archaeological dig in 100 years at the site of one of Australia’s biggest military defeats has turned up a “missing” British tank that Aussies long thought had fled the Bullecourt battleground due to cowardice.
The British Ministry of Defence- backed team of British and Australian archaeologists and volunteers have just unearthed tank armour plates with original racing green paint work, bits of track, its six pounder shells and other metal objects belonging to “Tank 796”.
The French Government had issued an extraordinary permit for the first dig of an Anzac battlefield in the Somme since the end of the Great War. Its aim was to solve the mystery of the fate of a dozen British tanks that were deployed to Bullecourt to support the 1917 assault of the German line by the Australian 4th Division but “disappeared” leading to the slaughter of 10,000 Diggers.
Head of the expedition and MoD’s chief archaeologist Richard Osgood told News Corp Australia the find of the tank was testament to the brilliant trench maps the Austra- lian troops had sketched on at the time, copies of which he secured from the Australian War Memorial for the mission.
He said the find was exciting and did show that far from claims the British left Australian Diggers to be slaughtered on the German Hindenburg Line, the tanks had been engaged in battle but were not fit for the campaign.
He confirmed the tanks were training tanks with mini- mal and light armour and were prone to breaking down.
“The story was it had broken down near a shell crater so we found that and a couple of German soldiers underneath it which we think were machinegunners who had used the tank after it had been knocked out,” Mr Osgood said.
In terms of whether they were effective, Mr Osgood said further digs would be required.
“These tanks were training tanks but they had 50 per cent kill rate so the cowardice thing is a little bit unfair,” he said.
The remains of the German soldiers were returned to Germany.