MY TERROR AT THE TANKODROME
One day of training with 'the Tankers' was enough for this writer
It was in the fields outside Cambrai that, a little under a year ago, we were first shown the devastating power of co-ordinated attacks by tank.
since then they have proved to be a vital new technology in the advance of the allied war effort, and I endeavoured to experience them for myself.
when I arrived at the tankodrome, a wide amphitheatre with sloping sides at a secret location in the English countryside, mighty convenient for practice climbs, there were tanks rolling about in all directions.
some were being trained. Young officers walked backwards in front of them, now encouraging them, now bellowing orders, now dropping their hands in mute disgust and exasperation; then waving their arms again and uplifting their voices in a fresh effort to make the tank understand what it was to do.
Other tanks, with ( it seemed to me) a conscious air of superiority, were walking round, turning this way and that, elbowing themselves into holes and out again, without any need of directions.
One or two I saw sulking, refusing to budge. around them buzzed officers. Mechanics offered them oil, tickled up their sparking plugs, examined their carburettors. soon they were feeling better and started off again.
For half an hour I rode about in a tank. there is not much room to spare inside when the captain and the gun- crews and the driver and mechanics are all aboard. I sat up first by the driver and watched the scenery fly past at threeand-a-half miles an hour.
My surprise was finding how easily the tank could ‘take’ ditches and push its way through trees and scramble over walls. I waited for violent oscillations, prepared myself to be thrown about as if in a heavy sea. the tank positively glided. Its motion seemed to be more like that of a serpent than that of a ship.
OUCH, THAT’S HOT
then came my second surprise, not so pleasant as the other one. I had yielded up the front place and was sitting in the middle by the motor, thinking how very smoothly we travelled, when suddenly I was flung onto the floor. I half picked myself up; there came another lurch — I saved myself from another grovel by clutching at some part of the engine.
I do not know what part I took hold of, but I do know that it was hot.
the captain smiled. ‘Yes, it all gets pretty warm,’ he said. ‘ I can cook my breakfast sausage on the exhaust pipe. we shan’t be doing that again, though. Look out and see where we came down.’
I looked, and saw a very steep bank.
‘Do you mean to say we slid down there?’ I asked.
‘Certainly, and now if you like we’ll go up it.’
He gave some directions. the tank slewed round, took one look at the steep bank and clambered stoutly up it, rearing itself almost onto its tail to do so. this time I had wedged myself in (not touching the engine, though!)
SICKENING FUMES
‘awful hot and stuffy it gets in here, you know,’ the captain said. ‘Before the Cambrai show we had to travel ten hours to get there. that took some doing, I can tell you. It’s the fumes that turn chaps up.’
I had a sudden vision of the inside of a tank during a battle. shells bursting around it. Bullets pattering on the steel hide of it like hail. the gun-crews loading and firing as quickly as men’s hands can load and fire. the machinery grinding on the whole time. and, added to all these horrors — for I am sure they must seem horrors to you, though the tankers would not admit the term — the sickening fumes of petrol that cannot be got rid of quickly enough.
Do not forget, though, when you read about tanks, when you think of their great work, do not forget the men in them.
the tank Corps are men who deserve our highest gratitude and admiration, not alone for their courage but also for their ability, for the skill they have worked up so quickly in this new arm.
and just one last word in your ear. whatever you do, do not make fun of the appearance of tanks.
Do not compare them to toads or antediluvian reptiles. Do not call them sinister or obscene. they do not like it.