Three days stranded in a tank is the best way to honour Grandad
Two brothers tell Joe Shute how they will pay tribute to a remarkable act of bravery at Passchendaele
As boys, Richard and John Black would put on their grandfather’s medals and tin hat, marching up and down the garden of his Nottingham home, while he laughingly put them through drills. At night, by the fire, they would watch him picking out shrapnel splinters that – even after all those years – rose to the surface of his chest and arms.
The boys were aware he had fought in the First World War but he largely kept his experiences on the Western Front to himself. “We knew he had been in a tank,” says John, 74, from his Bedfordshire home. “Although he never made anything of it.”
In fact, those medals and shards of metal were the result of one of the most daring stories of the Great War. On Aug 22 1917, their grandfather became stranded in a tank with his crew, just yards from German lines. For three days and nights, they were under bombardment. The men had only rifles, a revolver and a machine gun to fend off waves of enemy attack. Conditions became so desperate that they were forced to bleed the radiator of their Mark IV and drink the filthy water. But, somehow, they survived to become the most decorated tank crew of the First World War.
Today, to mark the centenary of their incredible story, a full-sized replica of the tank will be driven to the spot of Belgian countryside where it became stranded in 1914, and manned for 72 hours. Unlike other recent Battle of Passchendaele commemorations, it will be lowkey, but for John and Richard it is the perfect way to remember their grandfather. “You imagine blood, mud and fear,” says Richard, 76, who lives in Nottinghamshire and will join his brother and the enthusiasts who built the replica for the sit-in.
Donald Hickling Richardson was born on Feb 3 1893, in Nottingham, the son of a Liberal MP and wholesale grocer. He went into the family trade but when war broke out in Aug 1914 joined local regiment the Sherwood Foresters. By December, he had been promoted to second lieutenant and in early 1915, shortly after marrying, was posted to the Western Front.
In 1917, he was placed in charge of one of Britain’s new Mark IV tanks, which he named “Fray Bentos” after the canned meat his family sold back home. Armed with Lewis machine guns, field guns and reinforced steel panels, the Mark IV was lethally equipped – but could only trundle along at four miles per hour.
On Aug 22, Richardson chose to travel alongside its eight-strong crew. The squadron had been tasked with leading an attack on a heavily fortified German area known as Hill 35 but, as they approached, a hail of bullets struck. Richardson was hit in the leg, while 2nd Lieut George Hill was blown off his seat, inadvertently revving the throttle and sending the tank into a crater.
Passchendaele’s infamous muddy conditions rendered its main guns useless. Richardson sent Pte Brady to retrieve the unditching beam (used to right the vehicle), but he was shot the second he stepped outside. While bullets and shells rained down, the tank’s position in the crater meant the enemy didn’t have a clear target. At one stage, German soldiers holding grenades swarmed over it, yet Richardson and his men fought them in brutal hand-to-hand combat.
By day three, all but one of the soldiers had been injured, water had run out and mud was seeping into the vehicle. After dark, they staged a daring escape – creeping out and dragging their machine guns behind them. Richardson was the last to leave. John still has his framed Mention in Despatches for the heroism he displayed over those 72 hours. He was also awarded the Military Cross.
Richardson went on to serve until the end of the war, in a new tank he called Fray Bentos II, after which he returned to the family business. But in 1942 his only son, John, was killed in a tank during pivotal Second World War campaign the Battle of El Alamein. “It turned Grandad’s hair white in a week,” says John, who was named in memory of his uncle.
They struggle to put into words what it will mean to sit in the reconstructed Fray Bentos. The true horror of war will be, they say, “unimaginable”. Yet they recognise that many families also have uncovered such tales of heroism. As Richard says: “There are thousands of stories of incredible bravery out there.”