Great Britain. Army. Royal Tank Corps; Tanks (Military science)
On completion every Tank was first sent to testing grounds at Newbury,
where it was manned by No. 20 Squadron R.N.A.S. From here it was
forwarded to Richborough, whence it was shipped by the Channel ferry
and received at Le Havre by another detachment of Squadron 20. Thence
it went to Bermicourt, was again tested, this time by Tank Corps
personnel, and then handed on to the Central Stores at Erin. These
stores were first established in 1917, and eventually consisted of
over seven acres of railway siding and six acres of buildings. The
Central Workshops were at one time also installed here, but as more
accommodation became necessary they were moved to Teneur, about a mile
and a half away.
From the Central Stores the Tanks would be issued to Battalions as
needed.
For example, during the Third Battle of Ypres a large number of Tanks
were supplied to Companies actually in the line. We will suppose that
a particular Tank was so supplied, and received a bullet through its
carburettor during one of the small actions of the end of October.
The crew would immediately draw a new carburettor from the
neighbouring mobile advanced store, which was run by one of the two
Tank Salvage or Field Companies.
Thus re-equipped the Tank would again go into action, perhaps within a
day of being damaged.
This time we will suppose that the Tank got knocked out between the
first and second objective by a direct hit, the unwounded members of
the crew going forward with their Lewis guns and leaving the Tank
stranded and immovable.
The position of the derelict having been reported, men from a Tank
Salvage Company would go up that night, probably under shell-fire, and
possibly in full view of the enemy whenever a Véry light went up.
The experts would arrive at the wreck with their favourite set of
repairing tools, possibly consisting of the specially designed
Tank-repairing outfit, but more probably of a few pet spanners, some
odd lengths of tubing and a coil of copper wire. They would toil at the
Tank till dawn.
Sometimes after one or more nights spent like this they would induce
the Tank to go. In the Ypres area Tanks were sometimes salved that had
completely disappeared into the mud. Sometimes it was possible to tow a
machine away, particularly after the special salvage Tanks with their
hoisting gear came into use. Sometimes only _disjecta membra_, such as
engine parts, 6-pounders, or parts of the gears or transmissions, could
be saved.
During the two years of their existence the Field Companies, at the
lowest computation, saved two or three million pounds’ worth of stores,
a work which they did not accomplish without heavy cost to themselves.
We will suppose that the Tank whose history we have followed was salved
whole.
The next step would be that it would be entrained by the Field Company
and sent back to the Central Workshops at Teneur.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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