Great Britain. Army. Royal Tank Corps; Tanks (Military science)
North of the Somme, with the 3rd Corps (which included the 33rd
American Division) the 10th Tank Battalion put sixteen Tanks into
action.
They had a hard task round Chipilly, where the enemy had a large number
of machine-guns cleverly concealed in woods and gullies. By the early
evening, however, all the objectives were taken, and our positions
advanced in line with those which we held south of the river, an
advance achieved at a cost of five casualties to the sixteen machines
engaged.
The Whippets’ action, in as far as they were billed to act with the
cavalry, was disappointing. By some fault of liaison they were kept too
long at Brigade Headquarters.
At Beaufort and Warvillers, however, they were able to give great help
to the infantry by chasing hostile machine-gunners out of the standing
corn and shooting them down as they fled.
On the whole August 9th was a successful day, for we continued to push
forward steadily all along our line.
VIII
We had, in fact, pushed forward so far that all along the line during
the next day’s fighting we reached the old trench systems of the First
Battle of the Somme. And it was this fact, combined with the usual
and inevitable petering out of all attacks which are not supported by
immense reserves, that now slowed our rate of advance down to nothing.
Two days later we left off hammering.
The 10th proved an unfortunate day for the Tanks, for though we
advanced, the eighty-five Tanks engaged suffered heavily in every
sector.
With the Canadians, owing to orders having been issued late, the hour
of attack had to be altered, and it finally took place in daylight
without smoke.
A stubborn resistance was encountered, and of the forty-three Tanks
engaged no less than twenty-three received direct hits.
Before Warvillers the cavalry and Whippets had a particularly poor time
of it, the old trench systems and the old shelled area, of which the
enemy had taken ingenious and thorough advantage, proving too much for
both arms.
With the Australians a rather remarkable night attack was arranged.
During the three previous days’ fighting it had been found very
inconvenient to have the Somme Valley as an inter-corps boundary, and
General Monash was allowed to extend his territory northward in such a
way that the Australians should hold both sides of the valley.
An encircling movement was, therefore, undertaken, of which Captain
Denny, M.C., M.P., gives the following account in his article on the
work of the Australians which appeared in the _Daily Telegraph_ of
April 1919:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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