[83]“The heat temporarily put several Whippets out of action as fighting weapons. “On a hot summer’s day one hour’s running with door closed renders a Whippet weaponless except for revolver fire. “The heat generated is so intense that it not only causes ammunition to swell so that it jams the gun, but actually in several cases caused rounds to explode inside the Tank. “Guns became too hot to hold, and in one case the temperature of the steering wheel became unbearable.” But evening came at last, and with the darkness the two armies disengaged. We had suffered more casualties than we had quite bargained for--chiefly owing to the accident of the mist--but upon the whole we were well satisfied with the events of the day. We had reached the general line of the railway practically along the whole front of attack. We had captured Achiet-le-Petit and Longeast Wood, Courcelles and Moyenneville. Most important of all, the position we needed for the launching of our principal attack had been successfully gained and we had taken over 2000 prisoners. CHAPTER XIX BREAKING THE DROCOURT-QUÉANT LINE--THE BATTLE OF EPEHY I We have said that August 22 had, in the original plan, been devoted to consolidation and to the moving up of guns. Only the 3rd Corps in the 4th Army area, with its twenty-four Tanks of the 4th and 5th Battalions, launched an interim attack on the Bray-Albert front. We gained all our objectives. The 18th Division crossed the river Ancre, captured Albert by an enveloping movement from the south-east, and our line between the Somme and the Ancre was now advanced well to the east of the Bray-Albert road. The left of the 4th Army was taken forward in conformity with the rest of our line. The way had now been cleared for what was really the main attack, though it was not the attack in which the greatest number of Tanks were employed. The assault opened on August 23 by a series of attacks on the whole of a thirty-three-mile front, that is to say, from our junction with the French, north of Lihons, to the spot near Mercatel, where the Hindenburg Line from Quéant and Bullecourt joined the old Arras-Vimy defence of 1916. The hundred Tanks which went into action on this day were nearly all fresh machines which had not fought on the 21st. They were distributed in groups along the fronts of both the 3rd and 4th Armies. South of the Somme, with the Australians near Chuignolles, the largest group of nearly sixty Tanks went into action. They were machines belonging to the 2nd, 8th and 13th Battalions. The enemy had withdrawn their anti-Tank guns to the top of the ridge, which it was impossible for Tanks to climb except at one spot. Upon this one crossing-place they had trained their guns, and here several Tanks suffered direct hits.