“In the early morning a Tank started down the portion of the trench held by the enemy from the north-west, firing its machine-guns and followed by bombers. The enemy could not escape, as we held the trench at its southern end. At the same time an aeroplane flew down the length of the trench, also firing a machine-gun at the enemy holding it. These then waved white handkerchiefs in token of surrender, and when this was reported by the aeroplane the infantry accepted the surrender of the garrison. By 8.30 a.m. the whole trench had been cleared, great numbers of the enemy had been killed, and eight officers and 362 other ranks made prisoners. Our total casualties amounted to five.” At noon on September 26 an attack was launched by General Gough’s reserve army on Thiepval. Eight Tanks co-operated. It was the second attack that we had made on Thiepval, of which the Germans had made a most formidable fortress. The ground had been blasted into the familiar alternation of crumbling mounds and water-logged holes, and the shattered houses and splintered trees--particularly a certain row of apple trees--stood up forlornly amid the general desolation. From the point of view of the Tanks, however, the action was important, because here for the first time Tanks were employed in a surprise attack. No artillery preparation was used, and “our men were over the German parapets and into the dug-outs before machine-guns could be got up to repel them.” A large number of prisoners were taken, and in the Somme Despatch the attack was noted as “highly successful,” and the Tanks as having given “valuable assistance.” By the middle of October 1916 when Tanks were next in action, the ground was hopelessly sodden, and the story of the month which ensued might, with an alteration of place names, be taken for a narrative of the campaign in Flanders. Than this there is no greater condemnation. It would be tedious to particularise the five or six minor actions in which Tanks played, or more often endeavoured to play, a part between October 17 and November 18. Excepting in the interesting little action which took place at Beaumont-Hamel, to which we have alluded before, no further light was to be thrown upon the uses and capabilities of the new arm. The following account of the Beaumont-Hamel fighting was given to the authors by a Tank Officer who was present: “At the end of September it became clear that the Somme battle was fizzling out. The ratio of ‘cost’ to ‘results’ became more and more unsatisfactory; every advance, too, made the devastated and almost roadless area an ever greater problem.