True Stories of the Great War, Volume 1 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
History
True Stories of the Great War, Volume 1 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
In a farm somewhere in this neighborhood no fewer than sixty Germans
came out with their hands up in surrender as soon as a tank was at
close quarters. The story is told that at another place the mere threat
of a tank's approach was enough to decide a party of eight to give in.
It is certain beyond all doubt that the German infantry has great fear
of the "beasts."
In this battle there was not a single case of attack upon a tank by
infantry, although we know that they have been training behind their
lines with dummy tanks, according to definite rules laid down by the
German command.
One fight did take place with a tank, and it was surely the most
fantastic duel that had happened in the war. It was queer enough, as I
described a day or two ago when one of the British airmen flew over a
motor car and engaged in a revolver duel with the German officer, but
even that strange picture is less weird than when a German airplane
flew low over a tank and tried to put out its "eyes" by a burst of
machine gun bullets.
Imagine the scene, that muddy monster, crawling through the slime
with sharp stabs of fire coming from its flanks and above an engine
with wings, swooping round and about it like an angry albatross and
spattering its armor with bullets. It was an unequal fight, for the
tank just ignored that waspish machine-gun fire and went on its way
with only a scratch or two.
The tanks were in action around the marshes and woodlands by Shrewsbury
Forest. Here there was very severe infantry fighting and the Germans
made desperate resistance, followed by many counterattacks, so that the
progress of the British was slow and difficult and the tanks helped
them as best they could.
One trouble of the tanks is their limited vision, and this and the
darkness before the battle were the cause of an unexpected collision,
which adds to the strange history of the mechanical monsters, so that
it is all beyond the wildest flight of imagination.
One of the tanks was crawling up to get into position for attack, and
unaware that it was bearing steadily down upon one of those light
railway engines which I saw steaming along in the centre of the Ypres
salient on the morning of battle. It was grunting and whistling so that
it could be heard a mile away, but not a sound of it came to the ears
of the pilot and the crew in the tank, where their engine also was
laboring with rattle of steel. The tank bore on through the darkness
and its mighty battering ram hit the light engine fair and square
and knocked it off the rails. There were explanations and apologies
and much tugging and heaving with all the powers of a tank before
the engine was righted again and went on its way. (Told in _New York
Times_--Copyright, 1917.)
III--STORY OF THE TANK THAT FOUGHT A RAILROAD ENGINE
_Told to the Montreal (Canada) "Herald and Star"_
"Hi, Bodger! Just keep clear of my weighing machine! It's only up to a
quarter of a ton, and I'm not taking any risks."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account