![]() The rendezvous was the ruins of a place near Ypres known as the English Farm. His first engagement was the Battle of Passchendaele, which began on 31 July 1917. The only safety feature was a fire extinguisher the size of a soda siphon.Īfter being trained as a tank commander, Bion was sent to the Western Front. The tanks were so noisy that the crew communicated by banging their hammers and spanners in code. ![]() The heat inside was stifling and the fumes – carbon monoxide, fuel, oil, cordite – overpowering. Only the driver and the commander next to him had seats. There was just enough room for eight men: four to manoeuvre it and four to work the guns. Tanks carrying only machine guns were known as ‘females’ while those which also carried cannon were ‘males’. Most of the space is taken up by a furnace-like engine and weaponry: a miniature cannon and machine gun at either side and their store of ammunition. ![]() Part of its thick skin has been removed to reveal the cavity within. Next to Little Willie in the museum is the Mark II tank, which was mainly used for training. Its successor, the Mark I (the prototype was known as ‘Big Willie’ or ‘Mother’), was the first tank to see action, at the Battle of the Somme in September 1916, and showed some promise in making it through to the German lines. It was known as ‘Little Willie’ (the nickname used by the popular press for the Kaiser’s son). The very first tank, constructed in autumn 1915 after Churchill set up an Admiralty Landship Committee to develop armoured vehicles, is its most prized exhibit. The Bovington Tank Museum preserves several examples of these lozenge-shaped steel hulks. A metallic hammering came from inside a soldier got out and the day sprang into life again.’ The queer mechanical shape, immobilised and immobilising, was frightening … I wanted to get away from it. ![]() ![]() It reminded him, he wrote in his memoir, The Long Weekend, 1897-1919, of his terror as a child in India when confronted by a tiger trap. He saw one almost immediately, broken down in the middle of Bovington Lane. The Machine Gun Corps trained recruits in the mechanised warfare brought about by the recent invention of the tank. I n the early summer of 1917, Wilfred Bion, a second lieutenant fresh from the training depot of the Machine Gun Corps, arrived at Wool in Dorset and set off for the army camp at Bovington. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |