Energy books

G.
Wells.
Yet their romance had a sharp edge of reality as I saw in those
battles of the Somme, and afterward, more grievously, in the Cambrai
salient and Flanders, when the tanks were put out of action by direct
hits of field-guns and nothing of humankind remained in them but the
charred bones of their gallant crews.
Before the battle in September of '16 I talked with the pilots of the
first tanks, and although they were convinced of the value of these
new engines of war and were out to prove it, they did not disguise
from me nor from their own souls that they were going forth upon a
perilous adventure with the odds of luck against them. I remember one
young pilot--a tiny fellow like a jockey, who took me on one side and
said, "I want you to do me a favor," and then scribbled down his
mother's address and asked me to write to her if "anything" happened
to him.
He and other tank officers were anxious. They had not complete
confidence in the steering and control of their engines.


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