It was a
difficult and clumsy kind of gear, which was apt to break down at a
critical moment, as I saw when I rode in one on their field of
maneuver. These first tanks were only experimental, and the tail
arrangement was very weak. Worse than all mechanical troubles was the
short-sighted policy of some authority at G.H.Q., who had insisted
upon A.S.C. drivers being put to this job a few days before the
battle, without proper training.
"It is mad and murderous," said one of the officers, "These fellows
may have pluck, all right--I don't doubt it--but they don't know their
engines, nor the double steering trick, and they have never been under
shell-fire. It is asking for trouble."
As it turned out, the A.S.C. drivers proved their pluck, for the most
part, splendidly, but many tanks broke down before they reached the
enemy's lines, and in that action and later battles there were times
when they bitterly disappointed the infantry commanders and the
troops.
Individual tanks, commanded by gallant young officers and served by
brave crews, did astounding feats, and some of these men came back
dazed and deaf and dumb, after forty hours or more of fighting and
maneuvering within steel walls, intensely hot, filled with the fumes
of their engines, jolted and banged about over rough ground, and
steering an uncertain course, after the loss of their "tails," which
had snapped at the spine.
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