THE TANK THAT WENT TO FIGHT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3100, 2 June 1917, Page 7

THE TANK THAT WENT TO FIGHT

AND FOUGHT FOR FORTY HOURS

WONDERFUL EXPLOIT

(Mr. W. Beach Thomas, in the "Daily Mail.^

War Correspondents' Headquarters, , 'i France, April 13. Tho capture'of Wancourt and Heninel (south-east t>l Arras) will aiirays be famous jf only for the journey of a tank. It had a 40-hours , duel with Hindenburg which outdoes all tho stories of St. George and the Dragon. Nothing like it had been done before by any engine of war with a human crew. Only those who have heard what the hold of "a tank is like can understand the feat.-of endurance by its cabined and padded crew. Our infantry were held up by heavy machine-gun fire from pits and trenches dotted over a. slope on their left. They were attacking from the farthest point south yhero we had crossed tho Hinden,biirg line in the, Arras sector. In their plight a tank was called to their help and elected to go forth unaccompanied on a lone mission. It started by a direct advances along the line of Hindenburg's wire and flattened out one belt at. its leisure whilo bullets rattled on ite hide like hail on a tin roof. They flattened, fell, or glanced off,' while the crew laughed, jested, and asked them to come in whenever a particularly loud one hit tho door. When one bolt was flattened St. George tho Tank turned in a graceful curve and proceeded with stately pomp to como back on n parallel course down the second ntt of wire. After this prelimin-. nry work;; St. George sot out northwards to search,.tho lairs of machine-gunners on the slope". For a while the gunnera had ceased firing, but now and again ordinary bullets- and armour-piercing bullets rattled on his vizor. Hβ had already, with his 6wu mnch.ino-guns, shot a number of infantry along the trenches behind the wire. "He now' picked off a quantity of machine-gunners, though some burrowed into dog-outs and stayed there till subsequently taken prisoner. From the warren of machine-gunners he went on to tho village fortress of Wancourt, snaked a serpentine course in and around it, spitting lire —for he hae the dragon's gifts as well as St. George's gifts—whenever a good target offered. For a day and a night and a' day he continued his quest, nosing out German, machine-gunners and groups of infantry in two' Tillages! in tho valley and along the' slopes. At last, bumped and battered and worn as a shipwrecked crew, almost, every pigeon-hole of ammunition used, the valiant crew turned their bows homeward. Their ship covered much country and spent 40 hours on tbe.adventure. It had flattened many hundreds of yards of wire, cowed or knocked out a number of the enemy againsl whom our infantry had been powerless,.and filled tho mouth of a dug-out. I should doubt if any single feat in the war equals this record, and I have given no more than the skeleton. Victory followed in its wake; the way was smoothed for the infantry, though some machine-guns were left both on the hill and in the village. Converging attacks took the two villages, thus straight-, ening our line, including a hill-top called Egg Eedoubt. From this last 200 prisoners wero hatched out. ;