TWO TYPES OF “TANKS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1648, 9 December 1916, Page 4

TWO TYPES OF “TANKS.

“MALE” MOPE FORMIDABLE. FUTURIST COLOURING. 1 have just bad a talk with the captain uf the lank that crawled into Flers, Mr Malcolm Loss writes in a London newspaper. He was calmly, alter bis adventure, writing up his diary in (he bowels of bis own pel saurian monster, and seemed to have enjoyed bis perilous and exciting escapade, in some places the Hoehe when be saw I heir oncoming ran like men possessed. But I lie machine-guns laid many a running Bocbc low thatday. The skin of-this groat saurian bad been splashed with German bullets that bad bounced off if like bail from an iron roof. Some bullets bad only scraped its paint awa v.

Tins painting had been done by a master baud, combining- Ibe colours of Hie landscape in the stylo of a French fuluri.-l. “What do you think of iheir colouring !" I heard an ofliccr ask an artist clad in khaki some days before the bat He. “I jientena.nl-Colonel (Solomon d. Solomon,” he added, gave (bis fellow his sail of clothes.”

STKEL-LIDDHI) EYLS. Tlic Germans h;i(1 spotted (ho tanks earning up towards <• ur linos (ho day before, either from llioli' observe 1 ion balloons or thoir aeropliinos. Hut they .■'.ppnrontly regarded thoni simply ns a now type of ni'miiiircd ear, and tin* first Buoho that spw them in flits early dawn crawling forward oyer I romondoiis obstacle.-, must have rubbed his eyes ip wonder. Nothing like them had ever before been seen in war. Some had eyes in front and uf (lie sides in bulging sponsons, and through these eyes came tire and lead that deal I death in enfilade along' a trench, and would not fail to knock out a machine-gun section in quick time. These eyes, had lids of hard steel that could be opened or closed at: will. These were the female tanks. The male was a little more formidable, with longer antennae that moved up and down and right and left. IKItESISTJBLhi MARCH. With their blunt muzzles pointing

io the enemy (reach they made but a small target. They look an ordinary crater or a wide trench with ease, dropping their noses into it and cocking their (nil of round (hinged wheels in the air ns their noses dipped. Then, when they nosed their way up tin* opposite

Ode of trench and crater, their tails dipped and they climbed lill limy came to the level and resumed their irresistible crawling march. They had been tried on imitation trenches and craters with success, and I had seer, them calling llieir way through a young forest with the ea.se of a knife cutting through cheese. But the aelual battlefield found out some ol their weak points. Those allotted to the New Zealanders did not gel up in lime, and ottr men had the morlilieation of seeing them crawling along 500 wards in tin* rear, in these circumstances the ground gained by the New Zealanders oa the first day was all 1 he more to 1 heir credit. DIRECT HIT EPPECTIVk:.

Olliers of (he tanks, however, managed to get up. One charged into High Wood; another entered Piers in great style behind a line of cheering Tommies; yet another went mi far beyond into the open country, past Gacadccoarl, lill it came up against a German battery. Prom llm muzzles of its armament it spat; lire, and iron, knocking out the German crew, but w.as m turn itself knocked out by a direct hit, ami was left on the ground of the enemy; hut I tie driver captain emptied his petrol tanics and set fire to the interior, so dial die Germans would not easily be able to gel their capture away. Then tin* captain and bis crew escaped bad; to our own limes. It was a wonderful, even an amazing feat.

Afterwards 1 came across five of die tanks that itad come back and were sheltering behind our lines, screwing up nuts and mending broken parts lill (hey wore ready for nnol her charge.