ARTICLE: Tank Heroes 1916 - 1918

Today I wanted to pay tribute to some early tank heroes using their gallantry medal citations. Tanks were first used during the Battle of the Somme in September 1916, and by the end of the war, the Tank Corps would have evolved as a separate entity. You had to be batshit, I think, to put yourself up for this kind of war. New, unreliable technology; not to mention being cocooned in a metal box that immediately drew everything imaginable the enemy could throw at it. Unsurprisingly, brave deeds were aplenty. Because I like to be different, I’m going to park the officers for a later date, and instead concentrate on the ordinary rank and file. In total, these tankies, considering this arm existed for only half of the war, won 144 Distinguished Conduct Medals (one man got it twice), a staggering 604 Military Medals (23 of them twice) and 106 Meritous Service Medals. 1st Battalion was the most highly decorated, closely followed by 3rd and 4th.. and here are just a few to give you a flavour of just how nuts you had to be to want to join the Tank Corps…

Let’s start with the Battle of Arras, in April 1917. One thing that becomes immediately apparent, is just how many of the men awarded these medals had been credited with assuming command on the death of their officers. Men such as Frank Vyvyan, from London. He was serving in C Battalion at the time (these things changed designation as the corps got bigger). His officer was killed on 9th April, the opening day of the offensive:

‘He took charge of his tank and continued to fight it with the greatest boldness and skill. When he found he could not reach the enemy with his Lewis guns inside the tank, although under heavy fire, he fixed up a Lewis gun on top of the tank, and fired it from there. He thereby greatly assisted the infantry to advance.’

Mechanical failures were rife, but tanks were also a magnet for enemy fire, and this meant that often they were damaged in action. A marge number of the recipients of these gallantry awards got them because they had found a way to keep going. Private Roy Francombe was still a teenager when he took part in the Battle of Messines in June 1917. His tank received a direct hit from enemy artillery and yet he managed to keep it going for seven hours without part of the water cooling apparatus. This meant that his tank was burning through water rapidly, to the tune of 52 extra gallons, and inside the temperature allegedly reached 140 degrees. Francombe kept on driving, pulling water out of shell holes and a convenient pond and determinedly made it to the White Chateau, his final objective. For his effort, he was awarded a Military Medal, a new, 1916 innovation that officials including King George V had pressed hard for, as a way to reward non-officers for bravery.