CHAPTER VI

THE GROWTH OF THE TANK CORPS ORGANISATION

The word “Reorganisation” is a word which will never be forgotten by any member of the Tank Corps Headquarters Staff; it was their one persistent companion for over two years. It dogged their steps through all seasons, over training areas and battlefields in sleuth-hound fashion from the earliest days; and its pace was never stronger or its tongue more noisy than when, on November 11, 1918, it was temporarily shaken off with the armistice. Depressing as this perpetual change often was, reorganisation is, nevertheless, an extremely healthy sign, for it shows that the Tank Corps, a young formation, was not afraid to grow, and that it refused to stand still; and, when all is said and done, should not every organisation be dynamic, should not it move with the times, expand, grow, and absorb difficulties rather than push them aside or ignore them? Whatever, in the eyes of others, the Tank Corps may have been, throughout the Great War it was an intensely virile formation.

In this chapter the organisation and reorganisation of the Tank Corps, first known as the “Heavy Section,” and later as the “Heavy Branch” of the Machine Gun Corps, will be dealt with in its entirety; for unless we lay this spectre in a chapter of its own it will never leave us in peace, but will haunt our steps right through this brief history, as was its wont when the incidents now related were taking form in France and England.

In June 1916 the Heavy Section Machine Gun Corps was organised in six companies--A, B, C, D, E, and F. Each company consisted of four sections, each of six tanks with one spare tank per company--in all twenty-five machines, thus absorbing the 150 machines ordered.[19] Each section consisted of 3 male and 3 female tanks, subdivided into three sub-sections of 1 male and 1 female each.

The crew of a tank was 1 officer and 7 other ranks, the total personnel of a section being 6 officers and 43 other ranks. For every two companies was provided a Quartermaster’s establishment of 1 officer and 4 other ranks, and a workshop of 3 officers and 50 other ranks.

A few days after the Heavy Section had made its debut on the battlefield of the Somme, a suggestion was put forward to organise it on the lines of the Royal Flying Corps, which, eventually, in the main was adopted. This was undoubtedly a sound suggestion, as every new weapon requires an organisation of its own to nurse it through its infancy.

On September 29, Lieutenant-Colonel H. J. Elles, D.S.O., who, as we have seen, first came into contact with tanks in January 1916, was appointed Colonel Commanding the Heavy Section in France, and on the same day that his appointment was sanctioned it was decided that 1,000 tanks should be built, and that certain improvements in the existing design of machine should be introduced. At this time the Headquarters of the Heavy Section were located in one small hut in the centre of the square of the village of Beauquesne, and as this village was not considered suitable for a permanent Headquarters, Bermicourt was selected instead--a small village just north of the Hesdin-St.-Pol road. At this village the Headquarters remained until the end of the war, expanding from three Nissen huts to many acres of buildings.

On October 8 a provisional establishment for the Headquarters was approved. It consisted of--a Commander (Colonel), one Brigade Major, one D.A.A. and Q.M.G., one Staff Captain, and one Intelligence Officer. These appointments were filled by the following officers: Colonel H. J. Elles, Captain G. le Q. Martel, Captain T. J. Uzielli, Captain H. J. Tapper, and Captain F. E. Hotblack.

At about this time it was proposed to form the Heavy Section into a Corps, giving it an Administrative Headquarters in England and a Fighting Headquarters in France, and of converting the four companies in France into four battalions, and raising five new battalions in England on the nuclei of the two remaining companies. Though the formation of the tank units into a Corps was not sanctioned at the time the other proposals came into force on October 20, Brigadier-General F. Gore Anley, D.S.O., being appointed Administrative Commander of the Tank Training Centre, Bovington Camp, Wool, in the place of Colonel Swinton, with Lieutenant-Colonel E. B. Mathew-Lannowe as his G.S.O.1. Under this organisation the 9 battalions were eventually to be formed into 3 brigades each of 3 battalions, a battalion consisting of 3 companies, each company of 4 fighting sections and a headquarters section. A fighting section consisted of 5 tanks and the headquarters section of 8. In all the battalion was, therefore, equipped with 72 machines.

On November 18, the day on which the approved establishments were issued, the companies, which had continued in the area of operations, were moved to the area round Bermicourt and, ceasing to exist as companies, became A, B, C, and D Battalions Heavy Branch Machine Gun Corps. They were located at the following villages:

A Battalion Humières, Eclimeux, Bermicourt. B „ Sautrecourt, Pierremont, St. Martin-Eglise. C „ Erin, Tilly-Capelle. D „ Blangy.

These battalions were eventually formed into the 1st and 2nd Tank Brigades: the 1st Brigade, consisting of C and D Battalions, on January 30, 1917, under the command of Colonel C. D’A. B. S. Baker Carr, D.S.O.; and the 2nd Brigade, of A and B Battalions, on February 15, under that of Colonel A. Courage, M.C. Later, on April 27, in view of the expected arrival of two battalions from Wool, approval was given to the formation of the 3rd Brigade Headquarters under the command of Colonel J. Hardress Lloyd, D.S.O.

Meanwhile, in England, the whole question of future production was being strenuously dealt with by Lieutenant-Colonel Stern, who, on November 23, assembled a conference in London at which the future production of tanks was explained as follows:

That at the time of the conference there were 70 Mark I machines in France, and it was hoped to deliver improved types of this tank as follows: 50 Mark II tanks by January; 50 Mark III tanks by February 7; Mark IV tanks at the rate of 20 per week from February 7 to May 31. Further, that Mark V tanks would be available in August and September 1917, and that a new light tank, called Mark VI, would be ready for trial by Christmas 1917.

Unfortunately, on account of the difficulty of production and the constant changes demanded in design, the above programme never materialised, and though Mark II tanks were sent out to France, no Mark IV machines arrived there until after the battle of Arras had been fought and won.

Early in the new year the battalions of the Heavy Branch underwent a further reorganisation: they were slightly reduced in size and the number of their machines was cut down from 72 to 60; each company, theoretically consisting of 20 tanks, was divided into 4 sections of 5 tanks each; for practical purposes, however, it was found that a section could not deal with more than 4 tanks, so the number of tanks was reduced to 48, of which 36 were earmarked as fighting and 12 as training machines.

In March 1917 General Anley was appointed Administrative Commander Heavy Branch Machine-Gun Corps with his headquarters in London, Brigadier-General W. Glasgow taking over the command of the Training Centre at Wool. In May he was succeeded by Major-General Sir John Capper, K.C.B., and the Tank Committee under his chairmanship was formed to systematise and strengthen co-operation between the Army and the Ministry of Munitions. On the 1st of this month, Colonel Elles was gazetted Brigadier-General Commanding the Heavy Branch in France.

The experiences gained during the battle of Arras, in April 1917, resulted in proposals being put forward for the expansion of the Heavy Branch from nine to eighteen battalions, nine to be equipped with heavy, and a similar number with medium machines.[20] These proposals mark an important stage in the development of the Heavy Branch and they were destined to be the subject of many discussions.

On June 28, the above expansion was authorised, and the personnel for new units was assembled at the Training Centre at Wool. A month later, however, the call for manpower became so urgent that the expansion of the Heavy Branch had to be suspended. It was on the 28th of this month that the Heavy Branch became known as the Tank Corps.

During the following months, August and September, the question of the Tank Corps expansion was held in abeyance. On October 6 it was once again revived, and a revised establishment for the contemplated expansion to eighteen battalions was submitted. The outstanding feature of these establishments was the abolition of Battalion Workshops and the substitution of Brigade Workshops in their place. This resulted in a considerable economy of man-power, and was rendered possible by the higher training of the tank crews; each tank with its crew thus tended to become a self-contained unit.

On November 27 these establishments received official approval, and exactly one week later, on December 4, arising out of the overwhelming success gained by tanks at the battle of Cambrai (November 20), two new organisations were put forward, the first known as the Lower, and the second as the Higher Establishments. The Lower Establishments were eventually decided upon, and they consisted in a revised edition of the former establishments with various additions, which the experiences gained at the battle of Cambrai had shown to be necessary. These establishments, though made out, were never approved, and the German offensive in March 1918 found the Tank Corps still organised on the lines agreed upon in October.

In April, on account of the pressing needs for infantry reinforcements, the Tank Corps expansion was temporarily suspended, two of the three remaining battalions in England being reduced to cadre units, and the third converted into an Armoured Car Battalion. In July and August the astonishing successes gained by tanks on various sectors of the Western Front once again brought forward the need of increasing the British tank battalions, and the suspension was removed, the two remaining battalions of the expansion of October 1917 proceeding to France in September 1918.

In January 1918, from the experience gained by now in the time necessary to carry through a reorganisation, proposals were put forward for 1919. These were eventually discussed at the Inter-Allied Tank Committee, an assembly of representatives of the various allied Tank Corps, which first met at Versailles in April. The German spring offensive, however, absorbed so much attention that it was not possible at the time to do more than work out, as a basis, the number of tanks required for a decisive tank attack the following year. As the position of the Allies in France stabilised the question first discussed at Versailles was in July retaken up, with the result that an expansion to thirty-four battalions was decided on and completely new establishments called for. In order to bring this work more closely under the War Office it was also decided, at about this time, to dissolve the Tank Directorate, first created in May 1917, and to replace it by a new sub-branch of the Directorate of Staff Duties. This change took place on August 1, when a new branch known as S.D.7 was added to the Directorate of Staff Duties at the War Office to deal with the administration of tanks generally, and the 1919 tank programme in particular.

At the same time the Tank Committee was abolished, its place being taken by the Tank Board, which was constituted as follows:

Major-General the Right Honourable J. E. B. Seely, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., M.P., President (Deputy Minister of Munitions).

Sir Eustace Tennyson D’Eyncourt, K.C.B., Vice-President (Director of Naval Construction).

Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., D.S.O. (Controller Munitions Inventions).

Major-General Sir William Furse, K.C.B., D.S.O. (Master General of Ordnance, representing the Army Council).

Major-General E. D. Swinton, C.B., D.S.O.

Major-General H. J. Elles, C.B., D.S.O. (Commanding Tank Corps, France).

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Albert Stern, K.B.E., C.M.G. (Commissioner Mechanical Warfare, Overseas and Allies Department).

Colonel J. F. C. Fuller, D.S.O. (D.D.S.D. Tanks: representing General Staff, War Office).

Mr. J. B. Maclean (Controller of Mechanical Warfare).

Sir Percival Perry (Inspector of Mechanical Traction).

Captain A. Earle, Secretary.

The constitution of the Board is interesting as it enabled expert naval, military, and industrial knowledge to be concentrated on the one subject--the application of naval tactics to land warfare. The work accomplished by this Board was considerable, it was carried out in a high co-operative spirit and with great good-fellowship, and it would, undoubtedly, have proved a factor of no small importance in the complete destruction of the German armies in 1919, which was practically fore-ordained by a tank programme of some 6,000 machines, had the war continued.

September was a month of great activity at the Training Centre at Wool, and an extensive building programme was commenced under the direction of Brigadier-General E. B. Mathew-Lannowe, D.S.O., who had taken over the command of the Training Centre on August 1 from Brigadier-General W. Glasgow, C.M.G.

On October 22 the new establishments were received at the War Office, and were approved of and returned to G.H.Q. four days later. Considering that these establishments covered ninety-six pages of typed foolscap it may be claimed that the last reorganisation the Tank Corps experienced during the Great War was carried through in record time.