Brewster 'A Glimpse of War through a Private's Eyes', a retrospective account of experiences in World War I, 1915-1917 / John James Brewster - Page 557
You are here
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 557]
failed to appear resulting in such a needless loss in killed & wounded
Next night the Tanks arrived, & the attack was made, but the Huns made concious of the frightful risk they ran, from an apparent too great a security lulling their fears, were not caught napping the second time. The defenders reinforced by by men & guns, brought to bear such a fusilale of every class of missile that the approaching attackers were "steadied", then "stopped". The tanks on this occasion were worse than useless, that many of them were put out of action long before they could get near the wire, & those men advancing behind them & in their vicinity were really worse off than in the open. The fire concentrated on these tanks was so very severe that they, on this occasion, proved both to the crews of most, and to every one near them, but death traps
Again the men had to make a mortifying retirement.
The loss to the 4th Division was estimated at 4000 Casualties of all kinds A blunder somewhere, but Where! Oh where!
Bullacourt was not taken & would now be a very hard nut to crack whereas if the Tanks had come along "to time", according to programme, on the first occasion the place would have been taken without much difficulty with probably less than half their present loss, but now being fully alive to its importance the Huns will cause a lot of bloodshed before they are forced to give it up.
Hence the 4th Division's attitude towards the Tanks.
In the same compartment of the Railway carriage as the Sentry, were three men all wounded in the knee, & having no idea as to the probable development likely to accrue from the nature of their wounds, appeared to be in the best of spirits & were quite happy. When the Sentry inquired why the Doctor did not mark them as "Stretcher Cases" the men cheerily replied Oh "Iodine" (the Doctor)