The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1918-07-31

LuloIdhou, TIC luou WuOot IIdluiuS III
England is just being completed will
be given enviable roles. Their ma
chimes have the best points Of boil
the British and French tanks and thu
training of he men has been in tn,
light Of experiences already, gained
by the fighters of France and Eng
land.
To every man in the American out
fit there have been impaired the
stories Of mistakes made in the early
history Of tank warfare Enlisted
men and officers have been told what
to do and what not to do; all their
admonitions have been based not on
theory but on actual experiences,
gained in the face of German fire,
loosed always upon the slightest init
nation that he tanks are numbering
w luS lTOIC.
But as reminder, perhaps, that
the enemy's fire is seldom effective is
the insignia adopted for the Ameri-
can tank corps-two salamanders,
crawling creatures that worm their
way unframed through the flame and
smoke.
1t is expected that because of the
weapon with which it will fight and
the training it has undergone the
American contingent will prove itself
efficient; for even as
the American engineers have been
careful to combine in the American
tank the features of those now used
by the British and the French, so
have the instructors of the personnel
been scruplously careful to inculcate
the most advantageous methods Of
oHeIiCe anu ueIence.
Further cause for believing the
American tank corps will live up to
the estimate of the British instruc-
tors is the character of its personnel,
both men and officers. They are
selected men, picked from
the thousand who volunteered when
the call for tank men was made. Two
base requisites were insisted upon;
first, every man must be physically
fit, and, second. tempermantally
adaptable, The training every man
has received has meant either that he
Is delivered to the comraders at the
front as a wonderfully efficient unit
or Is mercilessly thrown out Of the
service He is turned over to the
lighting force as an expert mechanic,
4 man drilled in the operation of both
machine guns and heavier ordnance,
tactician and strategist, and, final
", as man with no evidence of
nerves"
British trainers at the little coun.
.ry town where the Americans have
been coached have been careful TO
explain to the men, as they weeded
,ut unfit and those not tempermant-
lilly suitable, that only the best can
be used. There is perhaps no branch
Of the army service that makes a
greater demand on the physical err
turance Of the man than the tank
service, and certainly none calculated
to test the nerves more, for within
the very small fighting space there Is
combined the roar of the heavy ord.
nance, the rattle of the machine guns,
the acrid smell of burning powder,
and the suffocating fumes of burning
oil and gasoline. Into this little
space, not more than eight feet long,
and four or five wide and with a
ceiling so low that man cannot
stand upright, there is crowded the
crew.
The actual experiences OF the Brit.
ish instructors, many of whom were
In the first tanks used in the war,
have been reproduced in the most
minute detail Off the instruction Of
the Americans. Little has been left
TO the imagination; the practical has
been substituted for the theoretical.
Huge shell holes, not dug out with
pick and shovel but blasted by mines
as though by the German shells, have
torn up the training field; trenches
identical with those that mark the
battlefelds of France and other OBJ
that tanks encounter have
been built and it is over these that
the Americans have been drilled and
drilled until, in the opinion of their
instructors, they are prepared to take
their places on the line.
Practical problems of getting out
Of tight places have been provided.
and in anticipation of some of the
that may be ncountered