The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-09-11
get everything. However, the tank question had been carefully considered. TANK FRIGHT" WAS SERIOUS


 At Cambrai the tanks were very ef- fective. But they ran into a position held only lightly. chiefly by older men but poorly equipped with artillery. In all other cases, although they had been nuisance, they had achieved no de- cisive results.
 l took a much more serious view of tank fright" than the troops them selves did. In fighting around Bour- bon and in Bourbon wood our infantry had disposed of tanks at close quarters by multiple grenades. (The ordinary German ck-grenade with a number of grenade heads attached to i). Our artillery had shot them to pieces. Even the steel-cored bullets used by our machine guns had been good enough The best weapons against tanks were good nerves, discipline and intrepidity, which enabled many brave men to cIimh onto them, destroy them by short range fire. Not until our infantry lost it's discipline and fighting capacity. did the employment of mnssed tanks. com bined with artificial smoke. produce a fatal effect on the course of events. We formed attachments of captured tanks. l had a look at the first one in February. 1918. at an exercise by one of the assault battalions. It did not impress me. Our own tank de- taehments suffered heavy losses with out effecting anything.
 GERMAN TYPE WAS NOT GOOD
 The director of mechanical transport 1 in the field had had early orders to start building tanks. The type he showed general headquarters in the spring of 1917 did not meet require ments I earnestly requested him to push on their construction energeti- cally.
 Perhaps I ought to have made great CT efforts; and possibly we should in that case have had a few more tanks for the decision in 1918; hut I do not know what other claim could have been set aside to enable them to he built. We could not release any more work men, and the people at home could not supply any more. Had they been available, we should have wanted them as recruits. We should never have been nble to put masses of tanks into ac- tion in 191S--and tanks are only ef- fectfve in masses.
 When, towards the end of the war, the manufacturers were in a position to turn out tanks more rapidly, and in greater numbers. general Headquarters ordered a considerable number from tn 2 war department.
 In order to provide aircraft support for the infantry special battle afrplane flights were formed. As had hitherto been done by individual airmen, they dived down from great heights and flew at [. low level. attacking with machine guns and light bombs the in- fantry lines. the artillery, and, as the practice extended, the enemy's re- serves and transport columns, as well as columns of troops coming up from further in rear.
 AIRMEN AS LINE FIGHTERS
 Originally intended to be an ''auxil- iary" arm to the infantry, these bat tie flights were finally given import ant tactical tasks. Thus the air force gained a new field of activity of the greatest importance. The airmen, in the course of their duties, were not only reconnaissance troops who had to fight; they were not only bomb ear : riers for destrictuve work far in the enemy's rear, but they had, like in fantry, artillery and all other arms. to take part in the fighting on the ground.
 Like other combat forces, they were a destructive arm in the great battle on land. This. indeed, became their main object and the aerial combat was only means of attaining it.
 For the advance of the infantry in the offensive battle the concentrated preparation by mnssed artillery was most important. It was necessary to guns, to each kilometre GfOO yards) of