Download - Winston Churchill

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Churchill and the Tank (1):Present at the CreationBY DAVID FLETCHER“In the first place the Commission desire to record their view that it was primarily dueto the receptivity, courage and driving force of the Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer Churchillthat the general idea of the use of such an instrument of warfare as the ‘Tank’ was convertedinto a practical shape. Mr. Winston Churchill has very properly taken the viewthat all his thought and time belonged to the State and that he was not entitledto make any claim for an award, even had he wished to do so. But it seems properthat the above view should be recorded by way of tribute to Mr. Winston Churchill.”—Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors, in summing up claims in respect of “Invention of Tanks”“MOTHER”: Members of the Landships Committee and its designers with “Mother,” the first rhomboid-shaped tank,during an early demonstration at Burton Park, Lincoln in 1916. Winston Churchill was not present on this occasion.The Inspiration/Perspiration Ratio is well knownwhere inventions are concerned, and it shouldbe recognised that Churchill’s contributionfalls directly into the former category—buteven then it did not spring from nowhere. Hisduties to the Fleet and the Royal Naval Air Servicenotwithstanding, the First Lord of the Admiralty wasalways looking for an opportunity to gain a toehold in awar zone.It came sooner than he thought when that piraticalMr. Fletcher is author of War Cars (1987) and The British Tank 1915-1919 (2001). Photographs were supplied by the author by kind courtesyof the Tank Museum Collection, Bovington Camp, Dorset.RNAS officer, Charles Rumney Samson (who in earliertimes was one of those who taught Churchill to fly),took his squadron to Dunkirk in 1914. Within weeks,whenever the weather prevented flying, these men weretearing around Flanders in home-made armoured cars,shooting up the German cavalry and having the time oftheir lives. Grasping the opportunity, Churchill encouragedexpansion of this armoured car force with newlymade vehicles from Britain and before long anyone witha sense of adventure was anxious to join in; among themthe legendary “Bendor,” the Duke of Westminster.But it didn’t last, and couldn’t last. Trenchesappeared, often dug across the roads: barbed wire likewise.Shell fire began to turn the ground into a quagmireFINEST HOUR 135 / 42
and the movement of armoured cars was restricted. Afterall, even the best of them were no more than conventionalcars with about four tons of armour bolted on,even if many were Rolls-Royces. Most were handed overto the Army while the men dispersed. Some went backto sea. The Duke took his armoured cars to Egypt butothers, fired up with the potential of armoured warfareon land, returned to London and thought up new ideas.Among them was a chap named TomHetherington, who somehow managed to retain commissionsin the Army and the Navy at the same time.He dreamed up the idea of a huge machine, somethingone might associate with H. G. Wells, which would rollinto Germany on 40-foot-diameter wheels, wade acrossthe Rhine and bring the war to an end in weeks.Hetherington and Churchill came together at adinner, hosted by Westminster, and there is little doubtthat the young officer’s impossible design reignited theFirst Lord’s interest. Churchill himself was, above all, arealist, who dealt best with what he could see and understand.Commodore Murray Sueter, Director of the AirDepartment at the Admiralty, remembers Churchillstorming around his office saying, “We must crush thetrenches, D.A.D.: It is the only way; it must be done.” 1Churchill’s first effort along these lines wasabortive. Two municipal steam rollers were acquired,linked up side by side and then driven like mad at atrench parapet, only to get stuck in the soft mud and sitthere, belching smoke, rollers spinning, going nowhere.On a more practical level the First Lord ordainedan Admiralty Landships Committee, 2 which met (forthe first time in the First Lord’s rooms at the Admiraltysince he had the flu) under the chairmanship of EustaceTennyson D’Eyncourt, Director of Naval Construction,in February 1915. This committee, and the driving forcebehind it, was Churchill’s greatest contribution to theevolution of the tank.The Landships Committee’s first problem was todecide upon the respective merits of wheels orCaterpillar tracks. Hetherington’s huge wheeled designwas simply too big, and even a half-scale version,designed by William Foster and Company in Lincoln,was rejected at an early stage. That left tracks. Buttracks, as a means of crossing rough ground, were hardlyknown in Britain and early prototypes mostly had to beimported from the USA. Murray Sueter educatedChurchill on the properties of tracks by inviting himdown to Horse Guards to push a small tracked truckaround. Soon the Landships Committee had experimentsgoing on everywhere and Churchill attended onewith Lloyd George, as the following article notes, at atesting ground near Wormwood Scrubs.Even so, Churchill was better with men thanmachines. and his last great contribution to this saga wasto appoint a pushy young merchant banker, one AlbertStern, as secretary to D’Eyncourt’s Committee.Commissioned as a Lieutenant in the RNAS, Stern wentat it like mad, with no respect for rank or station. Sterndidn’t tread on toes—he leapt on them, and managed tomake himself very unpopular. But he got things done. Aprototype machine, first known as “Little Willie,” wasrunning by the summer of 1915. Its successor—“BigWillie” or “Mother”—the true prototype of all BritishWorld War I tanks—was completed the followingDecember and a matter of months later, productionbegan. As Marcus Frost relates next, tanks went intoaction for the first time on 15 September 1916. In thecircumstances, it was an amazing feat to imagine, invent,design and produce a brand new weapons system in soshort a time.Churchill, by then, was out of the picture.Reaction to the Dardanelles reverse, his resignation fromthe government and subsequent return to uniform, kepthim away from developments in Britain. Yet it did notleave his mind, and from the trenches he sent Sir JohnFrench a document entitled “Variants of the Offensive,” 3which proved to be very influential. It was not simply aplea for the tank, but a broad-based look at the prob- >>ORIGINS: Tommy Hetherington, above, drives the Killen-Straittractor through barbed wire entanglements at WormwoodScrubs. Albert Stern strides at left; Lloyd George and Churchill,though present, are not in the photo. A Pedrail one-ton truck,below, of the type Churchill pushed around on Horse GuardsParade as an example of a track-laying vehicle.FINEST HOUR 135 / 43
Page 1: THE JOURNAL OFWINSTON CHURCHILLSUMM
Page 7 and 8: E D I T O R ’ S E S S AYHistory o
Page 9 and 10: HOLOCAUST OFF LIMITSLONDON, APRIL 2
Page 11 and 12: ICONOGRAPHY: Perhaps, heeding Dr. R
Page 13 and 14: VC “TOO POSITIVE”LONDON, APRIL
Page 15 and 16: more than half our total submarinel
Page 17 and 18: Let me preface my remarks with some
Page 19 and 20: SWORD OF STALINGRAD: Stalin kissed
Page 21 and 22: PARTNERS?: At Teheran, both Rooseve
Page 23 and 24: RIDDLES, MYSTERIES, ENIGMASRight yo
Page 25 and 26: “Let Us Preach What WePractise”
Page 27 and 28: “Ispoke earlier of the Temple of
Page 29 and 30: When it comes to reaching out to po
Page 31 and 32: “ How could we bear to be treated
Page 33 and 34: dragging the world into prolonged m
Page 35 and 36: low-cost settlement could not be ac
Page 37 and 38: THE PROTRACTED CONFLICT (2)Churchil
Page 39 and 40: CHURCHILL AND LLOYD GEORGE...6. Nic
Page 41: What were Churchill’s actual view
Page 45 and 46: Churchill and the Tank (2):In for t
Page 47 and 48: William Tritton of William Foster &
Page 49 and 50: methods of battle byeliminating dea
Page 51 and 52: “There is no one here at all exce
Page 53 and 54: whom both my husband and I owe so m
Page 55 and 56: Armée” unbeatable, and its swift
Page 57 and 58: BRIGHT AND TERRIBLE...Douglas, a cr
Page 59 and 60: makes text references to it? Martin
Page 61 and 62: was “cocking a snook” at the pr
Page 63 and 64: Churchill Centre Regional and Local

Download - Winston Churchill

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?