He is buried at Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-L’abbe. He was badly injured on the morning of September 16 and died of his wounds a few days later. The Abrams tank sends a message to those who would oppose the United States as to the resolve, capability, and might of the U.S. Walter is buried at the Foleshill Congregational Burial Ground.Īnother Coventry tank crew member who fought at Flers-Courcelette was Gunner Tom Wilson. Wounded near the village of Martinpuich he was evacuated back to the UK to recover before being sent to the tank training grounds at Bovington in Dorset.īut he died on February 9, 1917, at the military hospital in Bovington following an accident. Among the tank crews serving with the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps that day was Gunner Walter Atkins, a bicycle machinist born on August 4, 1895, at 57 Henley Road, Bell Green. Mark 1 Battle of Flers-Courcelette © IWM (Q 2488) The first official photograph taken of a tank going into action, at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on 15 September 1916. No such vehicles were produced in Britain or the United States. Of the 49 tanks which set out, only 32 were able to begin the first attack and only nine made it across no man’s land to the German lines. The turretless-tank type of vehicle originated with the Sturmgeschutz, or assault gun, introduced by the German army for infantry support but subsequently transformed into more versatile vehicles particularly suited for destroying enemy tanks. Mark I tanks first took to the battlefield at Flers-Courcelette - part of the Battle of the Somme - on September 15, 1916. A British Mark I tank during the Battle of the Somme (Image: Imperial War Museum) By the outbreak of the First World War, Richard Hornsby & Sons produced the Killen-Strait. It had taken them less than two years to get the concept from the drawing board to the battlefield.
0 kommentar(er)
