Tramp in Armour

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The war had started.

‘Advance right, driver. Advance right. Two-pounder, traverse left, traverse left. Steady…’

The tank commander, Sergeant Barnes, thought that should do the trick – when the tank emerged from the ramp on to the rail embankment, in full view of the German troops of General von Bock’s Army Group B, the turret would rest at an angle of ninety degrees to the forward movement of the vehicle, the two-pounder and the Besa machine gun aimed straight at the enemy. The tank crawled upwards at a steady five miles per hour, still invisible to the German wave advancing across open fields to assault the embankment behind which the British Expeditionary Force waited for them, while overhead the sun shone down on Belgium out of a clear blue sky, the prelude to the long endless summer of 1940.

Barnes’ squadron of tanks was positioned on the extreme right of the BEF line, and the troop of three tanks which formed his own unit was stationed on the extreme right of the squadron. Somewhere beyond this troop the French First Army, the next major formation which faced the attacking German army group, reached out its left flank to link up with the BEF, but this vital link was not apparent, which was why Barnes had just received his urgent wireless instruction from Lieutenant Parker, his troop commander.

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