Landships II

Centurion · Legend

Creme de Menthe or Dinnaken?

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

C.5 (721) "Creme de Menthe" was a male tank which supported the attack on the Courcelette sugar factory on Sept. 15, 1916, starting from near the Pozieres windmill. Despite losing a tail wheel, it completed it's assignment, shedding a track on the return. On Sept. 25, it attacked near Thiepval Chateau where it was disabled, and not recovered. It was used as a signal station at this location during subsequent operations.

Centurion · Legend

Rhomboid wrote:

C.5 (721) "Creme de Menthe" was a male tank which supported the attack on the Courcelette sugar factory on Sept. 15, 1916, starting from near the Pozieres windmill. Despite losing a tail wheel, it completed it's assignment, shedding a track on the return. On Sept. 25, it attacked near Thiepval Chateau where it was disabled, and not recovered. It was used as a signal station at this location during subsequent operations.

Thanks but it still leaves the question outstanding re the various atributions including Inglises regimental obit.

Centurion · Legend

I thought it might be useful to provide some contemporary quotations. Most refer to Creme de Menthe but I've also included a Dinnaken quote. One wonders how the airman could distinguish which tank it was. Also see the highlighted reference to counterfeit representations of Creme de Menthe - I'd like to know more

Phillip Gibbs war correspondent at the Somme

On that morning of September 15th, 1916, the front-line troops got out of their trenches laughing, and cheering, and shouting again because the tanks had gone ahead, and were searing the Germans dreadfully while they moved over the enemy's trenches and poured out fire on every side. One of them called 'Creme de Menthe' had great adventures that day, capturing hundreds of prisoners, and treading down machine-gun posts, and striking terror into the enemy. A message came back: "Creme de Menthe is walking down the High Street of Flers with the British Army cheering behind."

The Daily Chronicle (18th September, 1916)

There was a whip of silence from the enemy. Then, suddenly, their machine-gun fire burst out in nervous spasms and splashed the sides of 'Creme de Menthe'. But the tank did not mind. The bullets fell from its sides harmlessly. From its sides came flashes of fire and a hose of bullets, and then it trampled around over machine emplacements 'having a grand time', as one of the men said with enthusiasm. It crushed the machine-guns under its heavy ribs, and killed machine-gun teams with deadly fire. The infantry followed in and took the place after this good help, and then advanced again round the flanks of the monster.

In spite of the tank, which did grand work, the assault on Courcelette was hard and costly. Again and again the men came under machine-gun fire and rifle fire, for the Germans had dug new trenches which had not been wiped out by our artillery.

These soldiers our ours were superb in courage and stoic endurance, and pressed forward steadily in broken waves. The first news of success came through the airman's wireless, which said: "A tank is walking up the high street of Flers with the British army cheering behind."

We're all in it (author unkown)

When one of these low-comedy vehicles (named the Creme-de-Menthe) ambled down
the main street of the hitherto impregnable village of Flers, with hysterical British Tommies
slapping her on the back,

Daily Mirror 18th September 1916

The taking of a sugar refinery which was a nest of machine guns by a 'tank' is thus described in a Reuters special message: One of the 'tanks' rumbled up to the entrance coughing bullets as it came, burst open the barricaded door, scattering sandbags like feathers in a chicken fight, and got in among the machine gunners.

Not long afterwards there fell a hush upon which our infantry marched in and took undisputed possession of the place while the ungainly machine - named by the 'Tommies' the 'cr�me de menthe', and a 'flagship' at that - was clumsily bumping its way out again.

A Canadian soldier recounts his encounter with a tank in the 1916 assault at Flers-Courcelette:

Away to my left, a huge gray object reared itself into view, and slowly, very slowly, it crawled along like a gigantic toad, feeling its way across the shell-stricken field. It was a tank, the �Cr�me de Menthe,� the latest invention of destruction and the first of its kind to be employed in the Great War. I watched it coming towards our direction. How painfully slow it travelled. Down and up the shell holes it clambered, a weird, ungainly monster, moving relentlessly forward. (qtd. in Rawling 73)

from �The War Illustrated�, 11th May, 1918

Not until the counterfeit presentment of H.M. Landship Creme de Menthe and various others of the first quaint fleet had been published widely in the American Press, and the Huns had secured some of the material monsters, were we in England allowed to see what they were like ; and with admirable wisdom the official photos first issued all depicted Tanks that had come to grief.

One of these, D17, christened Dinnaken by its Scottish commander Lt Stuart Hastie, was seen by an observer of the Royal Flying Corps who then sent back the famous message: "A tank is walking down the High Street of Flers with the British Army cheering behind

Centurion · Legend

A possible solution

We've all probably read the account of the dramatic message radioed back by an RFC observer that ran "a tank is walking up the high street of Flers with the British army cheering behind". Unfortunately this isn't all it seems to be as a little research shows.
Firstly it is extremely improbable that any message was radioed back by an RFC aircraft. In September 1916 very few RFC aircraft were equiped with wireless transmitters and these were operated by the wireless flight of No 4 sqadron RFC, being dedicated to artillery spotting and not used for general recce. They would in any case be operated at an altitude too high to see the sort of detail that the account suggests (A plane using wireless had to stream out a very long wire behind it and fly in a very predictable pattern which would have made it very vunerable to small arms fire from the ground unless it kept well up). The message might have been written on a message pad and dropped behind the British lines. I have seen at least two accounts that suggest that this was the case. Alternatively the mesage might have simply have been passed back by runner and field telephone.

As far as the message itself goes I have so far found five different variants - as follows

1.Tank is advancing up the High street at Flers with large numbers of troops following on behind

2. Tank followed by cheering multitude marching through Flers

3. Creme de Menthe is walking down the High Street of Flers with the British Army cheering behind

4. A tank is walking up the High street of Flers with the British army cheering behind

5. A tank is walking down the High Street of Flers with the British Army cheering behind

Version 1. sounds more like the sort of militarily useful report a pilot might have dropped. Flying over at about 90mph and at least 300 feet up he certainly would have been unable to observe whether the troops were cheering or otherwise. Version 3 sounds like something an enthusiastic subletern might have reported back through a verbal message on a field telephone after listening to a breathless runner (and indeed the account refering to this message states that it was passed back rather than delivered by air). Versions 4. and 5. are almost certainly the version that a spin doctor at GHQ released. It is interesting that another account of the time refers to "one of these low-comedy vehicles (named the Creme-de-Menthe) ambled down the main street of the hitherto impregnable village of Flers, with hysterical British Tommies slapping her on the back" This becomes even more confusing when accounts refer to Dinnaken being the tank in question.

My own theory is that versions 4 and 5 represent a compressed account of the observed activities of Dinnaken and Creme de Menthe (probably reported seperately) conflated into one for the benefit of the public. Dinnaken certainly progressed down the High street but almost certainly not followed by a cheering multitude as the street was under artillery fire at the time (and this eventualy forced the tank to withdraw) as well as small arms fire from the upper windows of the buildings. The troops involved were actually clearing out the German troops from the houses scuttling from building to building under cover of the tanks's machine gun supressing fire. On the other hand having effectively demolished the German defensive position in the sugar factory Creme de Menthe does seem to have moved on towards Flers with a crowd of soldiers marching behind (and perhaps they were even cheering - who knows).

It would be interesting to know if a proper record of the airman's mesage still exists (assuming that there was one).

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

The message appears to have been dropped in a bag by an RFC observer, as you have suggested. It was recorded in various forms by the 41st Division, Fourth Army, and GHQ. Trevor Pidgeon in "The Tanks at Flers" (Fairmile, 1995) provides the PRO references. This book is a highly detailed and well-referenced account of each tank's activities on Sept. 15, 1916.

Accounts of C.5 "Creme de Menthe" advancing on Flers are inaccurate, since the Courcelette sugar factory was about 5 km distant, and C.5 is recorded as returning towards Albert immediately after it's attack on the factory. Patrick Wright in "Tank" discusses the veracity of some of the early correspondents' reports.

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

Here is Capt. A.M. Inglis' account of C.5 on Sept. 15, from "Report of Operations of the tanks of No. 1 Section "C" Company H.S.M.G.C. 16th September 1916":

"At Zero (6.20 am) we commenced our advance and made for the Sugar Factory, which was my objective. Soon after crossing our front line trench a group of about 50 Germans came up towards the tank to surrender. Our infantry was well in advance of the tank, and were in the Sugar Factory by the time I arrived; but I was able to make use of my Hotchkiss Guns. I skirted the southern and eastern side of the factory and went up to the trench where our infantry were consolidating. Having found an officer who informed me that the position had been made good, I commenced my return journey, and laid out about 400 yards telephone wire which I carried on the tail of the tank...Before reaching the Windmill the wire drum was smashed in by a shell. I eventually reached a point on the Pozieres-Albert road 300 yards from Camp, when the track came completely off."

Date: Jan 17, 2007

I am looking for pre WWI and post WWI pictures of courcelette sugar factory, please email me at robsquared11@hotmail.com

Fiona · Private

My stepfather, Stuart Hastie, was in command of D17 - Dinnaken - and I can assure you that his tank was the one mentioned in the press reports, and was the first one into Flers.

Stuart himself was not responsible for tanks' name. A reporter asked one of the tank crew what the machine was called, and he replied (being a good Scot, like Stuart himself) "I dinna ken". The name stuck!

Gwyn Evans · Legend

Fiona

Thanks for that - and welcome to the forum. I have an interest in the origins of tank's names so thanks for that insight.

Gwyn