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Busted on the Bullecourt Battlefield: the Myth of Skinner's tank 796 - Montage 4
The modern aerial googlemaps view includes an overlay of the German defenses in red, as best as I can interpret them from 100 year old aerial photos and trench maps. The path and final resting place of Skinner's tank is annotated in blue.
Some details in the German defenses are simplified to scale, or approximated due to lack of clarity in the aerial photos. Accounts and drawings describe periodic narrow zig-zag gaps passing completely through the barbed wire barriers, presumably left to enable German scouting, maintenance and counter attack, which are omitted here. There were also accounts of tunnels and covered trenches which aren't shown. The main road south into Bullecourt and passing through the wire was no doubt mined, plus it also had a massive crater severing it - the result of a buried bomb detonated by the Germans, just ahead of the wire.
Clearly in light of all the photographic evidence of tank 796, the various unquestioned allied accounts of its exploits published in the past 100 years fall short on accuracy. Skinner's tank most definitely hadn't managed to cruise the village, let alone enter Bullecourt and the tank isn't ditched inside a large crater. Indeed, since 1925 the Germans' own divisional account and map never indicated tanks entered Bullecourt on April 11, 1917.
According to C.E.W. Bean and the 48th Battalion histories, the tank was however successful in suppressing the German MGs it was sent against. Furthermore, its plausible Lt Skinner may have incorrectly believed amidst the explosions, smoke and chaos that his tank had penetrated the edge of the village, given the first ruins were just beyond the trench to his forward starboard side. His tank is also stopped before what, at close quarters, would appear to be an enormous crater, exactly as his C.O. Major Watson's account describes - in fact one of several large pock marked pits dug by the Germans.
As is so often the way with conflicting stories, the truth ends up laying somewhere in between... in this case betwixt the barbed wire and trenches.
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Below are some links to the very useful Landships website, including a narrative and map, which hopefully will be updated in due course:
Bullecourt Map:
sites.google.com/site/landships/home/narratives/1917/batt...
Narrative:
sites.google.com/site/landships/home/narratives/1917/batt...
Tank Lists by serial number:
Busted on the Bullecourt Battlefield: the Myth of Skinner's tank 796 - Montage 4
The modern aerial googlemaps view includes an overlay of the German defenses in red, as best as I can interpret them from 100 year old aerial photos and trench maps. The path and final resting place of Skinner's tank is annotated in blue.
Some details in the German defenses are simplified to scale, or approximated due to lack of clarity in the aerial photos. Accounts and drawings describe periodic narrow zig-zag gaps passing completely through the barbed wire barriers, presumably left to enable German scouting, maintenance and counter attack, which are omitted here. There were also accounts of tunnels and covered trenches which aren't shown. The main road south into Bullecourt and passing through the wire was no doubt mined, plus it also had a massive crater severing it - the result of a buried bomb detonated by the Germans, just ahead of the wire.
Clearly in light of all the photographic evidence of tank 796, the various unquestioned allied accounts of its exploits published in the past 100 years fall short on accuracy. Skinner's tank most definitely hadn't managed to cruise the village, let alone enter Bullecourt and the tank isn't ditched inside a large crater. Indeed, since 1925 the Germans' own divisional account and map never indicated tanks entered Bullecourt on April 11, 1917.
According to C.E.W. Bean and the 48th Battalion histories, the tank was however successful in suppressing the German MGs it was sent against. Furthermore, its plausible Lt Skinner may have incorrectly believed amidst the explosions, smoke and chaos that his tank had penetrated the edge of the village, given the first ruins were just beyond the trench to his forward starboard side. His tank is also stopped before what, at close quarters, would appear to be an enormous crater, exactly as his C.O. Major Watson's account describes - in fact one of several large pock marked pits dug by the Germans.
As is so often the way with conflicting stories, the truth ends up laying somewhere in between... in this case betwixt the barbed wire and trenches.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below are some links to the very useful Landships website, including a narrative and map, which hopefully will be updated in due course:
Bullecourt Map:
sites.google.com/site/landships/home/narratives/1917/batt...
Narrative:
sites.google.com/site/landships/home/narratives/1917/batt...
Tank Lists by serial number: