Customer Reviews

Band Of Brigands: The First Men In Tanks

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This is a very interesting and well written book about the development and early use (and misuse) of British tanks in WW1. It describes the early development of the tank as a devise able to cross trenches and protect crews from machine gun bullets. It goes on to describes all the WW1 battles in which the tanks took part and the experience of individual tanks and their crews in these battles. Many of those mentioned in the book will be familiar to readers as they went on to become well known in civilian and political life. I read the book on two six hour cross-Canada flights and the book held my attention such that the hours passed very quickly.

Christy Campbell has given us a well-written account of how the British Tank Corps came to be, concentrating on the personal infighting among the principal figures involved. These included several well-known men, including Winston Churchill, Ernest Swinton, Albert Stern, and J. F. C. Fuller, as well as lesser-known figures such as Richard Butler, Robert Bradley and John Brough. The greater part of the book builds up to the climax at Flers-Courcelette, the first appearance of British tanks during the latter phases of the Somme campaign in September 1916. The other engagements that receive significant attention are Third Ypres (Passchendaele) during the soggy season of 1917, and the attack at Cambrai in November. These events are woven together with significant skill, with Campbell's narrative illustrating a journalist's flair for detail. However, little attention is paid to the significant contribution made by the tanks to the decisive battles in 1918.

Not being a historian per se, Campbell's book suffers a bit from somewhat loose attention to sources. Source references, as seen in many popular histories, consist of page citations in the back of the book instead of more scholarly endnotes/footnotes, which is a minor irritation; but at least source notes are provided. Unfortunately, a few of these citations are somewhat unclear; in a few cases quotes do not appear to have citations at all. On the other hand, there are a numbered of unnumbered footnotes that add a few interesting bits of trivia.

Although Campbell's book is obviously about the British experience, he does (briefly) touch upon the small American contribution to armored warfare. Unfortunately, Campbell relies primarily on Dale Wilson's "Treat 'Em Rough: The Birth of American Armor, 1917-20" (Presidio, 1990). As a result, a few errors crept into the text. Specifically, on page 375, Campbell identifies Colonel Henry E. Mitchell as the commander of 301st Tank Battalion, who, "by all accounts was not quite up to it." Mitchell was not commander of the battalion; he was commander of the Heavy Tank Training Center co-located with the British training facility at Bovington, in Dorset. The battalion's commanding officer was Major Roger B. Harrison.

This mistake originated with Wilson's book (page 51, and endnote 30), which cites the oral history of Sgt. David Pyle, on file at the Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks. Pyle's oral history, which is undated but obviously was not produced until at least 1969 - half a century after the fact - is cited by Wilson (and now Campbell) as evidence of Mitchell's incompetence. However, in no other instance have I located evidence of Mitchell being regarded as lax, and certainly not multiple accounts as claimed by Campbell. The blame for this lies primarily with Wilson, who used one source produced decades after the war as evidence, apparently with no collaboration. Mitchell's name is cited no fewer than 14 times in Martin Blumenson's "The Patton Papers, 1885-1940," without any suggestion that he was regarded poorly by George Patton, who was not exactly prone to hold back criticism in his letters or diary entries. Sergeant Pyle, it should be noted, claimed to have tried to cross the Channel soon after 301st Battalion entered action, but Mitchell refused on the grounds that Pyle was too valuable as an instructor to go.

Another error appears on page 394, where Campbell asserts that "On 23 August 1918 the 301st [Tank] Battalion sailed for France with their Birmingham-built Mark Vs." This is false. The battalion did in fact cross the Channel in August, but they had no tanks of their own until arriving at Erin, site of the Tank Corps' Central Workshops. There, two companies received Mark V and Mark V* tanks, while another went into the field to assume control over machines previously operated by the British 10th Tank Battalion.

In the interest of disclosure, I should add that I am currently writing a new comprehensive history of the American Tank Corps during the First World War. At any rate, Campbell's book does make for a good read, and makes a good companion volume to John Glanfield's "The Devil's Chariots: The Birth & Secret Battles of the First Tanks" (Sutton, 2001, 2006), which concentrates much more on the production and design side of the tank story. These volumes should be supplemented by other works, primarily those written by David Fletcher of the Tank Museum in Bovington, David Childs ("A Peripheral Weapon?") and J. P. Harris ("Men, Ideas and Tanks").