Band of Brigands

[George Armstrong Custer]

Just spotted this and bought it today - official publication day is tomorrow, 15 October - so most of what follows is from the inside flap of the dustjacket.

Inspired by a recent visit to northeast France to witness the excavation of a fully fledged First World War tank from beneath a muddy field, near Cambrai, Christy Campbell then defence correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph began to piece together the little known story of the maverick soldiers who formed the British Tank Corps.

'I had never seen such a bunch of brigands in my life,' commented one general. Very few of them had been professional soldiers; they were motor mechanics and enthusiasts, 'oily men', stuntmen, circus performers, and polar explorers. They had trained in conditions of great secrecy in the grounds of a mock oriental stately home in East Anglia, far away from prying eyes, and were known as the 'Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps'.

Men in tanks saw the face of battle at its most brutal. Their task was to crush and burn the enemy out of his fortifications, and to carve a path for the infantry so they could finish the job with bayonet and grenade. Captured tank crews were beaten up or sometimes shot out of hand by the Germans. They fought in their stifling armoured boxes packed with petrol and explosive, aware that at any moment a shell hit might incinerate them all.

The publishers claim this is the first time the story of how the men went to war in tanks has been properly told, but hyperbole apart, this looks a very good read - concentrating on the men rather than being a Haynes-style technical manual on the tanks themselves. Very good illustration sections too.

Band of Brigands: The First Men in Tanks, by Christy Campbell, 512 pages. Published by HarperPress, ISBN-10: 0007214596 , £20 (£15 at Borders bookshops).

[Bob Chandler]

Spotted this myself in Waterstones in Winchester on Saturday, as you say it looks a bit different to the usual tank stuff (not that there's anything wrong with the more technically-orientated books) have put it on the 'wants' list anyway but would be interested to see your comments once you've had a chance to get into it.

[delta]

Looks like I need to get a copy - might have some more info for my website!

Stephen

[centurion]

I'd be more impressed if the tank on the cover had been a Mk I not a Mk V and if the hyperbole had been absent. True many were not professional soldiers but then neither were the vast majority of the British army. " 'Oily men', stuntmen, circus performers, and polar explorers" would have been a small minority (especially polar explorers of whom there were very few to go around). Men with a mechanical bent - yes in the original 1916 formation but you could say that about quite a number of other units. Mavericks - where on earth did that come from! Most of them were dedicated and hardworking soldiers with a degree of tenancity (read some German accounts of British tanks that fought to the last man rather than surrender) but maverick - come on!

[delta]

I agree about the Mark I (but then of course I would)

Stephen

[George Armstrong Custer]

Just to correct any misconceptions which may inadvertantly have arisen about this book from my first post. Any hyperbole referred to by me was directed entirely at the publishers blurb, over which the author of course has no control. Similarly with the dustjacket - though in my view it's a very effective dustjacket - despite Stephen's disappointment that they didn't show a Mark I!

But as to the meat of this book, the author's text, which I've now had a chance to get into mainly because this is such a gripping unputdownable read. This book is breaking much unknown territory about the lives of the men who developed the tank concept and those who actually took them into battle. I've referenced this book in relation to poor George Macpherson over on the 'Who do you think you are?' thread, but another moving story in the book makes it clear that George wasn't the only suicide resulting from the first tank actions of September 1916. Although Lieut.-Col. John Brough did not shoot himself amongst some roadside bushes until July 1917, Campbell skillfully tells the story of the largely forgotten Brough as one of those responsible for the very first mechanized armoured fighting force ever to take the field, and how, after helping to raise and train the force, Brough had been dismissed on the eve of it going into battle for the first time. I won't spoil the story by going into the detail, suffice to say that Campbell shows Brough's suicide was driven by similar concepts of duty, failure and disappointment as those which had caused George Macpherson's suicide 10 months earlier. This is a book which is studded with revelations about the coming of the tanks and, in particular, the biographical details of the men who created and fought in them. It's a joy to read, and as I've already noted elsewhere, it's my choice as best Great War book of 2007. Very highly recommended.

ciao,

GAC

[delta]

GAC - it was not my intention to criticise your thread as I had scanned the web and realised that you had "quoted" the publishers' blurb, if I appeared to be insuktig please accept any aplogies

Brough's name is new to me - can you tell us more?

Stephen

[George Armstrong Custer]

Evening Stephen,

No apology necessary - I was simply ensuring that it was realised that my earlier reference to hyperbole, which term centurion had picked up in his post, referred solely to one aspect of the publishers (usual) jacket blurb and not to Christy Campbell's fine text.

John Brough's suicide in July 1917 opens Mr. Campbell's account, and his story is so well researched and told that I wouldn't want to spoil it for readers of the book by paraphrasing it to any great extent here. As Mr Campbell notes, Brough's 'name is all but forgotten even by those who care obsessively about such things. The History of the Great War Based on Official Documents (otherwise known as the Official History) mentions him once in passing. The Tank Museum at Bovington, Dorset, has no personal or official papers - not even an obituary notice. The index to the Liddel Hart collection at King's College London, a splendid depository of all things to do with warfare in the twentieth century, spells his name incorrectly - 'Burgh'. They did not speak of him again [following his suicide].'

Briefly, however, Lt. Col. John Brough had had an unusual military career in that he was an officer of the Royal Marine artillery and was a graduate of both the Royal Naval College, Greenwich and the Staff College, Camberley. He'd been a gunnery officer on the battleships HMS Nile, Ramillies and Dominion, and had been a 'company Commander of Gentlemen Cadets' at the RMC Sandhurst. From late 1914, Brough spent over a year in the Cameroons, assigned to the force designated to conquer that German colony - a campaign which deployed a single Rolls Royce armoured car to aid the pursuit of the enemy. Brough returned from West Africa in February 1916 with a mention in dispatches and a DSO. In April 1916, Colonel Ernest Swinton picked Brough from relative obscurity for the group of men he was putting together to operate the first tanks - Swinton noting in his memoirs that he had difficulty getting Brough assigned because he was a staff college graduate. The Navy List records him as 'Lent to Army. Temp. Lt-Col, 3 June, 1916.' Brough seems to have rapidly risen in Swinton's estimation, as Mr Campbell quotes the latter a few days after he recruited Brough in a letter to General Sir Richard Harte Butler: 'I propose sending over to you Lt.-Col. Brough. He was to have been a battalion commander but is now assisting me as a sort of staff officer....I am too tied up to come over myself but Brough is PSC, knows all that we are doing and is quite capable of getting your views on the different points on which we want information.' You must get Campbell's book to read of Brough's essay on tanks written in summer 1916, how he went over to France as leader of the first mechanised, armoured fighting force and how he became persona non grata at GHQ, who instructed his removal before his force went into combat for the first time at the end of September 1916. As Christy Campbell's book elaborates, the reasons for this lay in the differences of opinion between GHQ and Brough as to how and when the tanks ought first to be deployed in battle - Brough holding out for further training first and then a larger massing of tanks at one point. Mr. Campbell does an excellent job of tracing Brough's subsequent desultory posting until his suicide in France 10 months later, and how that suicide, combined with the antipathy towards him at GHQ combined to virtually airbrush him out of the history of the first tanks. Campbell convincingly ties the suicide to the unsuccessful first deployment of British tanks 10 months earlier. Moving, too, is the story Campbell tells of the struggle over the ensuing years by Brough's aged father (whose letter pleading that as a 'merciful kindness' the War Office might publish the fact of his son's death and its mannner as 'died of wounds' was coldly rejected with a brusque officially annotated 'No - he can place his own notice'), then his brother (Alan Brough, also a Lieut.-Col. but in the Royal Engineers), against the official verdicts following the suicide, which had meant the subsequent loss of pension rights etc., before finally getting a grudging pardon.

I hope this resume of the short-lived but key role played by John Brough is of some interest and gives some flavour of the depth of research which Christy Campbell deploys to bring these characters who were 'the first men in tanks' vividly to life in this excellent book. If you get just one more Great War book this year make it this one!

ciao,

GAC

[delta]

GAC - thanx for taking the time to transcribe the account; Brough's name has completely been lost which idnciates lots of good research

Stephen

(PS aiming to buy the book this week)

[rogerb40uk]

Christy mailed me for permission to include a short reference to my father (Arthur Blowers) in the book, although he thought it might be too late.

Does anyone know if he managed to squeeze him in?

[George Armstrong Custer]

Indeed he did, Roger, with three references on pp. 188, 195 and 414:

In the same sector D.5 Dolphin, commanded by 2/Lt Arthur Blowers, had at last got its engine going. Dolphin crashed forward, heading northwards out of Delville Wood. A young infantryman who was there recalled many years later: "We in the ranks had never heard of tanks.....We were told that there was some sort of secret weapon but we didn't know what the devil these things were. I was up in the top left-hand corner of the area and we saw this thing go up in the right-hand corner of Delville towards Flers....then three or four more...."

Arthur Blower's tank, D.5 Dolphin, the late-starting tank from XIV Corps sector, also got as far as just south of Gueudecourt, cruising around waiting in vain for the infantry to arrive. It was in danger of capture. Its commander turned round and started to go back - and was struck by a shell. Six of the crew survived. It was the furthest run of any tank that day. Arthur Blowers would get the Military Cross, his second in command Cpl Edward Foden and ASC driver Pts G. H. Thomas the Military Medal. Gnr Leslie Robert Gutsell was killed. His body was recovered from the wreck and buried on 30 September, but the grave was subsequently lost. His name and unit (Machine Gun Corps (Motors) ) are recorded on the monument to the missing of the Somme at Thiepval.

And the tank men themselves? Every story was different. In early 2007 the advertised sale of some medals on an internet auction site triggered an especially poignant piece of filial remembrance. The decorations were those of Acting/Capt. Arthur Blowers, the twenty-five-year-old commander of D.5 Dolphin who got further than anyone else on 15 September 1916 and won the Military Cross in the process. The sale caused his son, Roger (born in 1940, the youngest of seven; Blowers himself was the thirteenth of fourteen Suffolk-born children), to contribute a fascinating family confessional to an on-line Great War forum:

'He won his MC, I believe, for returning to his burning tank to rescue the driver. He told me that he sat in the tank that day, firing his Webley revolver at German infantry.....he said, 'I fired over a hundred rounds...none of the targets was more than ten yards away, so I didn't miss many!' He sustained head injuries.....During treatment he was given morphine to which he became addicted and he told the story of having a vision of death standing at the end of his bed, saying 'I am coming for you!' He spent some time....living in a tent, in the orchard of his father's farm, weaning himself off the morphine/heroin, by replacing it with large amounts of beer! He was eventually able to get off the alcohol, too, and made an apparently complete recovery, confounding the medics who'd given him 6 months to live.'

Blowers became a schoolmaster and pillar of the local Conservative association. He evidently sought continued excitement in motorcycling. 'He was a selfish man,' wrote his son, 'but had considerable charm, which enabled him to get away with a lot. His family didn't forget that he had suffered a lot early in his life.' Arthur Blowers died in 1980

I think you'll agree that Mr Campbell - with your own wonderfully frank contributions - has done your Father proud in his book. As I've said already, this is an absolute gem of a book.

ciao,

GAC

[Guest christy campbell]

I am so glad I was able to include Roger Blowers' remarkable and moving memoir of his father Arthur Blowers, late Heavy Section MGC, in my book Band of Brigands, the first men in tanks, before it went to press. It was a joy to research and write - and the forum moderator's critical praise naturally makes me even more happy.

I would welcome members' response to the, I hope, genuinely revelatory material in the work - in particular the apparent leak of information from Elveden (any clues as to who was the Royal Engineer sergeant with a home in Liverpool and a sister in law in Ireland?), the dismissal (and later suicide) of Lt-Col John Brough RMA - and the criticism of various Heavy Section officers subsequently brought against Brig-Gen Hugh Elles for his role in the events of early September 1916.

[delta]

Welcome to the Forum Christy

I am eagerly looking foward to reading your book (which will be a Christmas present)

as it will may plug some of the gaps in my own research - see my website http://www.freewebs.com/firsttankcrews/

Stephen

[George Armstrong Custer]

Yes indeed, I second Stephen in welcoming you to the Forum, Christy - really great to see you posting here! It's always a great bonus that so many top authors on the Great War are prepared to come on this Forum and discuss their books. You'll have gathered from my earlier comments that your 'Band of Brigands' has really impressed me, and I'm sure it's destined to become a classic of the genre. I didn't realise that Chris had already reviewed it, but I can say that Pals could do a lot worse than emulate Stephen and add 'Band of Brigands' to their Christmas list!

ciao,

GAC

[Michelle Young]

It is a belter of a book, I am thoroughly enjoying reading it.

Michelle

[Steven Broomfield]

Errrm....feel a bit of a cad for mentioning this, but I saw it (half price, I think) in Sussex Stationers' Bookshop in Winchester this afternoon. Only just read this thread, or I would have bought it. Maybe they'll have it there next weekend.

[rogerb40uk]

Speaking of Winchester, and of suicides, as we were earlier, did anyone see a recent BBC TV screening of 'Who do you think you are?", in which a celebrity, attempting to trace his ancestors, went to an uncle's (?) old school, Winchester, and discovered that his relative had been in the WWI tanks (at Flers, IIRC), and had committed suicide? It was said he just climbed out of his tank and put his revolver to his head.

I just cannot recall which celeb it was...?

BTW, I am awaiting the arrival of my copy of B of B, from Amazon...I had hoped it would arrive while I was in UK last week.

[Stebie9173]

The celeb was Matthew Pinsent, the yound Second Lieutenant, George Macpherson. There are various different stories of his death.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...p;p=782768&

Steve.

[rogerb40uk]

The celeb was Matthew Pinsent, the yound Second Lieutenant, George Macpherson. There are various different stories of his death.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...p;p=782768&

Steve.

Of course it was...I should've remembered.

(And I should have realised that it would have been covered in the forum already )

Thanks, Steve.

[delta]

Half way through reading it; several new leads appear.. and the forum gets a mention too under a note of sources; "the informed message traffic on Landships and the Great War Forum proved hugely engaging"

Could he really mean us?

[ianw]

Coincidentally I saw the book yesterday.

The story of Brough is fascinating but he does get 7 mentions in "The Tanks at Flers" where both he and Swinton are being regarded by GHQ as "difficult" - as assistant Brough got the chop. Well done to the author for completing his tragic story.

Can anyone confirm if Brough was awarded the DSO. His CWGC entry does not confirm this - listing "only" a CMG and MVO. Brough's grave at Longueness Souvenir must merit a visit when I next go over.

The CMG and MVO indicate that Brough was an establishment insider - I must read the book to get Christy's take on the reasons for his suicide.

Great that Christy has posted in this thread - more proof that the Forum is the only place to be.

[MartinWills]

I've had this set to one side ready to read when I had a solid chunk of time to devote to it, having already dipped into some excellent passages previously. So far I am enjoying it with one very minor exception - relating to mechanised transport at the outset of the war.

There is a fine photograph of one of the buses shipped out for the "Antwerp" campaign, the caption rightly refers to the blue livery of these daimlers and shows an example of the 70 or so shipped out at the time (number D219) but oddly refers to this as an "X" type. The X's were an experimental type all of which had been withdrawn by around May 1914. The D's served for the Antwerp campaign, but subsequently it was the B type (many were produced under the war subsidy scheme) which served so well on the Western Front and elsewhere.

The subsidy scheme of 1911 was not purely one applying to lorries as the author suggests, though a small number of the B types were originally produced as lorries and more were given lorry bodies after being requisitioned, the spare bus bodies being stored for the duration. Many of the B types did venture overseas with their original bus bodies. Those familiar with the bus at the IWM, Lambeth, may not realise, however, that the body on the bus there was one that had been stored and had not ventured overseas, though the chassis did stirling service.

The X type originated around 1908; the B type from 1910 onwards (based in part - with improvements - on the X type) and the D type from around 1913. The author wrongly dates the B type from 1908 (when the X type originated).

It never ceases to amaze me that many of these vehicles survived the duration with little of no maintenance though some but not all did receive workshop atttention. As anyone who has ridden upon a solid tyred bus of this general type will know the ride is "invigorating" and the rough roads on the Western Front must have been a trial even for fit soldiers, let alone casualties evacuated by bus, especially as they would rattle along at 25 mph or so, somewhat faster that the typical 12mph they were supposed to be restricted to in London.

[rogerb40uk]

Yes, I also got a copy on a recent UK visit..... it survived, with only a slightly bent cover, my hand baggage's being run-over in the Luton Airport car-park

As has been suggested, it needs a good chunk of free time to do it justice, I think.

[delta]

Indeed it has taken a goodly while but I am impressed; the lis of sources is excellent and not just "the usual suspects". I have some new trails to follow and found the piece on Brough fascinating. I see that he was in the Cameroons at the same time as Arthur Inglis so the two must has known each other before their tanking days

Stephen

[andrew pugh]

Happy New Year All

I brought the book a few weeks ago,Its as good as it gets regarding the early tank warfare.I live quite close to Thetford

and there still is a Canada Farm where they were put through thier trials.

Regards Andy.