ROLLING INTO ACTION, MEMOIRS OF A TANK CORPS SECTION COMMANDER

An intriguing rarity – a personal account of the birth of the tank as a weapon of warfare by a tank commander at the sharp end. Captain Hickey, a descendant of Irish soldiers of fortune, joined the Tank Corps in December 1916, and fought at Passchendaele the following year when tanks ‘were literally hurled into the mud’. A few weeks later he took part in the world’s first mass tank offensive, at Cambrai, where his section captured the tactically vital village of Fontaine-Notre-Dame. When the Germans counter-attacked, Hickey was second-in-command of the score of tanks that drove the enemy from Gauche Wood, an action that was mentioned by Haig in his despatches. Hickey’s tanks covered the retreat of the 2nd Division in the great German Spring offensives in 1918, and in the battle of Amiens in August he was liasion officer between the tanks and the Australian army. As such, the author had a ringside seat – in fact he was fighting in the ring – at all the major tank battles of the Great War and his memoir is a racily written read that will appeal to all enthusiasts of armoured warfare. With an admiring preface by General J.F.C. ‘Boney’ Fuller, the father of the tank himself, this is a classic military memoir.