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But it does seem to have been Colonel Swinton and Captain Tulloch who, first of the band of pioneers, had the courage and the practical energy to forward a somewhat startling notion in official quarters.

For Mr. Diplock’s first “Pedrail” machine, whose plans he laid before Lord Kitchener and Mr. Winston Churchill in November, 1914, was a Gun Tractor, not a fighting machine. It was not till February 1915 that Mr. Diplock (in conjunction with a Committee appointed by Mr. Churchill) officially so much as contemplated the building of a “Land Cruiser.”

Fortunately one of the first of the Swinton memoranda was submitted through Colonel Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, who was an early and active friend to the idea of the new arm.

Difficulties, however, abounded. Many were actual, some were imaginary.

For example, it was urged that to design and build such machines would take over a year. Surely the war would be over!

Then when the counsels of those kill-joys prevailed who believed that the war would “hold,” and it was decided to experiment with the “mobile machine-gun destroyers,” various technical difficulties arose.