Читать книгу The Tank Corps онлайн

32 страница из 102

The idea of employing a large armoured shield on wheels, or of using ordinary steam tractors on which a small bullet-proof shelter had been fitted, had been considered. Mr. Churchill interested himself personally in the scheme, and he and his expert, Major Hetherington of the R.N.A.S.—the third independent inventor—worked hard to evolve and then “push” a practical machine.

In the early spring of 1915 a Committee, called the Land Ship Committee, was appointed,3 and many designs of wheel and caterpillar tractors were submitted to it. One of these designs was especially interesting not only for its astonishing appearance, but for the influence which it exerted upon the “profile” of the future Tank. The curious will find a brief account of it in the ssss1 at the end of the chapter. It was Mr. Churchill’s Committee who called in Major Wilson, Mr. Tritton, and Mr. Tennyson d’Eyncourt as consultants, “when a design was evolved which embodied the form finally adopted for Tanks.”

Thus, while the honour of the first designs and experiments belongs to the War Office, it was to the enterprise of this Admiralty Committee that most of the credit of the evolution of the Mark I. Tank was due.