Popular Science Monthly 



713 



How the tanks maneuver on a battlefield. Down and up shell-craters they keep their course, 

 spitting fire on all sides and brushing away any obstacles they may encounter, like so much paper 



mere gallon or two of gasoline! The tanks' 

 work thus done, after the capture of the 

 first trench, thev ambled back to their 

 shelter behind the Allied lines. 



Even the British Were Mystified 



Awe-inspiring monsters that they were 

 to the Germans, they were also much of a 

 myster>' to their own British troops. The 

 first tanks were built in a walled factory 

 in Lincoln, England, by mechanics who 

 .vere not allowed to leave their Chinese 

 City for three months, even to see their 

 families. Secretly transported across the 

 Channel, the tanks were assembled behind 

 the Allied lines on the Somme to await 

 call. The stoic Britishers thrilled at the 

 whisper: "The tanks are coming!" 



They were an untried military- arm. 

 Many thought that they never would re- 

 turn. But they did, and with a most en- 

 viable record for annihilating machine gun 

 operators and snipers in a more thorough 

 manner than it had ever been done before. 

 They saved thousands of lives which would 

 have had to be sacrificed if the old method 

 of rushing such nests of death had been 

 adhered to. After the tanks' work had 

 thus been accomplished, the infantry 

 rushed forward to view the destruction. 



New as the tanks are, they are but the 

 development of inventions made long ago 

 by two Americans, Holt and Harvey. The 

 former originated the now famous cater- 

 pillar device for farming tractors. This 

 apparatus makes it possible for the tanks to 



