Guy Martin's World War 1 Tank

This is the story of how a British invention

helped end one of the most devastating wars the world has ever seen

arguably saved millions of lives, and changed warfare forever.

I'm not gonna lie to you.

This has been on this roundabout in Lincoln for about 5 years.

I've been past this 50 times and I've never seen it.

But look at it, it's the size of a house.

You can't miss it, can ya?

As it says on the sign, 'Lincoln, birthplace of the tank'.

Yeah.

And this year is the 100th anniversary

of the tank being a success in a battle situation.

To mark the centenary, Lincolnshire local, Guy Martin

is planning something big.

So what we're gonna do, we're going to replicate one

we're gonna get it running

we're gonna have a word with the council, and fingers crossed

we're gonna drive it up the main street of Lincoln

on Remembrance Day.

November the 11th, 11 o'clock on November the 11th.

Guy has just five months to build a 30-tonne tank from scratch.

He'll use the very latest computer design technology.

This is brilliant, this.

The cutting-edge manufacturing techniques

of a British engineering giant.

OK, that'll be good. Yeah?

And the self-taught skills of an enthusiast in Norfolk.

I just love British history.

Along the way, Guy will learn just how tanks first made an impact

on the battlefields of Northern France.

You have just to imagine, a tsunami of tanks.

A tsunami of tanks.

Go on, go on. That's it.

He'll learn what life is like in a modern tank.

Spot on, mate.

And, in recordings made before they died

he'll hear from the men and women who built and crewed

this ground-breaking British invention.

This without question, is a massive undertaking, the biggest job to date.

For Guy, the project starts with a trip to the battlefield

where tanks first made their name.

Yeah, I'm in France.

On the site of the battle of Cambrai.

A massive point in the First World War, massive point.

That I knew very little about.

I think I'd maybe heard of the battle of Cambrai, but yeah...

This memorial bears the names of those killed in the battle of Cambrai

who couldn't be given graves.

These are the ones whose bodies they couldn't find.

Bloody hell.

Is that right?

7048.

Now that's a battle, ain't it?

To learn why this battle and the role tanks played in it

was so important

Guy is meeting up with local hotelier and amateur historian

Philippe Gorcynski.

You know everything about the battle of Cambrai.

It's my passion for history and my passion for the area here.

That passion started when Philippe was a child

growing up around Cambrai.

At that time, there was no video game, there was no computer

so, you go in the fields, and in the woods

where all the traces of the war, they are still there.

Sometimes you can find a shell, sometimes you can find a helmet

sometimes you can find a bayonet.

This is how I came to the story of the battle of Cambrai.

I learnt that here was played an amazing battle.

Amazing, because it was the first time ever

that tanks proved themselves in battle.

Since it started in 1914, the war had spent two years

mired in the horrors of trench warfare.

Every attempt to attack or to move was reduced to nothing or to a tragedy

Yea, because of machine gun... - machine gun and barbed wire

and trenches and shells.

So, something has to be done.

Tanks were invented to try and break this deadlock

but to begin with, they were only deployed in small numbers

and simply slotted into existing battle plans.

They first saw action in September 1916 at the Somme

but most broke down long before reaching enemy lines.

The following year at Arras and Ypres they faired even worse

as machine after machine got stuck in the soup of mud and blood.

So up to now, the tank has been far from a success.

It was not the wonder weapon which was expected.

No. - So then they start to imagine

a new plan of action.

And this is how the battle of Cambrai was born.

And this battle will change the way of doing the war forever.

The new plan was to build the whole attack around hundreds of tanks.

To explain how, Philippe drives Guy to the heart of the battlefield.

That's a bomb, where are we?

We are right inside the last trenches of the British defence system

which face a no man's land

which means we are in the front line. - Front line.

This is the front line.

And the Germans were just on the front of the crops you can see here.

And their line was all along this.

The location was chosen because this area had seen very little action

so far in the war, and the ground was hard.

It's like clay and under that in many places you have the chalk.

And when it rains, the water slide... - And drains away, good draining land.

And the ground was very good, very good.

So this is good, good for the tank.

While the small town of Cambrai gave its name to the battle

it was never the objective.

The objective was to smash the German defences with a surprise attack

just where they'd least expect it.

At the heart of the most formidable 100-mile section of the Hindenburg Line.

It was an amazing system of defence.

Constructed the previous year, the line began with barbed wire.

The barbed wire belt here was sometimes 30 yards, a gap, 30 yards, a gap

30 yards, a gap... It was an enormous system.

And the barbed wire was sometimes high like that

sometimes high like that.

And between the barbed wire there was machine gun post.

So... - You've no chance.

No chance.

Then there were three lines of semi-permanent well-defended trenches.

The Germans thought it impregnable

but they hadn't reckoned on tanks.

Why your tank was designed? It was designed to cross barbed wire.

Why your tank was designed? To cross trenches.

So that will be the job here

to secure, to make head bridge into the enemy line

that will become the spearhead of the action.

The plan was to use tanks in massive numbers

375 fighting tanks would lead six infantry divisions into battle.

And behind them, ready to exploit any breakthroughs, the cavalry.

Five division of cavalry

which represents the whole of the British cavalry.

Something like 30,000 horses. - 30,000 horses?!

The whole of the British cavalry was for Cambrai, and that makes...

30,00 horses? - 30,000 horses.

Honestly? - Yes, it's amazing.

The attack was to be a total surprise.

By the 20th of November, 1917, all was set.

The attack would start at 6.20 am.

You have just to imagine that the line of tanks

to be correct, it's a tsunami of tanks. A tsunami of tanks.

It's not a wave, it's a tsunami of tanks.

It was a tsunami which start on the left here

to the wood you can see in the distance here.

And that is a line of something like eight kilometres.

Eight kilo...? - And all that line

was filled with tanks.

The tanks crewed up and started rolling 10 minutes early

so that by zero hour, they were already crossing into no-man's-land.

So, we are now leaving the first part of the British position.

And that was the starting of the artery.

The 1000 gun open the fire now.

It was a storm of steel which fall onto the German position

and it was an amazing sight.

We are at the moment, inside the German barbed wire.

And so we are really in a very dangerous position.

You have just to imagine that it was absolutely amazing.

Yeah. And the machine guns

were probably doing their best against the tanks, but that was not enough

because a tsunami of tanks were quickly on them

and most of the people who were making some resistance

were just crushed or flattened by the tanks.

All the Germans are doing at this stage is panicking.

Yes. So everything was going OK.

Crossed the first trench, no problems.

Most of the trenches were crossed in a couple of minutes.

The probation was absolutely fantastic.

Yes. We can say it was a triumph

for the tanks.

The Hindenburg Line was broken in just two hours

and by the end of day one, the British had advanced

an incredible 5 miles.

Back home, church bells rang across the country to celebrate.

Such as advance, with so little number of casualties

that was absolutely never seen before. - OK.

And that was because of the tanks.

The Tank Corps paid a heavy price for success at Cambrai.

By the end of day one, 179 tanks were out of action.

Most had broken down, but around 60 were lost to enemy fire.

D battalion suffered the worst losses of the whole Tank Corps

around the village of Flesquieres.

However, one of their tanks, called Deborah, didn't stay lost

because 79 years after it was destroyed, Philippe found it again.

One day, I met an old lady, and she say to me

'I know a place where a tank is buried'.

I said, 'no, that is not possible', she said 'yes, yes'.

But this old lady, she have started my love story with one particular tank.

For six years, Philippe searched for the tank.

It became like a drug, I was determinated to find a tank

that was my mission.

Finally, he pinpointed the spot where he thought it was buried

in a field south of Flequieres.

We got the permission to make the excavation

and that was in November, 1998.

And after two hours of digging, suddenly the crane catch something

and when we check into the bottom of that hole

we noticed that there was a rusty part of something.

This was a tank.

And that changed my life forever.

Do you want a hand, Philippe? Do you want a hand?

Oh, bloody hell.