A fascinating new donation arrived at The Tank Museum earlier this year, a tank crew ‘Splatter’ face mask belonging to 40376 Corporal Walter H. Stickler DCM, who served in the crew of a Mark IV tank at the Battle of Cambrai.
The Battle of Cambrai marks the world’s first combined arms battle involving tanks, and was the first time tank crew face masks were used. Donated items like this are important in helping us understand what conditions were like inside the first tanks used in battle, as well as telling the personal stories of the men who served in them.
Development of the Tank Crew Face Mask
Officially approved on 9 July 1917, the face mask design was given the classic British War Office nomenclature description of ‘Goggles, Steel, with chain mail for use in Tanks’. The initial order was for 7,000, with sources suggesting around 5,000 issued to tank crews for the battle at Cambrai.
The mask consisted of two steel curved plates plus a nose section covered in leather, below which hung chain mail to protect the mouth and chin. It featured horizontal eye slits in the steel and two cotton ties to secure around the wearer’s head.
These masks were designed to protect tank crew from shrapnel known as ‘splash’ and ‘spalling’, both of which could cause severe injuries. Hot splinters of steel and paint flakes known as ‘spalling’ resulted from damage to the internal armour when the external service was hit. ‘Splash’ was caused by bullets melting on impact with the hardened tank armour, the hot liquid metal finding its way through gaps in the rivetted and bolted plate.
Corporal Stickler at The Battle of Cambrai
At Zero Hour, 06.20 on Tuesday 20 November 1917, 1,003 guns and howitzers from the Royal Artillery launched a surprise barrage of artillery rounds and smoke along the German front line around Cambrai. Nine Tank Corps Battalions including 378 tanks, five infantry divisions, plus Cavalry, would take part in what would be the world’s first combined arms battle involving tanks.
A witness to this massive artillery barrage was Corporal Walter H Stickler, a 6-pounder sponson gunner in one of the Mark IV tanks of the Tanks Corps A Battalion. Contemporary records do not identify which specific tank Corporal Stickler served in, but given the actions that he was involved in it is most likely that he was in 2nd Company, who were given the task of advancing towards Marcoing on the right, and their first objective: Blue Line.
This action would see Stickler awarded the DCM (Distinguished Conduct Medal), with his citation reading:
“For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in the operation near Marcoing on November 20, 1917. When his tank came under fire of an enemy field battery at a range of 100 yards this NCO continued to fire his 6-pndr gun, despite the fact that the tank had received a direct hit and was in flames. He himself silenced one enemy gun with a direct hit. Throughout the whole operations he set a splendid example to his crew.”
The Use of Tank Crew Face Masks
Crews would have worn the masks as soon as they came within range of the German machine guns and rifles, otherwise they would wear them pushed up on their head or around their necks. The masks would also need to be removed if attacked with gas.
Tank crew face masks were only used during the First World War (and possibly into 1919). The design of later tanks through the inter-war years and into the Second World War offered more protection to the crew, especially in the welding of armour, dedicated splash protection around vision devices, as well as more periscopes.
Visitors to The Tank Museum can see a ‘splatter’ mask belonging to Sydney Hadley, a commander in a Mark V tank during the Second Battle of Cambrai in 1918, in the Tank Men exhibition.
