The tank was designed to withstand machine-gun fire and break through trench defences. Horace Leslie Birks was put in charge of one of these early tanks at Passchendaele. HORACE LESLIE BIRKS ...

The first experimental tank was finished in December 1915 and three months later the HQ of what known as the Heavy Section Machine Gun Corps was set up at Bisley in Surrey with Col Swinton.