He is buried at Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-L’abbe. He was badly injured on the morning of September 16 and died of his wounds a few days later. Walter is buried at the Foleshill Congregational Burial Ground.Īnother Coventry tank crew member who fought at Flers-Courcelette was Gunner Tom Wilson. Wounded near the village of Martinpuich he was evacuated back to the UK to recover before being sent to the tank training grounds at Bovington in Dorset.īut he died on February 9, 1917, at the military hospital in Bovington following an accident. They were indeed powerful and terrifying weapons when used against the Germans but, as a new. Among the tank crews serving with the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps that day was Gunner Walter Atkins, a bicycle machinist born on August 4, 1895, at 57 Henley Road, Bell Green. During their use in the First World War, tanks had mixed success. Of the 49 tanks which set out, only 32 were able to begin the first attack and only nine made it across no man’s land to the German lines. Mark I tanks first took to the battlefield at Flers-Courcelette - part of the Battle of the Somme - on September 15, 1916. A British Mark I tank during the Battle of the Somme (Image: Imperial War Museum)
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