LIEUTENANT HERBERT WILLIAM HITCHCOCK
MACHINE GUN CORPS (HEAVY BRANCH)
13TH NOVEMBER 1916 AGE 22
BURIED: MILL ROAD CEMETRY, FRANCE
The Imperial War Museum has a close-up photograph of a Mark 1 tank ditched in a trench, A13 HMLS "We're all in it" stencilled on its side. The IWM description says that this Mark 1 tank first went into action at the Battle of Messines in June 1917, but in fact "We're all in it" first went into action on 13 November 1916, and was put out of action that same day, the day Lieutenant Herbert Hitchcock, the officer in charge, was killed. A second photograph shows the same tank from a different angle. Two wooden crosses can just be seen on the edge of the photograph; it's possible that they are the graves of Hitchcock and one of his crew, Gunner Miles, since their bodies were discovered and buried close by the next day.
On 13 November 1916, the 3rd Division attacked the northern edge of the Schwaben Redoubt with the assistance of three tanks. That was the plan. Tank A13 was to cross No Man's Land and the German front line, turn north and advance up the line, crushing the barbed wire as it went, put a machine-gun nest out of action, deal with another strong point and then wait at the village of St Pierre or further instructions. In the event, A13, Hitchcock's tank, was the only one to start. It made it across No Man's Land before getting stuck. Hitchcock and two crewmen got out and were immediately shot. The third man was wounded and pulled back into the tank, which then started up again and moved off before crashing through the roof of a German dug out and becoming irretrievably stuck. At this point the crew released a carrier pigeon asking for help. Help arrived about an hour later in the form of the Notts and Derby Regiment and the survivors were rescued.
When the war broke out, Herbert William Hitchcock was studying Classics at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was described as a "hard-working, rather silent student, with a quiet determination and a great capacity for thinking things out". In March 1915 he took a commission in the 10th Norfolk Regiment, transferred to the Machine Gun Corps and then to the Heavy Section, the first part of the army to use tanks.
Hitchcock's parents chose his inscription. Although quite well known as a quotation it comes from a once celebrated poem, "A Life Drama', from a now little-known Scottish poet, Alexander Smith (1829-1867). This extended passage from the final section of what is a very long poem throws more light on the meaning of the inscription.
My life was a long dream; when I awoke,
Duty stood like an angel in my path,
And seemed so terrible, I could have turned
Into my yesterdays, and wandered back
To distant childhood, and gone out to God
By the gate of birth not death. Lift, lift me up
By thy sweet inspiration, as the tide
Lifts up a stranded boat upon the beach.
I will go forth 'mong men, not mailed in scorn,
But in the armour of pure intent.
Great duties are before me and great songs,
And whether crowned or crownless when I fall,
It matters not, so as God's work is done.
I've learned to prize the quiet lightning-deed,
Not the applauding thunder at its heels
Which men call Fame. Our night is past;
We stand in precious sunrise, and beyond
A long day stretches to the very end.