The Men of Deborah D51
Crew of Deborah D51 on the 20th of November 1917
What do we know about the eight men on board D51 as she went into
action on that morning of November 20th, 1917?
We know
a great deal about the Tank Commander, 2/Lt Frank Gustave Heap. He
won the Military Cross for leading some of his crew to safety after
his tank had reached the final objective where she was destroyed.
Deborah D51 was the only tank to have been through the village on
that morning.
We have a picture of 2/Lt Heap. He
survived the war, and went on to have a successful business career
in the north west of England. He wrote books and was a keen
mountaineer. His family has preserved his memory, and many of his
descendants have visited Flesquieres and seen Deborah.
But what about the men under his command?
For a long
time, it was accepted that four of the crew died when the tank
received five direct hits from German field guns. The citation for
2/Lt Heap’s MC referred specifically to ‘four of his crew’ dying.
Inside the neat Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery
at Flesquieres Hill, on the outskirts of the village, there are four
headstones, side-by-side. The names engraved are those of: Gunner J
Cheverton, Gunner W Galway, Gunner F W Tipping and Private W G
Robinson. They were all killed on November 20th and were members of
the 4th [D] Btn. Tank Corps. Were these men, therefore, the four who
died together when Deborah was destroyed and are now buried
together?
It seemed like a fair assumption, but there
was a complication: a fifth 4th Btn Tank Corp man buried very near
the others. Lance Corporal George Charles Foot, DCM, was also killed
on November 20th. How can we be sure which of these men died when
Deborah was shelled?
In an effort to explain the
riddle, we examined the files of the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission. It was common for casualties to be buried hastily on the
battlefield, and then exhumed for reburial after the war in the new
military cemeteries. CWGC records show that Lance Corporal Foot, and
Gunners Cheverton, Galway and Tipping, were originally buried
together (Map Ref 57C K 18d). Private Robinson was at first interred
in another place (Map Ref 57E L 13a).
So we
concluded that the four men who died in ‘Mr Heap’s bus’ were Foot,
Cheverton, Galway and Tipping; Robinson must have been killed
elsewhere in the village, in another tank.
Or so we
thought.
We began to gather as much information as
possible on all these individuals, and the personal details are
gathered together on this website. We assembled family portraits,
military medals, obituaries, memorial cards, and best of all, we
traced descendants – some of whom had little or no idea of what had
happened to their brave ancestors.
And then: a major
and unexpected development. A nephew of George Foot showed us a
hand-written letter from Frank Heap to George’s father, expressing
his ‘deepest sympathy’. It is an extraordinarily poignant document.
In the letter, dated November 26th, Frank Heap said:
“I am having a bitter evening now, as four more of my men have also
gone, all finer fellows than I shall ever be”. This indicates that
despite everything we believed before, and despite Frank Heap’s
citation, the death toll in Deborah was five, not four. Only two men
must have survived with their commander.
We must
therefore add Private W.G.Robinson to the casualty list.
The research has been carried out by Rob Kirk, John Heap, Alan
Hawkins, Vincent McGarry, John Taylor, Philippe Gorczynski with the
support of David Fletcher - Tank Museum - and staff of the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Tank Commander 2/Lt F. G. Heap
1st Driver Lance Corporal G. C.
Foot, DCM
Gunner
William Galway
Gunner
Joseph Cheverton
Gunner
F. W. Tipping
Private W. G. Robinson
Lance Corporal David Marsden
?
Survived (MC awarded after the action)
Killed In Action
Killed In Action
Killed In Action
Killed In Action
Killed In Action
Survived this action
Survived this
action
Deborah D51 "D" Battalion Commander
Lieutenant-Colonel W.F.R. Kingdon
Deborah D51,12th Company Commander
Major R.O.C. Ward, Killed In Action
Deborah D51, 12th Section Commander
Captain G. Nixon, Wounded and replaced by Captain E. Smith who became also wounded and finally replaced by Lieutenant A. J. Enoch during the assault on Flesquières.