Lone gunner of Flesquières

The story of the lone gunner of Flesquières may be a myth. It tells of a German officer who, on his own, knocked out as many as 16 British tanks near Flesquières, France, on 20 November 1917, the opening day of the Battle of Cambrai. While British tanks generally succeeded that day, they took heavy losses from German artillery at Flesquières. Two days later, British Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig visited the battlefield. A British officer told him that a single German artillery officer had stayed with his gun after his crew fled, firing until he was killed. Haig put this account into his March 1918 dispatch on the battle. It gave him a handy reason for the stalled advance at Flesquières and served as a lesson to his troops about why infantry and tanks must work closely together.

After the war, the tale appeared in several books, though the British official history of the battle and other sources have called it a legend. In the post-war years, Germans—especially the Nazi Party—were eager to celebrate this lone gunner as a hero, and they tried to identify him. In 1929, a book by fervent Nazi Lieutenant Erwin Zindler named Unteroffizier Johannes Joachim Theodor Krüger of No. 8 Battery, 108th Field Artillery Regiment, as the man. This identification may be false; Krüger was badly wounded in the battle and died in British captivity on 10 December. Former members of the 108th Field Artillery Regiment suggested Feuerwerksleutnant Behrmann, commander of No. 9 Battery, as a more likely candidate, though his unit was stationed at Marcoing that day.

**Background** Frustrated by the deadlock of trench warfare, the British developed the tank to break through German defenses. It first saw action at the Battle of the Somme in September 1916, but often got stuck in mud. Tank Corps commander Brigadier-General Hugh Elles proposed an attack on the firmer chalk ground near Cambrai, an area that had seen little fighting and was not pitted with shell holes. The German lines there were heavily fortified and, because an attack seemed unlikely, were held by units recovering from casualties elsewhere. At 6:20 am on 20 November 1917, the British attacked after a short artillery barrage. They used 500 tanks and troops from 8 infantry and 5 cavalry divisions. East of Flesquières, the attack succeeded: the German line was overrun, and tanks pushed 5 miles (8 km)