Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Son of H W Robinson, Hows Road, Nundah, Queensland

James was the brainchild behind the capture of the German tank Mephisto, now housed at the Queensland Museum.

From Jay D'Souza
 
One of my 26th Battalion "boys", James Alexander Robinson, and his close friend the Mephisto, still housed at the Queensland Museum. The "Dinkum Diamonds will not be forgotten.

Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld), Saturday 23 July 1938, page 18

Brisbane's Link With Villers-Bretonneux
By A. H. THOMAS

We strolled round and round the Mephisto—captured German tank, 60 tons in weight, now reposing in the grounds of the Queensland Museum. "Here she is," said my companion putting out his hand and touching the cold hard steel as if welcoming back a lone lost dog.

There was a distant look in his eye as it gathered in the great grey hulk.

His mind's eye was witnessing again the capture from the Germans of this steel monster—on July 14, 1918—in Monument Wood, near Villers-Bretonneux. "Look," he said, "here's what's left of the inscription." Faintly we traced the figures "26," then, faintly, "Villers-Bretonneux." "We chalked our battalion name on it I remember, but, of course, that could not remain on. In fact, we proudly put the 26th's name on everything we did capture."

We could decipher the year 1918 and a few other letters on it. Further round the names of a British Tank Corps were inscribed—not with chalk, but in cold, hard steel—the inscription being done with a cold chisel.
My companion was Lieutenant-Colonel James Alexander Robinson, who commanded the 26th Battalion from July to October, 1918, and it was the colonel who initiated the "daylight stunt" at Villers-Bretonneux during which the tank was captured. Indeed, as he explained, after our inspection of the old war relic, it was one of the objectives of this stunt to bring in this tank which lay disabled very close to the German, lines (one caterpillar being out of action) on the edge of Monument Wood. The colonel explained that there were involved precautions needed to bring off this "show." The plan was to send out two tanks to haul in the German monster. But there was the danger that the German lines would hear the approach of the two tanks and concentrate artillery fire on them. Therefore to camouflage this approach, the Australian Artillery was instructed to maintain a desultory fire, and aeroplanes were ordered to fly low over the enemy lines to keep their minds, especially their ears, duly occupied while the tanks were moving into position for the salvage. The plan worked. One British tank was hitched on to Mephisto who came to without further argument.
In those days, when tank warfare was in its infancy, the capture excited the greatest curiosity and this capture of the 26th Battalion was inspected by army generals from far and near. A gas attack was launched by the Germans against the salvaging party, every man who participated suffering minor casualties there from.

Another Story
That briefly, is the story of how the Mephisto was captured by the Australians. Another story might be told of how it comes to be situated in Brisbane. For when the Mephisto was taken to England after the war, the English authorities wished to retain possession of it. But a policy of allowing each Australian unit to retain possession of its own captures and to permit those captures to be returned to the State of the Commonwealth from which the units originated, was cited by the then Agent-General for Queensland (Sir Thomas Robinson) and after a stiff and wordy official correspondence it was agreed that the Mephisto should come to Australia. Even then Melbourne wanted to retain it, and again official aid had to be invoked to secure it for Queensland. This 60 tons of German steel was placed in its present position in the Museum grounds on August 22, 1919, and was shifted from the steamer to the grounds by the aid of two steam-rollers. Why all this fuse about a captured German tank? You may well ask. Simply because it happens to be the one link we possess with Villers-Bretonneux, where the national war memorial stands. And having at my side a man who fought at Villers-Bretonneux it was only natural that one should try to tap his memories of the place.

Of Strategic Value
As for the village itself," ' said Lieutenant-Colonel Robinson, "I cannot say that I know or remember much about it. Although we were associated with the place we came into that area with the main objective of straightening out the line in front of it in preparation for the big attack that was launched on August 8, 1918. "I may be wrong, but I do not think the village came into the war picture until March or April, 1918. If it came into it earlier it was in 1914. We came after Sir William Glasgow's famous capture of the village from the Germans, and all I can say of it is that not a brick wall remained intact from the bombardments of earlier days, and our men were forbidden to go into the place because the Germans had shelled it badly, and poison gas had collected in all the cellars, making it more or less a danger point for men who loved to rummage about to pick up any odds and ends. "The strategic value of Villers-Bretonneux in the war is quite apparent when you remember that just beyond it is the ridge which commands a good view of Amiens, which was a crucial railway junction, and vital to the freedom of movement of the British Army. With the control of Villers-Brettoneux and that ridge, therefore, the Germans could have commanded Amiens by artillery fire and made the movements of the British Army extremely difficult under the circumstances. "The Germans took it when they broke through General Gough's army. It remained for General Sir William Glasgow to recapture it early in 1918. We came on to the scene in June, 1918, to do the job of straightening out the line in preparation for the anticipated major attack later. For the next two months we were engaged mainly in this enterprise. But those two months did not lack excitements.

Push That Ended War [8 August 1918]
When I think of Villers-Bretonneux, however, my mind usually goes back to the early days of August, when we received the orders for the first step in the big push which brought the war to an end. One memory lingers. It was when I announced the details of the orders. The officers and men actually cheered. The reason for that cheering was quite easily understood when you remember that throughout the war we had been doing jobs with limited objectives. If we took a line of trench, the Germans, knowing the range of our new positions to an inch would give us a thorough cutting about with their subsequent bombardments. These orders were that we were to advance from Villers Bretonneux for a two and a half miles' objective. Then stop and wait for other Australian troops to "leap frog" us, and to make for another objective another two and a half miles distant. The cheers were due to the fact that this would take us beyond the German artillery lines, and we would not be shelled to ribbons as on previous occasions. "My memories of that advance concentrate on three points. . . the long, long wait for zero hour, every minute seeming an hour, during which a minor bombardment was in progress. A second flash of memory concerns a dense fog which continued perhaps for two hours after daybreak that morning. That fog admittedly helped us in the advance, although the visibility was so bad that visual signalling had to be abandoned, and we had to rely solely on telephone communication. Our wounded, lying on the field, were scared of being run over by the advancing tanks, the visibility being bad for even a few yards ahead. "A third memory concerns the surprised expressions on the faces of Germans who thinking that it was merely another of the usual local operations suddenly found Australians appearing round and about them. Their look of amazement and incredulity was ludicrous. "That advance never stopped," said Colonel Robinson, "until the war ended —and Brisbane is fortunate to possess such a link with famous Villers Bretonneux as our old friend Mephisto."