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It has no church of any importance, it has a respectable castle of late mediæval lines, standing in a real moat. This has become in an odd way a dependency of a later house, which happily has not swallowed it up. Flers itself has of late years risen to some importance as a manufacturing town.
No more thrilling message was ever brought by an aeroplane than that which said that a tank was "walking" up the main street of Flers surrounded by cheering British soldiers, who were in possession of the village. "Walking" was the word officially given; and very much walking, indeed, the tank must have seemed to the aviator in his swift flight.
Many Scots of the 15th and 9th Divisions, many New-Zealanders, many London men of the 47th and 56th Divisions, fell, killed or wounded, to the right of them, on the way to Martinpuich, and Eaucourt l'Abbaye and Flers, from High Wood and Longueval, and Bazentin.
R.H. Wharrier, being in front in Snag trench and the other three Companies in close support in the Flers line. On the night of Saturday, the 4th November, X, Y and Z Companies took over the front line in preparation for an attack on the Butte de Warlencourt on the Sunday morning.
Nearer to the line they came under the fire of eight-inch and six-inch shells. At Contalmaison they marched into a barrage, and here the officer was taken prisoner. Of his battalion there were few men left. It was so with the 3d Jager Battalion, ordered up hurriedly to make a counter-attack near Flers. They suffered so heavily on the way to the trenches that no attack could be made.
We had meant to go by carriage from Flers to Tinchebray, and to take on the way La Lande-Patry the house of that William Patry who appears in Wace as having entertained Earl Harold as a guest at the time of his stay in Normandy. And we did get to La Lande-Patry another day.
Gough's Fifth Army had since early in July been formed as an independent command to the left of Rawlinson's Fourth, and its right comprised the 1st Canadian Corps which was to attack Courcelette. The other points of the German third line of defence were Martinpuich, Flers, Lesboeufs, and Morval.
On September 15 the British took Flers, Martinpuich, the important position known as the High Wood, Courcelette, and almost all of the Bouleaux Wood, and also stormed the German positions from Combles north to the Pozieres-Bapaume road, arriving within four miles of Bapaume and capturing 2,300 prisoners.
An eagle looked down on a tortoise which had a serpent's sting. This tank, having attended to its work on the way, passed on through Flers bearing a sign: "Extra Special! Great Hun Victory!" Beyond Flers it found itself alongside a battery of German field guns and blazed bullets into the amazed and helpless gunners. The enemy may have heard of the tanks, but meeting them was a different matter.
I also remember paying two visits to a most unpleasant spot selected as the Brigade ammunition dump, at the junction of Crescent Alley and Spence Trench. The German artillery never seemed to leave it alone. About October 3 the 5th N.F., commanded by Lieut.-Col. N.I. Wright attacked the Flers Line, and took two trenches.
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