World War One: The tank's secret Lincoln origins
"The panic started, everyone from 1st and 3rd Companies jumped out of the trench and ran the fastest race of his life, pursued by the merciless tank machine-gun fire which cut down many men as if it were a rabbit-shoot."
So remembered German soldier Wilhelm Speck, of the 84th Reserve Regiment.
Some ran. Some stood and fought. But no-one forgot their first meeting with a tank. A weapon without precedent, which went on to dominate the battlefields of the 20th Century.
And it was designed by two men, in little more than two months, working out of a small hotel room in Lincoln.
(continued, oops - sorry about that - relative of mine working at the hotel had the original idea...every family needs a Oppenheimer.)
