Cultivator No. 6 - Inception

Inception

After the outbreak of World War II, on 3 September 1939 the day Britain declared war on Germany, Winston Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the War Cabinet, just as he had been during the first part of World War I. There followed a period during which the western allies watched Germany and Russia devour Poland, but with very little aggressive action being taken. The only significant fighting was at sea.

Britain despatched an expeditionary force to France where they took up positions on the northernmost portion of the French border with Belgium. A line of fortifications known as the Maginot Line helped to defend France's border with Germany and much of the allies' effort went into extending these defences to the north. Trenches were dug, barbed wire was stretched out and pillboxes were built, but hardly a shot was fired in anger. This period became known as the Phoney War. To the British and French public, this was a conflict between professional fighting forces and there was little appetite for an all-out ideological war. Perhaps Hitler would be satisfied with his conquests; if he would see sense, perhaps an honourable peace might be possible?

Churchill had no doubts as to Hitler's true character, he saw no hope of peace and he was appalled by the allies' lack of initiative. He had a number of ideas for taking the war to the enemy two of which required the invention of entirely new weapons. Churchill was a man of ideas and his position at the admiralty did not constrain him to strictly naval matters. When Churchill had served as the First Lord of the Admiralty in the First World War and he had been largely responsible for the establishment of the Royal Navy's Landships Committee which sponsored experiments with armoured tractors that eventually resulted in the invention of the tank. At that time, Churchill had also conceived the idea of an armoured vehicle that would dig its own trench as it advanced upon an enemy position, a trench sufficiently deep and wide to protect the machine itself and infantry and vehicles following in its wake. The idea did not catch on at the time. Now he resurrected that idea. The development of the trench digging machine was initially undertaken by the Department of Naval Constructors. Despite a lack of enthusiasm from the War Office, it was planned to build a fleet of such machines.

Although Churchill lacked mechanical knowledge, he had a clear understanding of what he wanted. He saw this machine as one of very few aggressive initiatives by the allies during the Phoney War—the first few months of the war, characterised by a lack of real fighting. The machine he envisioned would be capable of breaking the stalemate of trench warfare that had developed during World War I and would thereby avoid the atrocious conditions and high casualty rate that resulted. The prospect of such fighting in World War II was made even worse by the construction of the Siegfried Line (or West Wall): a continuous belt of barbed-wire entanglements, minefields, anti-tank obstacles, forts and trenches – the strength of which was greatly exaggerated by German propaganda. Churchill's trench cutters would cross no man's land in the dark and protected by an artillery barrage, the attacking force would advance in the relative safety of the cut trench and then burst upon the surprised defenders.

Churchill explained what he had in mind to Stanley Goodall who was then Director of Naval Construction. In October 1939, the project was handed over to J H Hopkins. Hopkins, who had had a distinguished career in ship design was given the temporary rank of Assistant Director and he was tasked with bringing together a team of designers who would make Churchill's machine – his mole as he sometimes called it – a reality. A top secret department was set up under the Ministry of Supply, this was known as the Department of Naval Land Equipment and was abbreviated to NLE giving rise to the name Nellie that was given to the prototype machine. At the start of the war, much of the Admiralty was moved away from London. It was for this reason that the trench digger project began in the Grand Pump Room Hotel in Bath. Here, Hopkins put the initial investigation into the hands of the brilliant, but inexperienced, Frank Spanner.