Stuart Halifax presents a protective face mask worn by tank crew members during the First World War.
Tank Mask (video)
Transcript
Voiceover:
Now in 'A small piece of history', Stuart Halifax of the National Army Museum presents a favourite object from the Collection.
Stuart Halifax:
When tanks were first used in the First World War they were essentially just big metal boxes with tracks on.
They found that when they came under sustained gunfire from, say, machine guns as there were quite a lot of during the First World War, they found that there were little bits of metal called 'splashes' and bullets and things like that just sprayed around inside the hull of the tank and crews would come out with blood pouring from their faces, according to some accounts. So they came up with masks like these to stop people from getting caught in the eyes by these 'splashes'.
The reason that I like these goggles is that they look so medieval. They're not something you'd associate with 20th-century warfare, with the leather surround and the chainmail veil and the little slits for eyes.
Germans were scared enough of the tanks in the first place. If they saw a crew member getting out like this, I don't know what they would have thought had hit them.
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