Cap Badge - Tank Corps (WW I) The Tanks Corps This title became effective on 28 July 1917 but a new badge was not approved by the Sovereign until 11 September 1917. Actual issues were not made to other ranks until January 1918. Some badges were on sale at military outfitters earlier as letters of complaint in the War Office file (WO 32/3493 - held in the PRO) show. The request for a motto with the badge was refused on the grounds that such distinctions were only awarded to long established Corps for particularly meritorious service. After the War in 1922 Brigadier Elles, the Colonel Commandant, managed to get a new badge approved together with a motto "Fear Naught". Other suggested mottoes had been discarded - "dreadnought" and "Push on". The new badge and the motto were published in the December 1922 Army List but the Army Order authorising their actual wear was not issued until May 1923 (177/23). The badges were in the same metals as the MGC badges. When the first tanks were produced in 1916, they were manned by members of the Machine Gun Corps, formed into six companies which were collectively known as the Heavy Branch. The very first battle involving tanks took place on the Somme. About thirty British Mark 1 tanks attacked German positions between the villages of Flers and Courcelette, on Friday 15 September 1916. The arrival of the tanks on the battlefield signalled the end of trench warfare, which had suffocated both sides in the 1914-18 conflict. During this action the Press seized on a report from an aircraft crew, which said that "a tank is walking down the main street of Flers with the British Army cheering behind it." This was "D" Company, later the 4th Royal Tank Regiment. These companies were expanded to form battalions and were renamed the Tank Corps in 1917. The first battle between two opposing tanks took place near the village of Cachy on 24 April 1918. The German A7V tank Nixe (Lt Biltz), engaged three British Mark IV tanks, and damaged two, but was knocked out by the third, commanded by 2/Lt Frank Mitchell. By December 1918 there were 26 battalions, and as well as serving in France, a detachment from the Corps had served under Allenby at Gaza, Palestine in 1917. The Corps saw almost continuous action, winning four VC's.