As they looked towards the English the blood froze in their veins as the two mysterious monsters came creeping over the cater fields...

They have learned not to fear man, but here was something approaching which the human brain, with tremendous mechanical powers, had fitted out for a devil's trick, a mystery which oppressed and shackled the powers because one could not comprehend it with understanding - a fatality against which one seemed helpless. One stared and stared as if paralysed.

The monster approached slowly, hobbling, moving from side to side, rocking and pitching, but it came nearer. Nothing obstructed it: a supernatural force seemed to drive it onwards. Someone in the trenches cried 'the devil comes' and that word ran down the line like lightning.

Suddenly tongues of fire leapt out of the armoured skins of the iron caterpillar, shells whistled over our heads and a terrible concert from a machine gun orchestra filled the air.

German newspaper quoted in The Times 25 September 1916