Hi, were there any tanks taking part in the battle of Hamel during WWI? Does anyone have any photo of that battle and any maps?
Cheers
Nathan

http://hamelfriends.free.fr/start.html
http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/lehamel.htm

Hey Nathan

I have a copy of the David Fletcher book
"Tanks and Trenches"

in which a whole chapter is dedicated to the Battle of Hamel

The book states that there were tanks in use
For example the Mark V was used for the first time
and there were also Renault tanks in use.

greetz
Ronald

I saw your post and a few things have come to mind.
You can try the Australian War Memorial site which should put you onto details of what AIF Battalions were involved. I recall reading somewhere that in the preparations for the battle, the mistrust that the Australian Infantry had developed for the tanks after Bullecourt the year before was eased by having particular tanks assigned to specific Battalions.
If I recall correctly the Tanks were from the newly formed 13th Tank Battalion equiped with MkV's, and the 4th Australian Division was the primary Infantry component. It was the 4th Division that copped a hiding at Bullecourt in April 1917 although it was through no direct fault of the Tank Corps to be fair.
When specific tanks were assigned to a Battalion, the crews helped build the trust of the Diggers by painting the colour patches of their Battalions on their vehicles. So potentially you could have a MkV of the 13th TB with a colour patch from the following Battalions on it:
The 4th Infantry Brigade consisting of the 13th, 14th, 15th or 16th Btns AIF.
The 12th Infantry Bgde with the 45th, 46th, 47th or 48th Btns.
The 13th Infantry Bgde with the 49th, 50th, 51st or 52nd Btns.
Not forgetting the US 33th Division (National Guard)also supplied 10 Companies for the battle.
I'm not sure where exactly the Colour Patches were applied to the vehicles although one source theorised on the rear door.
As for the colours of the colour patches, the 4th Bgde was a rectangle which is unusual as the colour patches had a shape that was specific to the division ie: 1st Div was a rectangle, 2nd Div a diamond, 3rd an oval, 4th a circle and the 5th was a vertical rectangle. So by rights the 4th Bgde should have been a circle but it's not possibly due to it being initially formed in the 1st Div considering its low number.
The other Brigades (12th and 13th) were both circles.
Now the lower half of the colour patch always designated the senior colour which is the Brigade colour which appears to be Dark Blue. The Junior colour on the upper half designates the Battalion colour. As an example the 4th Bgde was a horizontal rectangle with the Dark Blue lower half with either Light Blue upper half for the 13th Btn, Yellow for the 14th,Brown for the 15th or White for the 16th.
The 12th Bgde are circles again with the lower half in Dark Blue, with the 45th Btn having a Light Blue upper, the 46th with Yellow, the 47th with Brown and the 48th with White.
The 13th Bgde, again is a circle with the lower half Light Blue with the 49th having a Black upper half, the 50th Purple, the 51st Brown and the 52nd White.

I hope this helps, any google search on either colour patches or any of the battalions mentioned above should provide you with any further detail. The AWM website is also invaluable.