Captain Daniel Hickey, 8th Battalion, Tank Corps, 1918 (c)

Photograph, World War One, Western Front (1914-1918), 1918 (c).

Hickey was commissioned in 1915 as a second lieutenant with the Suffolk Regiment, but in November of that year he crashed his motorcycle. After recovering from the accident he transferred to the Tank Corps, then known as the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps. Following training at Bovington Camp in Dorset he arrived in France in August 1917.

Hickey first went into action in October at the Battle of Passchendaele (1917). In December 1917 he took part in the mass tank attack at Cambrai, where his section captured the village of Fontaine-Notre-Dame. When the Germans counter-attacked at Cambrai, Hickey was second-in-command of a group of tanks that drove the enemy from Gauche Wood, an action that was mentioned by Sir Douglas Haig in his official despatches. Hickey's tanks also covered the retreat of the 2nd Division during in the German Spring Offensive in March 1918.

After taking part in the Battle of Amiens (8-12 August 1918), Hickey was posted back to England at the end of August 1918 as part of a training cadre for the 20th Tank Battalion, then being raised at Bovington. He left the service in January 1919.