A CHRISTMAS card sent 100 years ago by a heroic First World War tank officer is to go on display for the first time.

Elliot Hotblack sent the card from ‘Advance Headquarters Tank Corps’ in December 1917 to his parents in Norfolk.

It includes a print of a crewman waving his cap from a Mark IV tank beneath the words “Christmas Greetings”.

Hotblack’s heroics feature in The Tank Museum’s ‘Tank Men’ exhibition, but the card has only just been added to the display at the Bovington attraction because of the centenary.

The small postcard-size item includes the Tank Corps’ crest and its battle honours; Somme, Ancre, Arras, Messines, 3rd Ypres and Cambrai.

The cards were printed especially for the Tank Corps.

Hotblack – nicknamed ‘Boots’ – who signed it with his name in pencil, was one of the most decorated members of the Tank Corps.

He was awarded four gallantry medals – including the DSO and bar and Military Cross with bar, was mentioned in despatches five times and was wounded six times.

David Willey, curator of the Tank Museum, said: “Hotblack, who became a Major-General, is one of the most extraordinary early Tank Corps officers.

“He is a boys’ own hero of outstanding bravery but also intelligent, very human and caring. We have an exhibition in which his story is told and he is depicted with a life-size model, and this Christmas card adds another angle to his and the other servicemen’s lives."

Mr Willey added: “Christmas cards at the time were commonly sent in postcard form.

"The elaborate Victorian ones had made way for the simpler sort, and in the 1920s the card and envelope type that we now know became popular.

“This small, modest item from the archive gives us a poignant reminder of how our men in the First World War spent their festive period 100 years ago. We should, and surely can, spare a thought for them and today’s servicemen this Christmas.”

That Hotblack survived the war was remarkable; he was first injured in May 1915 when he was shot. In April 1917 on the first day of the Battle of Arras he suffered serious head wounds but later re-joined colleagues after trekking through the snow with blood seeping through his bandages.

Three months later he sustained a leg injury and then in May 1918 he was again wounded in the head.

In September that year he was awarded the Military Cross for ‘conspicuous gallantry, initiative and devotion to duty’ and was again injured.

He organised two tanks into action to attack a German position, riding in one of the tanks himself.

His tank was hit killing four crew and he was injured, but he continued fighting. He was left temporarily blinded.

At the beginning of the Second World War he commanded the 2nd Armoured Division before being injured and invalided out of the Army.

The bachelor died in 1979.