![]() The Panther had just knocked out two American Sherman tanks, killing three men. Smoyer advanced and encountered the German Panther by the cathedral. Eighteen-year-old German tank gunner Gustav Schaefer and his tank commander abandoned their tank and surrendered. Smoyer said he traded fire with a German tank, then shot at a building and toppled it onto the Germans. Let’s knock the hell out of it.” They charged into the city. On March 5, 1945, Smoyer heard the company commander say over the radio, “Gentlemen, I give you Cologne. He would tell himself to shoot straight and fast before the enemy got his shot in. Smoyer said he was always scared of rounding a corner and running into the crosshairs of a German tank. “He was nervous because he knew we’d be leading and up in the front again.” “My tank commander, Bob Earley, used to smoke a pipe and when he’d go for a briefing in the morning, he’d come back and the pipe was jumping in his mouth,” Smoyer recalls. Pershing tanks were rushed to Europe after the bloody Battle of the Bulge. That meant they would always go first into battle against German tanks that often were better equipped. Smoyer was such a crack shot that his crew was given one of the Army’s state-of-the-art Pershing tanks. Service members from the USS Constitution and onlookers came outside to salute Smoyer and the tank as it rolled down the street.Īfter Smoyer was drafted in 1943, he served on a Sherman tank, first as the person responsible for loading ammunition and later as a gunner. The American Heritage Museum in Hudson, Massachusetts, sent the tank and reenactors representing infantrymen to walk alongside for the short trip to the museum.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |