Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II (24 page)

“You Belgian or Deutsch?” I asked.

The older one quickly replied,
“Me Belgique.”

The younger one steadily persisted,
“Me Deutsch, me
Deutsch.”

“Non, non, he mon frère, he Belgique,
just like me,” the older one replied quickly. The younger one shook his head and stubbornly insisted that he was German.

I was about to explode with laughter and could carry on the charade no longer. In the meantime, Wrayford had already broken out several chocolate bars and we divided them evenly between the boys. As we got in the Jeep to drive away, I noticed the older boy nudge the young one. They both waved and called out,
“Vive l’Amerique.”
War makes children grow up fast.

The constantly diminishing tank crews became increasingly aware of the M4’s weaknesses. They took every means available to reinforce the front glacis plate. They stored spare track blocks and bogey wheels there, but this was not sufficient. Some crews put sandbags on the glacis plate; others used a combination of logs and sandbags laced together with chicken wire.

At Stolberg, the crews continued their efforts at the abandoned cement factory, making concrete armor. Although these measures may not have been effective, I’m sure they had a great psychological effect on the crews. The concrete may have done some good, but this was probably offset by the added weight, which crunched the forward bogey wheels and slowed the tank considerably. The crews felt this was worth it if they could get more protection. Like drowning men, they would grab at any straw that might save them. They were desperate to survive.

The First New M26 Tanks Arrive

During the first week of February, Major Arrington called in the three liaison officers to brief us on a pleasant surprise. Within the next few days, we would receive our first shipments of the M26 Pershing heavy tank, films of which had been shown at Tidworth Downs in 1944. Although information on the new tank was limited, Major Arrington gave us everything he had and told us to brief the tank units.

We did not want to make the same mistake we had made on the M4 Sherman tank. Prior to the invasion, we had innocently informed the tank units that the M4 Sherman was a much better tank than it actually proved to be in combat. This was due to false information and to pure ignorance on our part.

The Pershing was the first completely new American main battle tank of World War II. Both the M3 medium with the 75mm gun in the hull and the M4 Sherman with the same short barrel 75mm in a rotating turret were built on the basic tank chassis of the old M2 medium tank, which had been developed back in the late 1920s and early 1930s at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

The M26 was a radically new design with an entirely new chassis. It was longer, wider, and lower than the M4 Sherman and had a gross weight of some forty-seven and one half tons compared to 34 tons for the M4 Sherman. Although it was heavier than the Sherman, its longer and wider track gave it a ground bearing pressure of three to four pounds per square inch compared to seven pounds per square inch for the Sherman. This meant that the M26 would go over rough, muddy ground in which the Sherman would get stuck. The track was supported by large, overlapping bogey wheels suspended on torsion bar spring systems. This was the old Christy system, which had been developed by the Americans some twenty years previously and had been adopted by the Germans and the Russians. The Christy system allowed a much wider track, and also the torsion bar suspension had a greater amplitude than the old coil spring system on the M4 Sherman. This system permitted a much easier ride over rough terrain at higher speeds, and the increased amplitude gave the tank better traction going over rough ground or ascending rugged slopes. All American tanks that came after the M26 Pershing used the Christy system.

The M26 was the closest thing we had to the German Panther. It had four inches of cast steel armor on the glacis plate at forty-five degrees, whereas the Panther had three and a half inches of plate armor at somewhat less than thirty-eight degrees, the nominal angle below which armor-piercing shot would ricochet.

During our ordnance ROTC training, there was considerable debate among the experts as to the value of cast armor versus plate armor. American metallurgists who advocated cast armor claimed that it could be made more homogeneous; therefore, once the projectile started to penetrate, it had a work hardening effect that could limit the depth of the penetration.

The plate armor advocates claimed that it was roll forged, which produced an elongated, high-tensile-strength grain in the direction of rolling. The surface of the plate could then be case hardened; this, backed up with the high-strength elongated grain boundaries underneath, produced a superior grade of armor.

Having no expert knowledge, I based my conclusions only on actual observations of tanks knocked out in combat. From more than a thousand tanks, both American and German, that had been knocked out in combat, I do not recall ever seeing one where a 75mm or larger projectile started to enter the armor and failed to penetrate. The American cast armor on the tanks resisted penetration of armor-piercing shot from .30-caliber small-arms projectiles up through 37mm armor-piercing projectiles; however, once the 75mm or larger projectile started to penetrate, it would normally go through.

In fact, the first tank that was brought back to our VCP at Airel in Normandy was struck by a German 75mm PAK41 on the top radius of the turret just forward of the tank commander’s periscope. The angle at the point of impact could not have been more than fifteen to twenty degrees; however, the projectile penetrated two and a half inches of armor and ripped an eighteen-inch gap at the top of the turret, which tapered down to an inch and a half further back. The fragments from this impact showered down on the tank commander and killed him. When I saw this, I was shocked by the power of the German antitank guns. Although all of the turrets for the M4 Sherman tank were cast armor and some of the earlier hulls were cast armor, most of the hulls were plate armor.

Other than the fact that the M26 tank armor was cast and the Panther’s was plate armor, the armor was comparable in thickness on the sides and the rear. However, the armor on the top deck of the Pershing varied from one inch down to half an inch, whereas the armor on the top deck of the Panther was only about a quarter of an inch thick.

The M26 turret was equipped with power traverse, far superior to the manual traverse of the Panther. It also had a gyrostabilized gun control, which enabled a tank to fire while moving and have the gun remain fairly level. The M4 Shermans had this gyrostabilizer, as did the M5 light tanks, but our tank crews appeared hesitant about using this system and preferred to fire from a stationary position. In some instances, our Sherman crews could get off two or more shots against a Panther before the Panther could get its gun around to fire on the Sherman. Unless the shots fired by the Sherman hit the Panther on the side or the rear, the Sherman would usually be knocked out by a single shot from the Panther.

The 90mm M1 gun in the Pershing fired a heavy projectile at a relatively low muzzle velocity of about 2,750 feet per second. The Panther’s 75mm, whose muzzle velocity was 350 to 400 feet per second higher than this, probably had a slight edge in penetrating capability. In one incident, the projectile from a 90mm M1 gun struck a Panther directly on its glacis plate at a range of less than 300 yards, and the projectile ricocheted.

The Pershing had a 550-horsepower Ford in-line engine. This gave the tank a higher horsepower-per-ton ratio than the heavier Panther, which had a Maybach engine with approximately the same horsepower. The Maybach was a good engine; however, the Germans had to use such low-octane fuel that it was difficult to start the engine in cold weather. This was why the German tanks carried blowtorches. The Pershing’s higher ratio made it more mobile and faster than the Panther. Overall, the two tanks were evenly matched, but the Pershing’s mobility was somewhat neutralized because the Panther often fired from stationary and sometimes dug in positions whereas the Pershing was usually moving on the offensive.

Of the first twenty Pershing tanks to arrive in the European theater of operations, ten went to the 2d Armored Division and ten went to the 3d Armored Division. We issued five to each of our armored regiments.

After a thorough checkout, we took one of the new Pershings up a hill in the vicinity of Mausbach and set up some preliminary firing tests. The forward observers set up their BC scopes and picked out some German targets about a mile away in a section of Düren, across the Roer River. As a safety precaution, we set up tapes at about a forty-five-degree angle from the front of the tank and extending back about a hundred feet on either side.

The 90mm gun had a muzzle brake similar to the one on the Sherman’s 76mm gun. The brake was a heavy steel casting on the front end of the gun barrel with a clearance hole through the center to allow the projectile to pass. On either side were dual blast deflectors, which deflected the blast to the rear and sides. This reversal of the gun blast offset the recoiling forces to the rear. Because the space inside the tank turret is limited, the recoil distance from the rear on the gun must be confined to nine to twelve inches. The muzzle brake makes this possible.

Anyone standing inside the tapes could not only have his eardrums ruptured, he might be killed by the shock of the blast. This same situation occurred with the Sherman’s 76mm gun, but the effect was magnified considerably by the power of the 90mm gun. Although our armored infantry soldiers knew about this, we had to make sure that anyone attached from other divisions was also warned.

The Roer River Line

Across the Roer at Düren lay level farmland. At first it appeared to be ideal tank country, but these flat, open spaces also provided excellent fields of fire for the dug in and camouflaged German tanks and antitank guns. The Germans had had two months to prepare these positions, and they did it in a superb manner. A series of zigzagged trenches ranging from seventy-five to two hundred feet long overlapped one another. Interspersed among the trenches were a series of two- and three-man foxholes used for machine-gun nests and mortar pits.

There were also numerous dug in positions for dual-purpose 88mm guns, self-propelled guns, and tanks. The tanks and guns were located so that anyone assaulting one of them frontally would come under the fire of two others, to the left and right. There were numerous pits farther to the rear that could be occupied by self-propelled guns and tanks that were driven out of their forward positions.

Among the trenches and antitank positions were numerous minefields. Realizing by now that American armored divisions tended to go cross-country to try to flank strongpoints, the Germans made sure that all avenues of approach were covered with minefields. In some cases, the Germans put mines behind the forward trench line so the engineers would have to face the German infantry before they could get to the mines. This was similar to the positions on hill 287 near Stolberg during the November offensive. The flood waters of the Roer were now beginning to subside, although the flatlands across the river were still saturated.

American and German forces used widely different methods when holding a dug in position. The Americans tried to maintain extreme flexibility and move about constantly, putting out patrols to capture prisoners and at the same time confuse the enemy about our intentions. The Germans tended to fall into routines and seemed to perform certain operations every day at the same time. Their predictable actions undoubtedly saved us many casualties.

A rifleman with the 104th Division was stationed at an outpost on top of a two-story building about forty yards from the west bank of the Roer River at Düren. These outposts were manned by two men who were relieved periodically on staggered shifts. This meant that a soldier would spend half his time with a soldier who had been on the outpost previously and the second half with a new soldier who had just come on.

Late one afternoon, a new soldier arrived at the outpost. The soldier already present asked the new soldier if this was his first time in combat. The new soldier replied that he had just been transferred from the communications zone and was excited and anxious to see some action. The older soldier told him he’d see plenty, and soon. He pointed out the various German positions and explained that although there would be random mortar and artillery fire from time to time, there would be several mortar rounds fired on their position at 1830.

The young soldier was confused. “How do you know it’s going to be at eighteen-thirty?”

“They always fire at eighteen-thirty. You can damn near set your watch by it.”

The older soldier then showed the new man where to take cover and told him if things got too hot to just follow him. He said he’d learned from experience that the German 81mm mortar was a high-angled weapon with a low muzzle velocity. The sound of a muzzle blast travels in a straight line faster than the flight of the projectile. A soldier could hear the mortar blast before the projectile reached him. Within the receiving arc, the sound of the mortar blast was much like a cork popped from a champagne bottle. At no other point around the periphery of the border did it sound like this. When a soldier hears that particular sound, he is in the middle of the target area and may have just two to three seconds to take cover. A good infantryman can cover a lot of ground in that time.

Sure enough, at 1830 the mortar fire started coming in. The first rounds landed on a roadblock to the right of them down in the street. When the older soldier heard the cork pop out of the bottle, he yelled, “Let’s go.” He took off down the steps to the basement, and the younger soldier followed close behind.

The incoming round struck the high parapet over the edge of the roof, and the blast went over their heads. As the older soldier reached the bottom step, he was struck a violent, wrenching blow by a large object. Knocked to the floor, he lost his helmet and gun. He soon realized that the blow was the young soldier behind him, following close on his heels. As he tried to collect his senses, he yelled, “Are you all right?”

A belated but firm reply came back. “You beat me this time, but now I know the way.”