CRAZY TANKS FROM WWII DRIVER
CRAZY TANKS FROM WWII CRACK

It would force him to reach out to an unlikely ally. Smoyer’s question would force him to return to Cologne 68 years later. Smoyer’s adrenalin turned to horror: Did I just shoot a woman? The car’s passenger door swung open and a person with a light-colored sweater embroidered with flowers crumpled to the street. The car crashed into the sidewalk, and then Smoyer saw something that made the pit of his stomach fall out. Bullets and tracers from Smoyer’s gun smashed into the car ordnance from another source also flew through the intersection. With orders to shoot anything that moved, Smoyer pressed the trigger. “Staff car!” someone yelled over the radio.Ī black Opel streaked into the intersection.

Smoyer searched for it, scanning a hellish urban landscape of rubble, sagging streetcar cables and collapsed buildings. But then the enemy tank ducked behind a building. His M26 Pershing tank had just been engaged in a shootout with a German tank at a sprawling intersection in the town’s center.

He gained a reputation for deadly accuracy as a tank gunner. War is hell.Clarence Smoyer during the war. It was a bit of a struggle to get in and out of the tank at his age, Smoyer said - 'It used to go a lot better when I was younger' - but it took his breath away to see it.Īs for the book, he said, he hopes readers 'understand what the fellas went through during the war.

'He did great things for this country and took great risks,' Makos said. Makos organized the surprise tank ride to show his appreciation for Smoyer. 'Spearhead' is the story of how their lives collided. They kept in touch through Christmas cards, letters and Skype until Schaefer died at age 90 in 2017. The two veterans shook hands in front of the cathedral and put roses on the grave of a German woman who was killed in their crossfire. In 2013, they traveled to Cologne so Smoyer could meet Schaefer, the German tank gunner. Makos met Smoyer through a friend in 2012. Few knew that he took out five German tanks during the war. Smoyer returned to Pennsylvania in August 1945, married and had three children. Smoyer and his crew were photographed victoriously climbing out of their tank. American forces advanced to the Rhine River. Smoyer set the tank on fire so the German crew couldn't fire back. I fired another one, back more toward the engine compartment. We were looking right into the barrel,' Smoyer said.

CRAZY TANKS FROM WWII DRIVER

'We pull out into the intersection and the driver saw the tank. 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.

CRAZY TANKS FROM WWII CRACK

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. Instead, he found a 32-ton (33 metric ton) Sherman tank from 1944 waiting outside.Ī huge smile flashed across Smoyer's face when he walked outside and saw the tank, saying it was a shock to see it. Smoyer, who lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania, had expected a taxi to take him from his hotel to the USS Constitution Museum for a book signing Wednesday.

Crazy tanks from wwii