One of the best books that I ever read about the Russian convoys was fiction:
Posted on 11/14/2018 10:05:24 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
Clarence Smoyer's index finger caressed the trigger. Sweat poured down the leather flaps of his helmet. No one in his tank moved or even whispered.
It was March 6, 1945, and Smoyer was part of the Allies' last push into Nazi Germany. The lanky 19-year-old with a mop of curly hair was part of a tank crew that had crawled into the German city of Cologne for what would become the US Army's biggest house-to-house fight in Europe. The Germans called it "Endkampf," the final battle for their homeland.
"Gentlemen, I give you Cologne," Smoyer's commander announced over the radio. "Let's knock the hell out of it!"
Smoyer didn't need any added motivation. Before he entered the shattered city, he'd received word that his cousin and his wife's brother had both been killed in the war. Those bastards are going to pay, he vowed.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
One of the best books that I ever read about the Russian convoys was fiction:
My best buddy (deceased) survived as an infantryman in the ETO. He said the cruelest most savage of the Nazis were the Hitler youth. They would torture a GI, restrain him and use his screams/moans as bait. He had multiple pictures of groups of women and kids he had eliminated. It was them or us he noted. Some were cooked almost to nothing but bones. It was, once in Germany, in parts as brutal as the war in the Pacific.
At the time the Sherman was designed, the bulk of Kraut armor was the MK III, and short barrel 75mm MK IVs. In early 1941, the Sherman, as designed, was superior to both.
As the war progressed, the Sherman was modified to meet the increasing capability of the MK IV, by that time the backbone of German armored forces. It was never envisioned as an equal to the MK V and MK VI tanks. When the Sherman was designed, the Americans didn’t even know the Germans were creating these designs.
We’ve printed Bibles here since our founding.
I just finished a book on Dr. Benjamin Rush which talks about the Philadelphia Bible Society and the printing of Bibles. Author is David Barton.
My Grandma was a Smyre from NC. Smyre, Smoyer, and other spellings were variants of an old German name Schmeier. The name got anglicized over the generations. They were “Pennsylvania Dutch.” Germanic people regardless of whether they were Dutch or German got called that in early days. The Shmeiers and lots of other Germans from Pennsylvania went south through the Shenandoah Valley to North Carolina in the late 1700’s because heading west in search of better circumstances was nearly impossible at that time because of ferocious Indian Wars in the Ohio Country.
Smoyer is probably a cousin of mine. I very much enjoyed reading about his heroics as a good American in the land of his ancestors. He is a true American hero. I would love to meet him. God continue to bless him.
Man.
What absolute nonsense. We, today, should live under Nazism because Hitler manages to out-wrestle FDR?
Like most liberal screeds depicting the War, the focus is always on the costs; never the benefits. If shooting at staff cars, regardless of their occupants, shortened the war by a day, might that not have saved a thousand lives in the death camps?
My uncle was in a German POW camp which was finally liberated in January of 1945. How much longer should he have waited so that potential enemies in staff cars could scurry among battling tanks unmolested?
My understanding is that the "Pennsylvania Dutch" were, in fact, the "Pennsylvania Deutch", referring to people who were from Deutchland, the German name for "Germany".
You’re right. But English speakers corrupted it to “Dutch.”
To further confuse matters, some of them were indeed Dutch from the Netherlands. These were the days before Germany was a nation state. All the smaller German principalities were “Deutsch.”
Later
The Sherman, like the Mk III and IV, was a medium tank. Why no-one foresaw the need for a heavy tank is beyond me.
The Brits first tweaked the Sherman by welding extra armor plates on the sides where the ammo racks were.
Can’t figure out why the army went along with the low velocity gun instead of the better high velocity gun.
You want BETTER than what your enemy has, not “as good as”.
Remember, the Sherman’s roll was infantry support, not anti tank. That was American tactical doctrine. A low velocity 75 mm gun will crack a concrete bunker without any problem.
That was satisfactory for the purpose at that time in 1941, when the Sherman was designed.
Your Kung Fu is strong Obi Wan.
Grasshopper concedes the field of knowledge.
The Krauts had set up a perfect kill zone on that inter section. They left a big pile of rubble on the street in front of the bank the Sherman was driving on in front of the Kommerze Bank heading towards the Colonge Cathedral. That forced the Sherman to stop. Smart move on the Krauts part because that inter section is where three streets meet and then it's just a short distance to the bridge over the Rhine and further on into the city.
Yeah but consider that Panther took three rounds from a 90mm gun on a Pershing Heavy Tank and four out of the five crew were able to bail out.
I read everything Alistar MacLean ever wrote. The Guns of Navarone, South by Java Head, Ice Station Zebra,Where Eagles Dare, HMS Ulysses and so many others are fantastic reads.
For every Panther there were 10 Sherman’s and 10 Soviet T34’s. The cold hard mathematics of war dictated that the Panther would lose.
And the Krauts complain that Dresden was a war crime. We should have nuked a number of German cities.
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