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A World War II hero returns to Germany to solve a mystery -- and meet an enemy
Cnn.com ^ | November 11, 2018 | John Blake

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 ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; History
KEYWORDS: clarencesmoyer; cologne; endkampf; germany; ww2
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To: oldvirginian; Bull Snipe
As a kid I read a book about the convoys to Russia. There were MEN crewing those ships.

One of the best books that I ever read about the Russian convoys was fiction:


21 posted on 11/14/2018 11:47:16 AM PST by BlueLancer (Orchides Forum Trahite - Cordes Et Mentes Veniant)
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To: chuckles

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.


22 posted on 11/14/2018 11:51:05 AM PST by whistleduck ("....the calm confidence of a Christian with 4 aces".....S.)
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To: oldvirginian

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.


23 posted on 11/14/2018 11:55:32 AM PST by Bull Snipe
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To: Jan_Sobieski

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.


24 posted on 11/14/2018 11:58:07 AM PST by AlmaKing
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To: Berlin_Freeper

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.


25 posted on 11/14/2018 12:15:45 PM PST by Combat_Liberalism
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Man.


26 posted on 11/14/2018 12:18:45 PM PST by Skooz (Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
"... it's the leaders of the countries who should have to do the fighting on the front lines. If that happened I'm sure there wouldn't be wars anymore."

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?

27 posted on 11/14/2018 12:38:00 PM PST by William Tell
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To: Combat_Liberalism
They were “Pennsylvania Dutch.”

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".

28 posted on 11/14/2018 12:43:34 PM PST by William Tell
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To: William Tell

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.”


29 posted on 11/14/2018 1:08:25 PM PST by Combat_Liberalism
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Later


30 posted on 11/14/2018 1:24:43 PM PST by NoCmpromiz (John 14:6 is a non-pluralistic comment.)
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To: Bull Snipe

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”.


31 posted on 11/14/2018 1:43:26 PM PST by oldvirginian ( Buckle up kids, rough road ahead.)
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To: oldvirginian

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.


32 posted on 11/14/2018 2:10:41 PM PST by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe

Your Kung Fu is strong Obi Wan.
Grasshopper concedes the field of knowledge.


33 posted on 11/14/2018 2:42:58 PM PST by oldvirginian ( Buckle up kids, rough road ahead.)
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To: WKUHilltopper
Yes. This is the exact video of Smoyer’s tank in action. Poor guys in that Sherman. The commander bailing out with his left leg shot off at the knee. What's amazing is the Panther took three rounds from a 90mm gun and yet four out of the five crewman were about to bail out. And the Panther wasn't even in that inter section when it fired on the Sherman. It was hiding under neath a railroad over pass almost half a mile away.

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.

34 posted on 11/14/2018 3:25:11 PM PST by jmacusa (Made it Ma, top of the world!'')
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To: Bull Snipe

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.


35 posted on 11/14/2018 3:27:09 PM PST by jmacusa (Made it Ma, top of the world!'')
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To: BlueLancer

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.


36 posted on 11/14/2018 4:11:58 PM PST by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: jmacusa

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.


37 posted on 11/14/2018 6:13:05 PM PST by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe
Your observation reflects on one of the great tragedies of The Second World War. For a nation that was the automotive leader in the world the best America could come up with was a veritable death trap of a tank. I knew men who served in the 3rd. and the 4th. Armored Divisions in WW2 in the ETO and they had nothing good to say about the Sherman.
38 posted on 11/14/2018 7:26:10 PM PST by jmacusa (Made it Ma, top of the world!'')
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To: whistleduck

And the Krauts complain that Dresden was a war crime. We should have nuked a number of German cities.


39 posted on 11/14/2018 7:27:14 PM PST by jmacusa (Made it Ma, top of the world!'')
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To: JBW1949
They wouldn't have been saying they weren't Nazis if they had won the war they started. Stupid servile scum. I've known dozens of men who served in the ETO, and, as I have said here many times before, that includes members of my family and they would have gladly not have had to have their young lives interrupted, sent to another European war because a shrieking , anti-Semitic , misanthropic Austrian madman decided he and the ‘’ master race’’ were going to dominate the world. It certainly goes without saying that I'm no one on this Earth to say Mr Smoyer is wrong to feel the way he does. He was there, I wasn't. I just have had ETO vets tell me, to sum it up, "Jeez, ya know, when we finally got into Germany so many of 'em would tell us how much they hated Hitler and how everyone had been against him. Left us wondering if that was the case how'd he get into power?. For crying out loud if they weren't trying to kill you one minute, they'd be asking you for cigarettes the next!''
40 posted on 11/14/2018 9:19:23 PM PST by jmacusa (Made it Ma, top of the world!'')
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