Posted on 09/19/2020 8:21:21 AM PDT by artichokegrower
Private First Class Irving Bromberg saw a huge puff of smoke erupt from the German tank’s cannon muzzle as it headed straight for his M4 Sherman tank. The round streaked past and missed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
Later
The movie Fury was a cinematic joke as far as some action scenes were played.
you ought to watch the Russian movie T-34.
Similar? Or better?
Saw some of it on Youtube - we thought it very good. We laughed at the movie Fury.
Was he a cranky old Yank in a clanky old tank?
Thank you for posting this.
My father was commanding an Sherman tank across Germany all the way to Austria.
Mr. Bromberg said that he regrets not talking about the war with family. My father was the same way. He was Army engineers, in a battalion that built airfields all the way from Hawaii to Okinawa. His battalion was the first to leave San Francisco after Pearl Harbor. When he got there, ships were still burning.
Even though he never fired a shot in anger, he would say almost nothing about his experiences. He had hundreds of photos, but would not talk about them. He would not even say how he got the excellent camera he brought back.
Geez! Could the site have a few more popups? They were like tank rounds whizzing by!
“When asked if he would change anything about his war experience, he said, “If I had to do it all over again––I would have kept whiskey in my canteen.””
Heh.
A fantastic story. Growing up, I had a good friend whose father was an infantry machine gunner in Italy and France. Of course, his father never mentioned a word about it. We only knew him as a very low-key and boring insurance salesman.
We would sneak up to the attic in his home, and look at the war memorabilia which was very well hidden - a Bronze star, a Purple Heart, photos of my friend’s Dad in his uniform, or pictures from his time at the front, looking bad-ass carrying a machine gun or riding on a tank, some kind of Nazi knife, etc…
I never understood, until older, why the stuff was so well hidden and why my friend was SO secretive and scared about us having a look, like we were stealing his mom’s jewelry or something.
My wife's dad was a farm boy from Coles County Illinois. He joined the US Army in 1938 and served until 1966. He was immediately pegged as a tanker when he joined. In WWII he was a “recon” tanker in the 3rd Armored Division under General Maurice Rose. General Rose was killed in action on March 30, 1945 in Paderborn, Germany. The circumstances surrounding his death were very controversial, the details were kept under wraps for decades. Even today extra research is necessary to separate fact from the fictitious story told at the time to keep his men from taking retribution against the local population and German prisoners. He was the highest ranking officer killed in the European Theater by the enemy. His true family name was Rosenberg, his dad was a Rabbi. I will just leave it at that.
The story told in Fury was fictitious but much of it was lifted straight from the 3rd Armored Division book, Spearhead in the West. The following link is to the PDF version of the book. It has a lot of pictures so it will take awhile even if you have a fast connection. But it is well worth the wait. My wife's dad's picture is on the bottom of page 62, he is the balding guy helping to take waterproofing off of a vehicle.
https://web.ccsu.edu/vhp/Santhouse_Val/SpearheadintheWest.pdf
My wife, her sister, her brothers and her dad looked through his copy of the book together countless times when she was growing up and he told them detailed stories of his experiences which were so extraordinary that I wouldn't even bother telling them here, because few would believe what the guys actually went through. The movie Fury was fictional When we watched the movie she had a strong reaction, because some of the scenes reminded her so much of what she was told. They even sang the same songs that her dad loved until he died. When we watched an interview with David Ayer, he had gone to the part of Illinois that her dad was from and had talked with people that her dad served with and some of the stories they told him were the same stories her dad told her and her sister and brothers.
So to all those who think that Private Ryan and Band of Brothers was more accurate... you will never be able to convince my wife and we have seen them all. She has been a military historian for decades and until the idiot pandemic nonsense shut us down we set up numerous displays and she has given countless talks and lectures.
I once knew a man in Patton’s tank brigade. Used to love listening to his stories. One he used to tell was that during a heated battle, being inside the tank was hell. Every time a round would hit or ricochet off of the outside of the tank, paint chips would fly off the inside and cut the crew to shreds. I would have never guessed that side of battle in one of these cans.
Great story thanks for posting.
There is little argument that most direct battles between German Tanks (Panzer, Tiger & Panther ) went BAD for the American & British Tankers in the Sherman M4, but that, with all due respect for the dead, misleads about what tanks are used for and the logic behind the Sherman. While there have been EPIC Tank v Tank battles like Kursk, the WW2 doctrine was usually tank versus infantry & obstacle.
Shermans were built in the USofA and SHIPPED to the battlefronts. Their design was maximum punch for dimension & weight. Smaller size & weight meant higher production and more per ship. The Sherman with its variants, weighed half of the Tiger II, cost about $50k~, and had a production of 49k+ from 1942-45. Its range was 125 miles at 0.8mpg.
Germany had shorter supply lines and a philosophy of over-weight and over-engineer. This ended with the late model Tiger II that was near immune to any other tank and most weapons short of large artillery. The tradeoff was too heavy for many bridges, expensive at $300k, mechanically break-down prone, fuel range of 110 miles at 0.49mpg and long manufacture time.
All German Tanks of all types added up to about 26k in use 1939-45.
World War II armor/tanker ping.
Many people consider the movie “Fury” to be based upon the real life WWII 3rd Armored Division tank commander SGT Lafayette Pool, whose nickname was “War Daddy, see this article about him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_G._Pool
I highly recommend this article by Army historian Kevin Hymel, he is a good researcher and excellent writer, and I’m not saying that because we’ve known each other for many years.
>> He was immediately pegged as a tanker when he joined.
Probably because the Army knew those farm boys knew how to drive a tractor cross-country and keep machinery operating.
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