How Bad Was WWII Tank Life?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 พ.ค. 2023
- Tanks played a crucial role during World War Two having been employed across all theatres of the war. Many men would find themselves as part of a tank crew during the war and it seems like the safest place from rifle fire and shrapnel, but was it really that safe? Life inside a World War Two tank could be extremely difficult and life threatening. In today's video we ask the question, How Bad Was WWII Tank Life?
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What do you think was the hardest difficulty faced by a tank crew during WWII?
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A mortar or shell from another tank
Maintenance in the field during winter.
The BV breaking down.
Getting out after a hit
taking a crap and living to tell it
As a famous WWII tanker used to say " Don't hit me with them negative waves so early in the morning"
And where are we gonna come up with another bridge?
Woof woof
ODDBALL! 😎
Drinking some wine, eating some cheese. Catching some rays.
To you a hero is some kind of weird sandwich, not some nut who takes on three tigers
My grandfather was a Sherman tank commander. His first tank was a Sherman DD tank, and they participated in D-Day. The tank made it about 50 yards off the LST before it swamped and the crew swam back to the LST. They were hauled back to England and fitted with another Sherman, this one with a half-bulldozer blade for the Normandy hedgerows. That tank was destroyed by enemy fire and they lost one of the crew. his next tank was an "improved" Sherman, and his unit was part of Patton's 3rd Army, and helped to relieve Bastogne. That tank was destroyed in a firefight with German panzers not far from the crossroads: all crew but my Grandfather died. He was badly wounded. After recovery, he was put in command of another "improved" Sherman and served until the end of WW2.
Wow. He must have seen so much.
Improved beimg a 76mm equipped one?
Those kind of men built this country. God bless them all and may they rest in peace.
@@randolphgrohnke3471 ain't that the truth. The people who fought and the people back home building the equipment. After the war they came back to a country that had been in a state of total war; all the factories producing equipment now didn't need to build said equipment. Jobs were plentiful, and getting them wasn't as hard as today (you could walk on a factory floor, get trained and remain there until retirement). Once the boomers took over, since by this time their parents were running or owning these factories, they took over and moved production overseas because it was cheaper and started doing away with pensions, inclusive Healthcare etc. Anyways I'm just renting.
Wow what a legend and he was meant to finish that war wow great story and Grandpa was a bad add
I had a Grampa in the 3rd Armored Division in WW2. He was a 19yr. old who trained as infantry, but ended up a replacement loader in a Sherman that had lost its previous two loaders in combat (he had black-and-white pictures of the welded-in "turret-hole-plugs" from which both prior loaders lost their lives). He ended his few months in combat during The Battle of The Bulge, when, while riding in what his battalion commander told them was a "Kraut Scrubbed Area" with his turret hatch open, his Sherman got hit by what he believes was a German 75mm AP round which touched off their tank's forward, right-side ammo rack. All he remembered was a loud "bang" and when he woke up, he remembered screaming in pain while his tank commander pressed freshly fallen snow into the burn wounds on his face and upper-body in an attempt to provide him some temporary relief. He later found out that he and his tank commander were both blown clear from his tank's turret after the initial hit, and shortly afterward the rest of the ammo in the tank brewed up and burned the rest of his crew to death. As a child, I remember it taking a long while getting used to my Grampa's facial deformities due to his severe burn wounds. He never complained and neither did my Grandma, although my Mom would tell me in later years that as a child she remembered him waking up screaming in the middle of the night and manically saying he had to get his buddies out of his burning tank. What a horrific war. In my book, they're absolutely the Greatest Generation and through their sacrifices they undoubtedly saved the world.
My dad still wakes up! It is terrible!
With you on that
My psych prof in college said he had a patient that was the sole survivor of 5 different crews. He was the TC and kept getting blown out of the turret. Easy to understand why he needed psych help, God bless him.
I’ve heard stories from tank commanders say there were some guys who’d lost three or more tanks in one battle. Being TCs they got right back in to try to finish the fight. mad brave.
@@chrisivan_yt My dad (WWII paratrooper) thought I was nuts when I told him I was going to the armor school.
Psych Professors are nuts !!!
how do you survive getting blown out of the turret?
@@PeterParker-yd3sbprobably suffered sever burn wounds and bruises due to pressurize air from explosion
Maybe TC hatch is opened
Off the top, I doubt this comment will be short but I feel like I have first hand experience in garrison and war time duty in armor that is relevant to this video. I served as an armor crewman for 8 years from 84 to 92 with Charlie Co. 3rd Batt. 35th Armored Reg. 1st Armored Division first on the M60A3 and then the M1A1. My war time experience was the First Gulf War which was more waiting than fighting so I won't go there. What I would like to pass along is the actual LIVING on a tank for an extended time. For example, sleeping. The preferred option was to put the main gun over the side and drape the tarp over it and drag out the cots. 2nd was a fart sack on the back deck. It stayed warm for hours and was roomy. Next was in your assigned position especially if you were the driver. The last and most dangerous was on the ground. You get so used to the sound of tanks coming and going you can become complacent to the sound of one passing by and you ignore it. You can imagine the problem with that. You also can tune out a tank firing on the range 100 yards away and sleep right through it. If you've never heard a 120 mm cannon fire in person, it's like a split second Metallica concert with your head in an the amp. It's loud. Other things important to a tanker is storage. Where do I put my stuff and how do I keep the dust and mud off of it. The answer is anywhere you can and you can't. The smoke grenade launchers held soda cans. The roof of the drivers compartment was a handy place to duct tape snacks to and the breach block held a roll of paper towels like it was designed for the job. You get the idea. I could turn this comment into a book and no one wants that. I'll be happy to answer any questions as best I can to anyone interested.
Aco 3/66 2AD (FWD).
On the contrary, I'd love to read a book about the day-to-day routine of serving as a tanker in the field. My brother, CAPT Grant Kaufman, commanded C Troop/1-113 Cavalry, north of Baghdad in the "Sunni Triangle" during the Iraqi occupation. When we talk, it's the routine stuff -- mundane to him -- that often seems more interesting, perhaps because it's easier for a civilian to relate to duct taping pogie bait above the driver's head, than stories of tank track maintenance or coordinating the movement of multiple platoons. I encourage you to write about your experiences!
My father was a cannonier on a WWII Sherman tank. He started with the Battle of the Bulge and continued through the end of the war. He said he was so grateful to have not been an infantryman. He didn't know how any of them managed to survive the war especially during the months of December, January, and February.
Did you ever heat a burrito or a can of stew on the engine cover.
I had an uncle that was in the "Cobra King" Sherman (first in to relieve the 101st) at the Battle of the Bulge. I've always wondered what the everyday life was like as a combat tanker. I've read his letters home and how he had several tanks knocked out from under them. He survived the Bulge and was killed outright at the Rhine River on 19 March 1945. James Garland Murphy, Texas
Tank life is hard no matter what year/model you serve in. I crewed M-60a1, M-551, M-48a3, and M1 models. They are cold in the winter, hot in the summer, maintenance work unrelenting, cleaning the maingun, M-2, and coaxial machine guns is a chore, breaking track, reversing sprockets, pulling the pack, fixing a broken torsion bar, and eating pounds of dust on every road march. However, they can carry a hell of a lot more beer than I can in a ruck!
You mentioning breaking track brings back nightmares for me
M-551. Every time we fired the main gun, it seemed every bolt on the thing unscrewed 1/4 turn. Pulling the pack during Reforger '77 at night...
People drink on duty?
@@jdl9679 no, in Iraq not even off duty.
The hardest tank duty was the tank retrieval crew. They were subjected to things no man should have to endure. It's one of those least talked about duties of mechanized warfare.
Ie The book Death Traps, on tank retrieval
My uncle did vehicle recovery in Afghanistan. He doesn't like to talk about it for obvious reasons. Brutal stuff, but I couldn't imagine it in a major war. The amount of vehicles isn't comparable to modern wars.
Interesting read the book Death Traps. My Dad served on a tank crew in WWII. Made me realize how close I probably came to not being in this world.
@@genevieve.annabelle3296 war is war. The scale of it is irrelevant.
Rodger that Rick, tradgec duty.
Living on the tanks was something else. Some of it was awesome, finding creature comforts of livingon our vehicle, cooking our meals together, sleeping over a warm engine at night, cruising terrain, the dynamic we knew eachotheea jobs and were good. Some of it was a broken heater at -30c driving in a sleeping bag tryingnot to freeze. The weird world of dazed half sleep while driving and following commands. Track maint, recovery. Staying in your station for days, sponge baths, grime and ankle deep engine leaks. It's wonderful and terrible.
Miss it.
I was an electronics tech with a DoD contractor. As such, I spent time in R&D tanks and submarines. I quickly learned some things about myself. I am too tall and too claustrophobic to have ever served full-time in such environments. I have the greatest respect and admiration for those who did and do serve in "cans." I will and have jumped out of perfectly good, flying airplanes but being a canned ham - no tank you very much.
My uncle married to one of my mom's sisters had a brother killed in ww2. He was in a tank crew in Italy. No relative had seen his grave in Italy. Not to many years ago one of our relatives studying overseas was looking thru a cemetery with u.s. soldiers and found the grave and sent a picture back to the u.s. . My uncle was about 90 years old. Even After all them years it was an emotional thing .
That shows you're a good
person to care for your
extended family Scores
big w/man up stairs
I was a tanker in an M1A1 Abrams and much of what you described still is an issue in todays tanks.
Thank you Mario… my boss where I work was an Abrams tank driver in Desert Storm… he had to be in a very narrow window of a mood to talk about it, and I was glued to his every word.
I was going to make the same comment, I was in a SEP V2. While listening to this video I was scratching my head thinking "why does this not sound any different from our tanks now."
The fire threat of the Sherman was due to the ammunition not the fuel. After wet ammo stowage was adopted the amount of burned out tanks dropped dramatically.
And I'm sure most german tanks used petrol over diesel
Gasoline may have been safer for the crew, since getting the gas spilled on you evaporating off your clothes, where as diesel will stay on your clothes. If your part of the tank crew your part of the maintenance and refueling team.
@@Tom-tx3ck All German designed tanks used petrol.
always wondered why they were called RONSON's after the lighter...
Not exactly correct The aircraft fuel lines to feed the aircraft engines that powered the Sherman tank, ran thru the crew compartment. When an armor-piercing round burned thru the metal of the crew compartment the penetration caused the metal to be sprayed off in white hot shards severing the fuel lines and causing a wicked inferno. If the turret was hit then the ammo could be ignited and the turret would be blown off. Either way, it was catastrophic for the crew. But if the fuel was ignited the crew stood a half-assed chance of bailing out
I did 23 years in armor, M-60s, M-1s and M-1A1s. WWII tankers were Heroes.
Agree. And thanks for your service, Sir!
Greetings from the Netherlands, T.
ELVIS!
20 years M41A1, M113a1
My father served in a Sherman tank from DD+1 all the way to Salzburg Austria. His only injury happened when he fell asleep standing up in the TC position. He knocked out a bunch of teeth falling through the turret hatch. That's as close to a combat story we ever got. I know he saw some bad stuff though. It was never far out of his mind as long as he lived.
Thank God for Heros like your Father.
My dad talked some but
not alot sure would listen
when he did
The caption on a Bill Mauldin cartoon during the war said a lot.
The picture was of Willie & Joe digging with a tank rolling in the background.
Willie says, "I'd rather dig. A moving foxhole attracts the eye."
My father worked for a carpenter in the early 60’s…the carpenter Chuck Morrison…finished his work career for Raytheon in the mid 70’s…Chuck had many health issues through his life…he attributed those issues to his 2 years in a tank during WWII…stomach cancer…diabetes and open heart surgery…sadly he passed away in the early 80’s…a well know artist in New Hampshire…
My dad and I did many home projects for him in his later years because of his declining health…I still have a few hand tools and a painting that his late wife Connie had given to me…and packed a way a model of a Sherman Tank he had assembled for himself…
A very good man that I remember being around from childhood to my late twenties…always something to learn from him with a touch of created correction…
According to my neighbor , who had 3 Sherman tanks knocked out, they were lied to about the capability of the tank , it's main gun's power and the armor's ability to protect the crew from enemy fire . So I would have to say that the combination of the 75mm low velocity gun and the thin armor were both major deficiency issues . Major respect to all who served in those things .
At the end of this video you show a color photo of the crew of the new Pershing tank which taken in Cologne, Germany, minutes before they destroy a German Panther in front of the Cologne Cathedral which was made famous because several Army camera men caught the fight from several angles. The man in the middle of the top was the highest scoring tank gunner in the American Army as a Sherman tank gunner, and was ordered to be among this crew because the Army wanted the best of the best crew in the new tank. Notice the man on the right. He is wearing a rare tank helmet that uses a bumper on the forehead and a hard shell. The US Army experimented with the bumper helmet prior to the war, as they were used in France, Belgium, and one other European army. But this topic has come up before and more than llkely, the helmet is a Canadian bumper helmet that was not favored by the Canadians. The tank battle has been the most throughly researched battle between two tanks in history and is covered by a film called Duel at the Cathedral. Originally, the US cameramen said the German crew all died in the tank and I have an early book on the war which came out in the 60s and a picture caption showing the Panther, still burning a day after the battle, being examined on the outsides by several GIs , says that the tank smoldered for several days with the crew still inside. But the film Duel at the Cathedral uses modern film stabilization techniques and slows the action down and all of the crew escaped. The documentary maker, using American and German records, tracked down the crew and found out a lot of information from them. In addition, before the two tanks visually saw each other but knew each other were there, were shooting at anything that moved. A car came into an intersection and American cameramen filed it, being shot up and then people including Americans, rushing to help the civilians who had been in the car. The driver, a man, was killed outright, but the woman with him was seriously wounded. The documentary maker even managed to identify the woman through German sources which made general inquires showing the woman's ID card photo and her sister saw this and answered.
Thank you!
I read an article about that incident. It stated that, although the injured woman was treated on site by several American soldiers, they were in the middle of an active battle area and she wasn't moved from the roadside due to her injuries and they covered her in a blanket with intent to get medics over to her to send her to a field hospital. Sadly, another tank came by shortly afterward and the driver did not see her and ran her over, killing her instantly. War is not just hell - It is an obscenity of chaos wherein innocents suffer and perish in terrible ways. My heart still goes out to that poor, unfortunate girl when I see anything related to tank combat in books or here on TH-cam.
@@moistmike4150 They drove into a battle, remember it was a destroyed city and many starts were impassable, and at the same time, one block length of a city street might be peaceful, buy like the woman and man found out, you could go around a corner and find yourself in the middle, literally, of a very hot battle. Both the American Pershing tank gunner who was also firing the inside of the turret .30 cal. machine gun, and the German inside the Panther, also was shooting a machine gun, both said that they were firing at anything moving in the rubble. They were not on the same street, the Panther was on one street that was at right angle to the street that the Pershing was on, and both had a view of the same city park that was to the Americans front left and to the German's left but to his front.
Also, there is film in the movie of that same area where a man, civilian or German soldier wearing civilian clothing who darted across the street before the man and woman drove onto the street, and the man was being fired upon. You can see tracers hitting and ricocheting around the man but he kept going. Clarence Smoker who was the American gunner in the Pershing was watching those films with the documentary producer and said of the man being fired upon that they fired on anyone they saw because for alll the Americans knew, the man could have been a German soldier who was out taking a walk to see if he could see where American positions were, or if he was a civilian that he should have taken shelter during the battle until it was over. Smoyer also said that he felt terrible about the woman and the man in the car, it happened so fast in the heat of the battle and everyone was so tense and trying not to be killed. Smoyer went on to say that he may have been the one who shot the woman and man but didn't really know because so many people were shooting at the same time.
Smoyer said that he thought that all the German crew died when the Panther was hit and burned. So he was glad to learn that after all those years he was glad to find out that they were all okay and got out of the tank.
The producer of the documentary also found the German who was shooting the machine gun. Because of the situation, the German had never known that civilians had been shot by accident in that battle, but he did shoot at a car that suddenly appeared from around a corner. He was distressed in the interview because he realized that he might have been the one who shot up the car but hoped not. The producer took film he made of the interview with the German to Smoyer's house and Smoyer, often on the verge of tears, said that knowing the German was slso firing at the car caused him to think that something he though was possibly is fault, might not have been his fault at all and that he was glad to know that. But he said he hoped that the German didn't't shoot the woman because he (Smoyer) hated to think that the German would feel so terrible just about the possibility. So as it was, both the German and Smoyer had just enough doubt that each of them might not have shot her to relieve or dampen the pain they felt. Like I mentioned earlier, the German did not know act a woman and man had been shot until the interview.
Also, there was a lot of talk about how the Cologne bridge over the Rhine was still intact when the Americans got into Cologne, and the German commander evacuated as many troops as possible, he had orders to blow the bridge when all the Germans had come across it. However, for some reason a commander ordered a tank company to go back across the bridge to see if they cold keep the Americans from approaching, but the bridge was blown up not long after the tanks had crossed. The German tank crews had no connection by radio and were not sure what they were supposed to do when they heard the bridge blow up. Among themselves, they deduced to split up for reason I don't remember. Also, the German in the Panther said that they had never seen or heard of a Persing tank and that they actually saw Smoyer's tank make its way toward them, that they (the Panther crew,, saw the Pershing and it looked a lot different from a Sherman and that they mistook it for another Panther because of the road wheels being different from a Shermann and a little bit like German tank road wheels. Also, there was a muzzle brake on the end of the canon and a big mantlet which was curved like a Panther's mantel so they hesitated to fire and during that hesitation, the Pershing fired and hit their Panther. He also said that when the Pershing fired and their Panther was hit and began to burn, they did nor stop to ask what kind of tank that was, they ran the opposite way and got behind a building right away. So they continued all these years to believe it was a Panther. But they knew that the other Panthers inter company would have known their tank so they assumed that the Americans had captured a Panther and used it like a Trojan Horse to get close to them before they were shot.
One thing is clear about all of this. Everyone involved didn't know what actually happened. Smoyer knew that he had fired the shots that destroyed the Panther but also believed that he probably shot the woman. The Americans who filmed the fight between the two tanks thought all the Germans died in the Panther. I have a book that shows photos of the tank battle and the caption of one photo says that the German tank commander was trying to get out of the turret hatch when another round hit the turret and cut his legs off so he slowly sank back into the fire. Meanwhile, the German interviewed said that the tank commander had gotten out of the tank to take a look around when it was shot and burned. And even though the camera men had the motion pictures, the camera jerked around so much that when watching the film, they could not see four crewmen get out and make their escape. It was only when a technique of taking a jerky film and focusing in on one particular place or thing that is not moving, the rest of the film can be adjusted so that you can see the four men escape the tank. This was done to the Zapruder film of President Kennedy being shot that allows us to know that the president was shot from behind and from the front as well
I hope this sheds some light on how civilians could be fired upon.
@@Dontwlookatthis Wow! Thank you so much for your detailed response! Among other things, it goes to show that during actual combat, everyone must make snap decisions to either shoot or not shoot, and that any of these split second decisions could mean the death of enemies, friends, innocent civilians, or even oneself. When I was younger, I was a huge fan of WW2 stories and history and often pictured myself taking part in that conflict as a righteous warrior. After living a few decades and having children of my own, that immature, adventurous perspective has changed 180 degrees and I feel a tragic empathy for anyone who has had the misfortune to have been forced to live through such awful violence and chaos. I continue to pray that another such world-war does not afflict my children or anyone else anytime soon, but I feel that this sort of thing is a tragic part of our fallen human nature and may be unavoidable. God help us.
The hardest part as related by my father, a driver / cannoneer in a tank destroyer wasn't the heat or cold or being shot at . It was liberating one of the death camps and seeing firsthand what the Nazis had been doing . He only spoke of it one time and I could tell that he held back a lot of the details . Like many of the vets he rarely spoke of the war .
My father was still in San Francisco, as a 17 year old sailor, when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was involved with bringing the combat vets back home on troop ships. He said the huge majority of these men would try to find a million things to talk about other than what they had experienced in battle.
My dad was the same way. He only told the humorous stories. Like liberating a winery and then having two barrels on the tank, one for red wine one for white wine. And then having a chicken cage wired to the tank and being able to transport chickens and have a chicken dinner every night for a week.
What camp was he at? Cant imagine It being that shocking to someone that came from a society that still lynched black people.
@@AR-so6ch A person that would make a comment such as yours about a horrific event such as the Holocaust des not deserve an answer . Go back to your basement trollboy .
@@AR-so6ch A lot of those vets were young kids who knew nothing about the battle for civil rights. My father who's outfit liberated Mauthausen(?) was a 17 yr old who was born and raised in N. Dakota and had never been more than fifty miles from home until being involved in World War II. The only black person he had ever met was when as a nine-year-old he snuck into the locker room of a barnstorming baseball team and met Satchel Paige. That being said you could very well be correct about those veterans from the southern portion of the United States.
My grandpa was an army clerk typist during WW2 and ended up stuck on a tank with 4 other fellas. He essentially had to learn how to kill on the fly. Before long he was stacking them up and his crew nicknamed him “Machine”.
They ended up hitting a mine one day which blew the tracks off of the tank. My gramps went to keep an eye out while they worked on the tank and discovered 300+ German soldiers heading their way. He ran back and told his crew what he saw. All but the top wanted to get out of there. Top’s nickname was “Wardaddy” and he considered his tank to be his home.
Wardaddy encouraged them to leave but they stayed with him. They gathered up all of the ammunition they had and brought it to these Germans. They inevitably ran out of ammo though and the Germans starting picking them off one by one.
My gramps survived because Wardaddy told him to go out through the escape hatch on the bottom of the tank. They took out 240 Germans total.
My gramps passed away in 2016. He was a great man. RIP Wardaddy, Gordo, Bible, Grady and Grandpa Machine.
I knew an older gentleman who was an Army mechanic during WWII. One time he had to retrieve parts from a US tank that had a hand grenade thrown into it by a Nazi soldier. The crew was killed instantly. He had to crawl past their remains to obtain the parts needed as spare parts were sometimes in short supply.
There was a report in the US Army that Sherman co-drivers has the highest rates of "combat fatique" because in battle they did not have much to do but look out the vison ports at what was shooting at them and nothing to do to protect themselves.
But infantry was not good either. You were in the weather, your armor was only cotton cloth and you could only retreat at about 2.8 mph.
@@ClovisPoint Not much help against a Panther.
I liked the Willie and Joe comic where, in the first three panels, Willie is standing in pouring rain, wearing pack and poncho, Garand under the poncho and muzzle-down, his ever-present cigarette in his mouth, watching other soldiers moving cased artillery rounds to higher ground. In the fourth panel Willie tells them “At least the Army is teaching you a trade.”
As Sargent Saunders (played by Vic Morrow) in "Combat" said to the effect, "Everyone has their own set of problems." Life and death wasn't easy for anyone where the loud noises were. Riding in a tank may have been better than marching. Flying in a plane may have been better than riding in a tank. Yet when it hit the fan and everything went south fast, there was really no good place to be, and perhaps the infantry soldier had the best chance of getting out of trouble without all the ancillary fires, crashes, and explosions.
My Dad was in a tank in WWII. He said he would watch those planes fly overhead five miles up in the sky and think "I wouldn't trade places with those guys for a million dollars!"
Constipation. Hemorrhoids. I grew up with a WWII tanker. Fought the Germans. Mr Houston. Great guy. He'd take us to Dallas Cowboy games in 1961. If an adult brought 12 kids... 12 and under... we got in free. Th adult(s) paid regular price. One day I asked him what he remembered about his tank war... "Couldn't shit." When you're 12... and a WWII vet talked to you like a man... it was special.
My dad was a tank gunner in ww2 in a Sherman tank. Let’s just say it took me many years to get into his head about what happened over there in Holland . Let’s just say on his second or third tank blown up underneath him he escaped through the bottom hatch naked he said his clothes all burnt off. Then a German sniper shot him in the head . He was in the 8th army 80th tank corp I think A company. He survived but was 100% disabled after that. He told me finally finally some crazy stories.
Problems for the crew:
Everything you said, plus
1) constant fear of burning to death (fortunately, most were young enough to not really understand death as a personal thing)
2) not being able to see what is going on (I have a claustrophobia problem, so especially bad for me)
3) hitting hard pokey things every time you move (which you'd learn not to hit just in time for your tank to be replaced, with the pokey things moved around)
I think the perceived worst would probably change constantly.
The burning tank claim is a baseless claim and is not supported by facts.
USMC tank crew basic course 1960s. Topic: "Tank is afire. Shoot yourself with your .45acp OR Just lean into the flames one whiff turns lungs into potato chips. We laughed. No fu*kin sh*t. Marine tanker in RVN 18 months straight . Main problems are unknown to Marines we are used to making "do" ??
But water yea. and they sometimes forgot where we was ! So chow sometimes got tight, ???
175 lb. start tour 18 mo. later, home at 160 lb. Dengue fever, Trench foot, agent orange, PTSD.
Tank commander last 6 mo. Guy I replaced shot in back while standing up in TC position on watch.
58,473 last I heard. and 12 women. One Army nurse killed in motor attack. Semper Fi pogues I would do it again.
There were diesel-powered Shermans supplied to the Soviet Union (M4A2, with the GM 6046, a "U" configuration of the Detroit Diesel 71 series engines) which, like their own T-34s, "brewed up" as readily as did gasoline-powered Shermans and/or the Germans' panzers, which were all gasoline-powered. Likewise Shermans issued to the USMC, either M4A2s and M4A6s (Caterpillar diesel), to be on the same fuel as most naval vessels, that were also diesel-powered, burned when hit as readily as the more common M4A1 or the M4A3E8 "Easy Eight" which has the Ford GAA V-8. In 1944, after studying Sherman wrecks, it was determined that the fuel choice was not the driving reason for their unfortunate habit of burning when hit by enemy fire; rather, it was the storage of the rounds for the 75mm or 76mm guns. A setup of "wet stowage", where shells were placed in tubes, in a compartment filled with water around the tubes, reduced the incidence of fires in Shermans when hit; though the setup did reduce the available ordnance storage. And, contrary to the legend, the Sherman was NOT "nicknamed" the Ronson ("lights up, first time, every time") as that slogan didn't come out until 1947. The Brits did wryly dub their M4A4 Shermans "The Tommy Cooker"; and the VC "Firefly" variant, with the 17-pounder main weapon, was difficult to evacuate if it began to burn, especially if the commander was incapacitated!
Compared to modern MBTs, WWII mounts were indeed uncomfortable and downright dangerous, but they were a huge improvement over the clanking monstrosities of WWI.
The M10 and M10A1 tank destroyers also used the twin counterrotating Detroit Diesels for power. The later, 90mm-equipped M36 tank destroyers were essentially made from remanufactured M10 and M10A1 hulls, but used the gasoline Ford GAA V8 for power.
My Grandfather was a Sherman Tank Commander for the 741st. He definitely lost his most of his hearing. He didn't speak much about his time spent in WWII but the little he did talk was that it was extremely tough and took a toll on the mind and body.
If my grandfather is any example, the real difficulty came after the war.
An entire lifetime to relive the terror. As an armchair historian and avid reader I am finding that psychological injuries were much more significant during the war, immediately after, and most combat vets carried the scars for life.
@@counciousstream
He was part of Patton’s armored fist as a tanker.
He only spoke of it once and made point to say he wouldn’t talk of it again.
The catching fire aspect of the Sherman was greatly improved by "wet storage" of ammo.
I think the hardest part for any tank crew in any war, is finding a place and time to crap.
We've all had times when you absolutely have to take a crap NOW, usually diarrhea related due to viruses. the stress and probably tainted food at times...Man these crews were and are true heroes.
I was a tank driver during the 1982 Lebanese war (Israeli side). Engine heat and noise were the 2 major nuisances.
Former USMC 1811-Bravo, M60 driver 86-88'. Tank life sucked, it sucked hard. Tanks stink inside, always, and disgustingly so due to BO. Then in the M60, exhaust would always find its way into the crew compt. Not enough to make you sick or worse, just enough to give you a nice headache about 30min in. This is why tankers always run hatches open unless under combat conditions / maneuvers.
My Father was a Sherman tank driver in the 8 th British army in Africa and Italy. He was in the Free Polish Army attached to the 8th. His Tank was hit 3 times by PIATs and he was the only survivor in two of these episodes. He recalled seeing men with normal dark hair before battle and afterwards their hair would have turned grey. He wasn not a religious man before these events but he soon became one he told me once. He was rotated through tank recovery duties several times which he only mentioned once before he died.
The Free Poles were renowned for their bravery and tenacity.
@@counciousstream I did not know that!
My Grandfather was a tanker who served in Europe. I know he was in Patton's 3rd army, but not much else. When he came home from the war he couldn't adjust and wound up "going walkabout" for several years (they didn't really understand the concept of PTSD back then). My father didn't reconnect with my grandfather until when I was a kid in the late '60s, and I had a very limited relationship with him. I've tried to request his service records but haven't received them yet. I wish I knew more about him. I'm pretty sure all of those guys went through hell.
Ex-Veterans Benefits Administration employee formerly working in evidence collection for disability compensation claims. Mental diagnoses in WWII and Korea, regardless for vet’s service, assignment, or experiences were almost always one of these three: combat neuroses, combat psychoses, or combat fatigue.
There is a film that is integrated into the 70's series by Thames Media/BBC titled The World At War, in which there is an episode on the war in North Africa and shows a German tank crew frying an egg on the fender (wings) of the tank, it was so hot! But also remember that every kind of metal vehicle, cars included, were hot in the old days before and after WW2. People who went on long trips actually would put cans of food on the engine somewhere and they would pull over at a roadside park and eat hot food! And when I was a boy, born 10 years after the end of the war, we used to travel on vacation at night as much as we could because cars were not yet air conditioned and you would travel on the old two lane highways at 65mph with the windows rolled down for ventilation. All sorts of devices were invented to act as sun shades, I remember we had plain newspapers hanging inside the sunny side of the car with windows rolled up, opening vent windows on that side. A commercially bought thick aluminum roll down shade which had scores of vents punched in at an angle so that the metal still provided shade. And in summer, Dad would buy ice and put it in aluminum or other metal trays which he put under the front seat! Hot!
The Germans finally put heaters in their late model Panther tanks which were situated over the engine heat grate and had a fan which would push the warm air into the crew compartment.
The Tiger tanks E (came first) and B, were noted for having extremely spacious driver and co-driver positions which were big enough for two crew members to stretch out and sleep. Other crew would rotate. In Normandy, the Germans were so scared of Allied air supremacy and close contact fighting as opposed to fighting in the Soviet Union, that when the enemy was close they would hide their tanks and stay in them for days, and no matter how big a Tiger or Panther was, it became cramped and the crew would have to take care of their bodily functions inside the tank because the were both hiding, and had to be ready to move at a moment' notice. I think it is the book Tiger Aces by commander Willie Fry who wrote that the fuel, acrid smell left from shooting was bad but adding human stench into the mix did make it truly unbearable.
I was on M551 and M60A3 tanks in the mid 1980's.I always tell folks to picture being in a portapotty in August. Have an elephant on your lap with someone standing on your sholders and a telephone pole under your left arm.
Tankers' ears,what.....?
We never ever said " best job I ever had"..but is was. Tanker tough,baby.🇺🇸
This video has a few myths, mostly about the Sherman. They were not easier to set on fire because of gasoline. They didn’t have a particularly strong fuel smell, unlike German tanks. The experience of tankers was much better than that of their infantry counterparts.
They called them 'Ronsuns', because they were so easy to light...
Knew that Sherman tanks were knick named RONSON's after the lighter to mock their flammability..
@@dalebender3380 again it's just a myth. Which is funny because statistically speaking Sherman crew members were more likely to survive a fire than any other tank crew, and also got lit on fire less.
@@ub1953 except it's still just all a huge myth lol. look at the battle reports. they burned no more than any other tank, and were actually safer in the later part of the war
@@MrDylonJ in addition the term "ronsons" to describe a Sherman is incorrect. No question in a direct one on one contest with a Panzer IV or V the Sherman was outclassed due largely to the main gun. Against Pzr's I, II, and III the Sherman even with the 75mm gun was at an advantage. In North Africa the allies were using M3 Grant's and giving Rommel's tankers a tough time. The main issue with WW2 tanks is the same problem that the Russians are having with their auto-load armor. The ammo is in the turret and when a round penetrates the armor it sets off the ammo and blows the top off of the vehicle. Nobody gets out when that happens.
There’s an excellent novel called ‘Chieftain’ by a Bob Forrest-Webb, it’s a very good depiction of what WW3 would have been like in Northern Europe during the late 1970s early 1980s from the perspective of a British Chieftain tank crew. Said to be the best novel about tank warfare ever written.
My father was a tank destroyer drive in Patton’s 3rd army as well. The 774 tank destroyer battalion
I have my dad‘s winter coat that he wore when he was a tank destroyer driver in the Battle of the Bulge. Apparently the coat came from a German factory that was over taken. He said it was so hard to see through the vision slots, that you had to open up the hatch when you are driving, hence the need for the coat
In WW2, Diesel is just as likely to burn as gas when a vehicle is hit by a high velocity anti-tank round.
The difference in a gas Pz IV burning vs a diesel T-34 burning was one percent.
The Pz IV was 1% less likely to burn per a WW2 study as ammo stowage etc had some influence on burning as well.
The early Sherman's had some issues but that was sorted with extra armor over ammo locations and wet ammo storage. Newer Shermans were less likely to brew up than other t
Helmets helped reduce fatality in US Sherman's by reducing head injuries.
Up to and including the Panzer Mk IV the Russian’s PTRD and PTRS anti-tank rifles firing 988 grain tungsten AP rounds (14.5x114mm) at 3,300 FPS could penetrate the side armor. One Russian anti-tank rifleman was credited with ten tank kills (probably among multiple types). And the Finn’s Lhati-42 anti-tank rifle firing 20mm rounds was capable of penetrating Russian tanks in the Winter and Continuation Wars. Anti-tank rounds weren’t always large caliber.
I had a big fire on my Dusenhalf in convoy one day(1975 Germany )and spent 5 minutes trying to find a fire extinguisher that didn’t have clogged hash resin brass nozzles! This Sgt came walking up slowly 7 minutes later and calmed me down saying it’s diesel stupid!!! Stop freaking out! We finally found a fire extinguisher that WORKED!!! I’ll never forget that! 15 trucks and not one unclogged brass fitting?
Tank you. 😂
My dad was trained in tank warfare at Fort Knox and served in the 5th armored division in the invasion of Anzio and then in France. He made it back home in one piece.
TANK you for the video. Great stuff.
Thanks. I’ve always wondered about life in a tank. I was an infantry soldier but the army did send me to armored personnel carrier drivers school. We didn’t have a lot of tanks in Nam but they were always welcome. They had to be hot.
Life inside a tank, both then and now varies greatly from tank to tank. Some are more comfortable to be inside for extended periods of time than others. The chieftain has a series named "Inside the chieftain's hatch" and talks a lot about this subject.
www.youtube.com/@TheChieftainsHatch/playlists
It was great! You didn't have to personally carry the extra ammo. It had a good heating system in the summer, great air conditioning in the winter!
Good info.
My uncle was in the 1st armored division in WW2. He fought at Kassarine pass and through Sicily and at Anzio. I have a lot of his photos from the war with his tank crew and they are all marked with who was KIA. I can't imagine the things he went through. He was a driver too. I don't know how he survived the war.
Not all tanks were notoriously unreliable, Shermans, from what I recall, had a particularly good rep for being pretty reliable and relatively easy to work on. It was really on the later German tanks, starting from the Panther on, that were unreliable. And even then it wasn't so much due to them being tanks but because they were too heavy for their engines/transmissions/final drives. In the case of the Tiger, it's engine, transmission, and final drive were all chosen for the Tiger when it was originally supposed to be a much lighter tank.Then when the Tiger II came out, they kept all of those parts the same even though it was even heavier still.
The Sherman was a reliable tank. The mechanics of it were easily repaired. The repair/recovery teams put disabled/shell-shot Sherman tanks back into service at an admirable rate of returns. No Sherman could handle a direct hit from a German 88mm gun without serious damage. Tank tracks were a weak point, but the disability of the tube's sight computer required major repairs.. Any damage to the computer required a long term service time. The Sherman's main strength to the U.S. Army was the sheer numbers produced. But then, that was a strong point of any American equipment - our industrial capacity to manufacture, ship, and re-equip any losses to the combat theater. Thank God for a capitalism economy.
Back when the American Heros Channel was The Military Channel they had a series “Tank Overhaul.” On one German tank someone was restoring (less armament, of course) all the final drive bolts were found to be finger tight. Lax oversight of Jewish slave labor, apparently. They just hadn’t failed before something else stopped it, but that tank wouldn’t have lasted long anyway.
@@kennethjackson7574 In the case of the Tiger, they weren't expected to go long before needing servicing by design. Since they were meant to be break through tanks the idea was they'd break through the event lines then pulled back for servicing while the Panthers & PzKpw IVs would push on. Of course as Germany went on the defensive & started to retreat from Russia, the Tigers had to operate continuously for much longer than they were intended to. Not that they were the most reliable of tanks to begin with.
@@Riceball01 And then there were Russian tanks that rolled out of the Stalingrad (formerly) tractor factory with no more than half a tank of diesel. No need for a full tank if the front is no more than fifteen miles from the factory!
@@nomadpi1 The Jumbo Sherman could take a direct hit from an 88 in the front. There is a photo of the hull of a Jumbo that shows the results of multiple calibers being shot at it. The 88mm definitely made a hole, but didn’t penetrate completely.
Thank you. A very good video. And I note you kept the aspect ratio right; too many do not try.
And I would have to go back and find the book where a US tank soldier noticed after a few hours in combat his pants were soaked - he had peed himself. And he was told that was quite common.
Finally, life for foot soldiers wasn't so great either. War is Hell, as General Sherman said. But sometimes it is necessary to save civilians from Hell.
A lot of these guys lost hearing, got burned, ended up with constipation etc. Imagine being buttoned up for 12 plus hours pissing and crapping into coffee tins. It was rough and even more brutal if you were 5'9 or taller. Losing friends when you bailed out then running/crawling for your life to avoid getting machine gunned. Everything is out to get you, bazooka/panzerschrecks/panzerfausts, mines, anti-tank guns, tanks, tank destroyers and fighter-bombers, some with rockets. No thanks, I'd rather take my chances in the infantry.
Oh, the smell .... the horrible smell. Like an out house on tracks
Infantry had it much harder
An old friend of the family married a young officer who was a tank commander in north Africa with the NZ second expeditionary force. He was KIA two weeks later. She never remarried. His story is partially covered in the book the 4 legged major. Steve Whitten.
Very cool 💯
My father was a Tank Gunner for the 752nd Tank Battalion, 5th Army under General Clark
My father was a tank retrieval mechanic in Europe during WWII. He told ZERO stories to me about this.
However, one of his brothers was a tank commander in Europe during WWII.
When we broke into Germany towards the end of the war, Uncle C and his tank entered Germany, after the Battle of the Bulge. As the commander, he manned a machine gun mounted outside the tank, where he stood (as the commander). He shot at the German solders defending their homeland with a ferocity only those men would understand, they fought bravely. My Uncle C had to fight them in order to advance. He saw many bodies, to say the least. Many, many of these bodies where of German boys, no more than 12 years old, killed by his machine gun.
His tank was captured, including him. He was put in a POW camp, at 6'4" tall weighing about 220#. He was liberated after the surrender of Germany, he was in a camp in Poland, weighing approximately 130 to 140#.
He made it home, only to take his life in 1952, as the horrors never left him. God Rest His Soul.
In the 1960's my friend's dad had a physical with X-rays. His doctor asked him "When did you break your back ?" He said "What !?!?" Apparently he didn't ever realize it, it was from bouncing around inside a tank during the war.
Idk how that would be possible when your back requires a lot of force to break. Id bet it fractured if anything.
As a retired Marine tanker, they are cold hard and noisy
Loved
My great uncle served in a Sherman with the 75mm cannon in Europe. More times than not, he wouldnt speak of his experiences, and when he did it was typically focused on the weather.
On one occasion he shared this story
"The Germans would retreat from a town and use there tanks as mobile artillery. We would have planes search for their location, but they were good at hiding the tanks when not firing at us. There were two things we knew which was the general distance away they probably were and the direction the rounds were coming from. In the end, they would send several of us to search and destroy the German tank/tanks. We would know we were close when one of our own tanks would explode. The Germans would take out one and another of us while we raced to try and get close enough that our own guns could be effective." He paused for a moment and said "By the time we were close enough that our gun was good against their armor, we had been in range of their cannon for a long time." Lastly he said "Often enough, no tanks would return, and they would send another group out to continue the fight."
On watching the movie "Fury" i can only imagine his words playing out in reality.
A former ww2 soldier I meet said he would never want to be in a tank and that he was always thankful when friendly tanks were around to protect them.
I had limited experience in the cav and I hated the dust and not being able see or breath half the time. I preferred to ride in an APC just long enough to get to the objective and dismount and fight on foot. After that I went Airborne, clean air and able to see.
Me grandpappy was a foreman on the production line for Tanks back in Detroit during the war. He wanted to enlist, but they said, "no, we need capable foremen to build these tanks. YOU STAY HERE!"
The machine at 0.50 is not a tank but is an M-10 Tank Destroyer.
Oh dear, he's gone for the sherman runs on gasoline = catching fire trope.
Shermans have had a bad rep for many years following World War II.
In hindsight however, they were excellent tanks.
Roomy and comfortable inside when compared to especially the British and earlier German tanks.
Armament was sufficient although armour was not the best, not the worst either.
German 'super tanks' like the Panther and Tiger were encountered very rarely because these could not be built in comparable numbers like the Sherman and more important, later German tanks broke down more often or ran out of fuel so they had to be abandoned after the Allied fighter bombers destroyed their supply vehicles.
Being a tanker meant you always had roof over your head. And if it didn't rain, you could sleep on top of the engine, which in most cases would still be warm. Tanks were smelly inside, either from fuel, oil or body odour but all of that was forgotten when you were under enemy mortar or machinegun fire.
Mortars and machineguns couldn't destroy tanks (or it would have to be the dismal Panzer I or II) so in such circumstances, any tank nearby offered a world of protection to supporting infantry.
I just do not see how the life of the average tanker would be more difficult/miserable than that of the regular Tommy or GI.
No trench feet, a guaranteed roof over your head during the night and when it rained, British tanks even had built-in water heaters so they could have tea without having to venture outside.
Compared to other tanks, Sherman tanks were highly reliable and efficient. And if you had the misfortune of actually encountering a 75 or 88 mm anti tank gun, the average soldier had (near) death experiences every time he encountered *any* enemy fire.
If could choose to be an infantry man or a (Sherman) tanker, the choice would be an easy one.
brit tankermen was asked to send ideas for new tank designs during WW2 all ideas was not used
the engineers read them all then gave the plans to the accountants with the result all ideas was not used
My dad was with the 823 Tank Destroyer Battalion in 1943.
My dad was in 756th td battalion, North Africa,Sicily,Cassino,Colmar,Salzburg didn’t talk much about it except with crew he kept in contact with carried shrapnel in his arm for rest of his life,great man
Narrators voice was loud and clear but the volume of the old fella giving his story was very quiet. And yes i was at max volume on my computer.
At least the tankies had day to day "luxuries" carried in the tank with them. Something the grunts could only dream of.
Of course being a tanker was hazardous, but the overall casualties of tank crews was lower than the infantry. The hard lesson that armies refuse to accept is that casualties of infantry won't be like those of tankers until they're inside a vehicle as well-protected as a tank, most of the time.
before i even watch. it was BAADDDD. I had a teacher who served as a tank man in WW2. A quick way to get a paddling was to say SPAM. The man was stuck behind enemy lines for a long time. And they only had SPAM to live on.
The hardest difficulty they faced was that there were so many damned hard difficulties.
Fires in the Sherman and other tanks of the time were set a fire more so from ammunition,no fuel. The burn rate of Sherman's was no more than most other tanks. After wet storage for ammo, the rate of fire in the Sherman went from average to much better and survivable
The myth that Sherman's were a death trap just gets repeated until it's fact. Most other tanks had very similar issues,but aren't talked about. You could escape a burning Sherman much easier than other tanks due to the well placed hatches. Other tanks had poor hatch design, and tankers just couldn't get out. Please watch the chieftains hatch and TH-cam. He has done a lot of primary source research on most tanks including the Sherman
Beauty of a movie!!
My Dad was an M4 tanker with Patton
My great uncle Bernard who was like my grandad and a Churchill Crocodile flamethrower driver gave it to me unvarnished when I said I was 16 and thinking of joining the army. “They gave us asbestos dog tags ‘cos it was the only way you could identify the bodies when a tank caught fire…”
It was way better being in a Tank than being infantry.
Please re-edit this video and greatly increase the volume of the speaker in the interview. His contribution is critical to your presentation, but he can barely be heard no matter how high I turn up the volume.
The hardest part of this video is hearing what the vets were saying.
Due to poor audio level.
at least they had better life expectancy during battle rather than foot infantry
Life expectancy is also something that should have been touched on in the video, good point
An old time IDF tanker once told me the biggest problem is that everybody shoots at you
I think when the tanks got hit and it penetrated it was bad, but when it got hit and did not penetrate, the spalling had to be terrible to the crews.
not only that but the vibration and noise too
The spall was what caused the most damage inside of the tank. There are cases where rounds punched clean through a tank and the crew survived because no one was hit.
@@counciousstream that being said a good chunk of crews would bail out after being penetrated
I think the constant fear of a direct hit would be agonizing. I wonder which theater was the worst and most dangerous for a tank crew?
Depends on which WW2 faction & by time.
Very true PYeitme, but it certainly was pretty bad for all sides involved
@@PremierHistory maybe 🤔, at least the Sherman seems legit overall.
I think the greatest difficulty of a WW2 tank crew would be having to go to the bathroom and everyone smelling it.
I think the worst was spare parts as in a lack of them. I say this as the tanks were constantly changing engine types and thus supply would have a really hard time get your particular tank the parts needed. The same can be said about ammunition for the main gun as it had several types and your 75mm maybe not the same 75mm shells in the supply column. So you wondered how long before you became an infantry man simply because your tank lacked parts.
Rather be in a tank, a LOT more tankers came home than infantry riflemen.
Please don't repeat yourself, we aren't idiots! 😉 watch your audio levels, first interview is hard to hear
The repetition of the main points belies the academic background of the producer. It's called teaching.
So basically, cramped conditions, toxic fumes and extended periods without moving. My question is how was bodily elimination handled? I assume you could eat fairly easily inside a tank but I cant imagine not being able to leave for a potty break due to a prolonged firefight or something
My Dad always got angry at his fellow tankers who crapped within a few feet of their tank. His point was when you stopped it could be for 5 minutes or 5 days. If it was 5 days it started to stink especially when it was carried into the tank on your boots.
@@manfrommeeteetse3880 yeah that would piss me off too, no pun intended. I would at least crawl a few meters out and "entrench" myself there
Iraq and afganistan is littered with MRE boxes that are full of crap.
The Sherman wasn’t that cramped
Where did you get the footage from the ww2 veteran’s interview please? I love to watch the rest
I have always wondered if tanks had "Bases"m that they went back to at night ?, or were they out in the open, exposed to potential enemy fire all of the time ?
Admittedly without having watched the video, however bad it may have been, it's hard to imagine it having been worse than that of marching infantry. At least tankers didn't have walk almost everywhere, sleep in the elements during snow or rain and had a good measure of protection from small arms fire and shell fragments. Given the choice between sleeping in a cramped, fart and BO filled tank, versus out in the open with no protection from anything, sleeping in muddy foxholes, a tank looks pretty good.
Almost no fatal Sherman fires were due to it’s petroleum burning but the ammunition propellant, like any burnt out tank, petrol or diesel (and all German tanks used Petrol too).
I was under the impression that being gassed by the engine was resolved near the end of WWI when a separate engine compartment was devised
I suppose I'm mistaken
US armored force KIA were 1400, compared to Infantry KIA of 114,000. That gives a pretty obvious ability to calculate relative suckage.
On the morning of February 26th, two Battalions of the 9th Regiment, 3rd Marine Division moved towards the area at the foot of Hill Peter. The jumble of rocks and blasted rubble at the foot of Hill Peter were the last major obstacle to securing the Motoyama Number 2 Airstrip. The assaulting Marines were quickly shredded by the machine guns of the emplaced Japanese. Supporting Sherman Tanks were no more successful and fell victim to Japanese anti-tank fire. Within minutes the attack was completely stalled. Three Sherman Tanks named Agony, Angel and Ateball were knocked out in the assault. Angel and Agony were burning wrecks, while Ateball was only immobilized. Near the tanks, crouched in shell holes were those Marines who had survived the withering Japanese fire. Lying in a crater in front of the Ateball was Corporal William R. Adamson, who had managed to escape from the burning agony. As the Marines prepared to rescue their brother Marines at the foot of the hill, a company of Japanese were gathering to rush forward and destroy the remaining Marine Sherman. Bleeding badly from a leg wound, Corporal Adamson nevertheless, stayed in the fight and signaled the crew of the Ateball and helped direct their fire at the various Japanese machine gun positions
It would all depend upon which tank in which theatre in which season as to how bad it was
Not being able to get out to urinate or defecate would be (for me) the worst.
YUP