Another tanker's son brought a picture taken from German documentary footage of a disabled tank with 712th markings to the 1992 reunion, hoping to find someone who could identify the circumstances and the crew. Spoiler alert: The results were inconclusive. but the nearly hourlong conversation the image sparked went in several directions that give some insight into life as a tanker in World War II. The cover photo is a generic illustration taken from the battalion's unit history.
Podcast: Lieutenant Tarr's Platoon
Following is a transcript of my conversation with Clark Mazure, whose father, Frank Mazure, was a mechanic in the 712th Tank Battalion; Mike Anderson, who drove a Headquarters Company Sherman tank with a 105-millimeter cannon; Paul Wannemacher, who was a loader in Headquarters Company; and Les O'Riley, who was a company commander, at the 1992 battalion reunion
Mike Anderson: I forget what the number was. I know we were
with Sam Adair, if Sam Adair was in it, that's his
Clark Mazure: How did it get, did you abandon it one day, or
did you have to leave it at one time?
Mike Anderson: Yeah, we had to leave it that day because
they knocked the track off.
Clark Mazure: Oh, okay. In the shot that I could see in that
short piece of video, I didn't see a track was off, but it could have been on
the back.
Mike Anderson: If it's the same one, and if you saw, did it
have a short barrel on the big gun?
Clark Mazure: It's a 105.
Mike Anderson: It's the 105, that was the one, and they
knocked the track off. They hit the uh, I don't know whether you're familiar
with the tanks ...
Clark Mazure: I am.
Mike Anderson: The rear bogey wheel is where it hit, it hit
a glancing blow.
Clark Mazure: That's why I couldn't see it then.
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Mike Anderson: And it just, it unrolled the track right
there.
Paul Wannemacher: See, Aaron, this was the action that
Wanda's father was killed. [Wanda O'Kelley, whose father, Richard Howell, was killed on July 3, 1944, attended several reunions with her mother, Lillian Howell, Richard's widow]
Aaron Elson: No, really?
Paul Wannemacher: See, Wanda's father was in the tank right
behind them, when they got into this, they were leading the tank, Wanda's
father's tank was second in line, and then, do you know Ronnie O'Shea, Veronica
O'Shea, little gal from Chicago.
Aaron Elson: No
Paul Wannemacher: Okay, her husband Eddie was in the third
tank
Mike Anderson: The driver Zygmund
Paul Wannemacher: They looked back...
Aaron Elson: Ziggy, he's here, isn't he?
Mike Anderson: Oh, no.
Paul Wannemacher: He's dead, he was killed on the 24th of
December. But Sam Adair looked back from his tank and found out that Howell's
tank was burning, and that O'Shea's ...
Mike Anderson: O'Shea, that tank was backing up.
Paul Wannemacher: I don't know what the hell happened, but
he said O'Shea was hit too.
Mike Anderson: Zygmund was the driver, and he just ...
Paul Wannemacher: Well he flipped out.
Mike Anderson: Oh, sure he did. That's why, he said "My
tank's only got reverse."
Paul Wannemacher: Well he flipped out.
Clark Mazure: What day was this, do you remember?
Paul Wannemacher: Third of July.
Clark Mazure: The after action reports, there's no mention
of it in there. I'll take another look, maybe.
Aaron Elson: That's real early in the campaign...
Mike Anderson: That's the first day.
Aaron Elson: The first day? That's after Lieutenant Tarr was
killed, that was in a different ...
Mike Anderson: Lieutenant who?
Aaron Elson: George Tarr.
Mike Anderson: Line company?
Aaron Elson: He was A Company.
Mike Anderson: That day, we were on a hardtop, macadam road,
and we come by the farmhouse, they let us go through, the second tank, that's
where Howell was, got hit first, and that's when Sam pumped them out of the
window, and then we went into the orchard.
Paul Wannemacher: He said Sam Adair was the
tank commander.
Mike Anderson: Well, we had, in fact we had two tank
commanders, Sam Adair and Johnny Young.
Paul Wannemacher: Yeah, and Johnny Young. But he looked up,
apparently when he saw Howell's tank, in the window of the farmhouse or the
barn or whatever the hell it is, saw somebody there and he shot him and killed
him. With his pistol.
Aaron Elson: Who, Sam?
Paul Wannemacher: Sam Adair. And that's the action, go ahead
and finish the story.
Mike Anderson: After we passed the farmhouse, got into the
orchard, and there were trees around, we went back and forth around the trees,
and there was a German tank in the corner, and we were coming like that, he
shot at us a couple of times I guess, the first one hit the ground, I think the
second one knocked the track off, and that's when we fired, they fired back at
them, and our first round went over, and we were getting so close to him that
the gun I had, he just dropped the barrel of the gun as far as it would go and
let the next round go and it just caught the German tank right under the big
gun, right above where the driver was sitting.
Clark Mazure: Did it glance off the mantle and go through
the top of the hull?
Mike Anderson: No, it just, we didn't have antitank guns in
there, it was just the high explosive shell, and just concussion in that tank.
After we got squared away and settled in, you walked over and looked and the
driver of the tank was still in there, this is the German tank, he was dead,
the rest of them jumped out and went back. But they had another round in the
gun and that breach was almost closed completely, and if that had closed down I
think that's the one that would have got us before we got them. Just fortunate.
Clark Mazure: Was there an antitank round for your 105s, I
know you were primarily used as mobile artillery, weren't you, the assault
guns?
Mike Anderson: What do you mean mobile artillery?
Clark Mazure: Was there an antitank round, or a concrete
defeating round or anything that you could use against tank?
Mike Anderson: Oh yes, we, I think right after that or
shortly after, they came through with a different point on there, you could
unscrew the nose of the shell and then put an antitank one on there. I think
they called it HEAT.
Paul Wannemacher: High explosive anti tank.
Mike Anderson: Anti-tank.
Aaron Elson: You would do that in the tank?
Mike Anderson: No, before.
Aaron Elson: How did Sam Adair, what happened to his
shoulder?
Mike Anderson: When the tank was disabled, Sam went up in
the, rather than leave everything there he was gonna shoot all the ammunition
off. He just pointed the gun up and throw it in ...
Aaron Elson: You were with him?
Mike Anderson: Oh no, Sam was up there and I guess the
loader and the gunner was in with him, and he leaned a little too far to the
left and got his shoulder in the guard, the guard is behind him, and when that
shell went off, the recoil of that 105 hit him in the shoulder and there's
noplace to go when he's in that guard, and it just shattered the hell out of
that ... He came out of the tank himself but he was as white as a sheet of
paper. He went back, they sent him back to us, that's when Joe, Joe Drab took
his place while he was in the hospital. Joe Drab was from upstate New York. Joe
Drab is still around but I've never seen him.
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| 11 hours of interviews with 712th Tank Battalion veterans |
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Paul Wannemacher: I've corresponded with him once in a
while. Sam came back when, about Christmas?
Mike Anderson: It took him some time before he came back to
us.
Clark Mazure: Did you have power traverse in the turrets in
the 105s?
Mike Anderson: Yes, there was power in the turret.
Aaron Elson: And you were the driver of the tank?
Clark Mazure: How much ammo could you stow inside?
Mike Anderson: Geez, he's asking embarrassing questions.
This is what, fifty years ago almost.
Clark Mazure: I know the rounds are much bigger, so you
probably couldn't keep too much in there, thirty rounds, forty rounds maybe?
Mike Anderson: Thirty or forty, something like that, yeah.
Paul Wannemacher: 'Cause the M1A1 holds 44.
Mike Anderson: But the 105 was a good size gun. And it's two
piece.
Aaron Elson: This was the light tank or a medium?
Mike Anderson: Oh, no, no. This was the medium tank.
Aaron Elson: Four man crew or five?
Mike Anderson: Five.
Paul Wannemacher: Everything was the same except the weapon.
Instead of having a 75 they had a 105. I don't know any other differences, do
you?
Mike Anderson: Just the size of the gun.
Paul Wannemacher: Everything else, I mean the sighting and
everything as far as I know was the same.
Mike Anderson: Everything was the same, it's just your
ammunition racks were a little different, they were spaced a little more.
Clark Mazure: I'm gonna run down and get my after action
reports. Maybe they're not as complete as I think they are, because I don't
know if I have that day or not.
Paul Wannemacher: That was a big day, there were a lot of
guys killed that day.
Mike Anderson: Oh, yes.
Aaron Elson: And that was the very first day in combat?
Mike Anderson: The first day in action. Well, it's been a
while since we hit the beach, because I know, when we got off the LSTs and got
on the beach, got on the hardtop...
Paul Wannemacher: That was late June. Maybe the 29th or 30th
of June.
Mike Anderson: Yeah.
Aaron Elson: Where was Isigny? Were you in Isigny?
Mike Anderson: Oh, you'd have to look at a map. We went
through so many towns and villages and crossroads.
Aaron Elson: After that, where did you go?
Mike Anderson: Where did we go? We spent the night there
with the tank. We dug foxholes, and we spent the night there. When we stopped
we got up against the hedgerow where the German tank was positioned in, and
there were hedgerows, there were some Germans still behind the hedgerows, but a
lot of them took off. Then the next day ...
Paul Wannemacher: He was firing the 105, it's just like
shooting a machine gun at them, as fast as you could a round in he'd pump it
off and in comes another one.
Mike Anderson: I think that that night we stayed there with
the vehicle, and then the next day I think Service Company came in and they put
the tank on a flatbed or something, they pulled it back, patched it up.
Aaron: And then did they replace all the vehicles, all the
tanks?
Mike Anderson: Oh, this one got patched up. They welded the
bogey wheel back on, put another track on and that's it. Now why that sucker
didn't burn I'll never know, because you look at it, that bogey wheel was
bolted on, your engine is right there behind it, with I don't know how many
gallons of gasoline and oil and everything in there, when that German shell
hit, those bolts looked like somebody took a torch and cut them off, they're
red hot, somebody was with us that day and didn't let it burn. But they welded
it back on, it took a while, we got it back.
Paul Wannemacher: Who was your gunner and your loader, do
you remember?
Mike Anderson: I want to say ...
Paul Wannemacher: Johnny was in your tank, he was the tank
commander?
Mike Anderson: Johnny, sure, Johnny was the tank commander
but Sam rode with us.
Paul Wannemacher: Sam rode with you because he was the
platoon leader.
Mike Anderson: Yeah.
Paul Wannemacher: So then there were six guys
Mike Anderson: Six people
Paul Wannemacher: You had six guys in the tank then. Okay,
who was the bog?
Mike Anderson: What do you mean, bog?
Paul Wannemacher: The bow gunner.
Aaron Elson: The assistant driver?
Paul Wannemacher: Assistant driver, whatever you call him.
Mike Anderson: I think the assistant driver was DeFrancisco.
Paul Wannemacher: Aquilino DeFrancisco. He was your
assistant driver, he's dead.
Mike Anderson: He was the assistant driver. Our loader was,
it's either Rich or DeGaetano. I want to say the gunner was Carlton, I think
his name was Carlton. See, you weren't with us then.
Paul Wannemacher: No, no. I came in days later.
Mike Anderson: When we were at Fort Benning, Carlton was the
librarian.
Paul Wannemacher: Roy Carlton? Was it Roy or Ray?
Mike Anderson: I forget what his first name was, but he was
the librarian at the main post at Fort Benning, and then when we went on
maneuvers, he came with us, and we had him for a while. And then, I don't know
how long he was with us and what happened to him after that I don't know.
Paul Wannemacher: So when Sam got hit then apparently Johnny
got out of his tank along with you and DeFrancisco.
Mike Anderson: Oh yeah.
Paul Wannemacher: So the three of you guys were along the
hedgerow and DeGaetano and whoever the gunner was and Sam were in the turret.
Mike Anderson: That's right.
Paul Wannemacher: So that's the way it worked.
Aaron Elson: Did you later have other tanks ...
Mike Anderson: Oh, yes.
Aaron Elson: knocked out ...
Mike Anderson: Oh, yes. After they pulled this one away,
they took O'Shea's crew out of that, and took our crew and put them in that
tank, and sent that crew out somewhere, I don't know, back to headquarters.
Paul Wannemacher: Well was O'Shea's tank banged up or not?
Mike Anderson: No, O'Shea's tank didn't get anything.
Zygmund just flipped.
Paul Wannemacher: He went backwards, he got the hell out of
there.
Mike Anderson: That's right, he went back.
Paul Wannemacher: So then how did Eddie get knocked off
then?
Mike Anderson: Eddie didn't get knocked off.
Paul Wannemacher: Oh, I thought you said Eddie got knocked
off that same day.
Mike Anderson: Oh, no, no, they took that crew out and they
sent them back to headquarters somewhere, and they put our crew in their tank.
Now they sent us out again.
Paul Wannemacher: So it was only Howell that was killed that
day.
Mike Anderson: That's all. Howell was in Number 2 tank.
O'Shea was in Number 3 tank, and he went back, the tank couldn't go anymore. So
when they put us in that tank, we were working with the 90th, I forget which
regiment of the 90th, and we were going too easy I think, we're just plowing
right along, and we get down a hill, hit a hedgerow, and when we hit a hedgerow
I didn't hit it square, a little angle, and it pivoted. So I'm bellied.
Paul Wannemacher: Oh, good.
Mike Anderson: I'm bellied up in a hedgerow. Oh, that was
terrible, bellied. One of the line companies was with us too in this little
operation, so the line company backed a tank up and they were gonna, one of the
guys says get the cable off of the tank with the eye hook, we were within two
feet of hooking it up, guys from the 90th holler, "You better get your ass
out of there we're moving back! And you're the last ones down here." So
the kid heard that, he dropped his cable and got back in his tank and he took
off and here we are sitting there, so now what do you do? We can't move. He
said, hey, piss on you, fella, and away we go. That's why I say this Carlton
was our gunner, because he stayed in there and he was gonna shoot some more
rounds and then take the breach out of the gun.
Aaron Elson: When you're in the belly up position, can you
do that?
Mike Anderson: Oh, yeah, you could flip the breach right
out, so the gun is useless after that. So we, it was a hill and we run like
hell, jumped on the last tank that was going out, and finally Carlton, I guess,
got a little sense in his head and he came with us. And we're all sitting on
the back of the tank, and you're looking out, here comes the mortar shells,
pop, pop, and then POP. And there was another one that came close, and there
were five of us sitting on the back of the tank and out of the five there isn't
one that would tell you who was first in the turret. So then we got back to
headquarters ...
Paul Wannemacher: That must have been a pretty damn crowded
turret.
Mike Anderson: Oh, it sure was. So when we got back, the
colonel who was in charge of the operation, maybe it was our colonel, I don't
know, he got ticked off that we left a perfectly good vehicle down there. And
this was getting dark, at night time, he said here's a two and a half ton
truck, get your crew in the truck and go get your vehicle. Well, we didn't get
within three miles of that place. The Germans let us go in like this, and then
they pinched it off. We got out just in time. About a week or so later we go by
that same area, and we found where the tank was. They blew it up. A big hole,
and it flipped over, and the turret went one way and the rest of the tank is
upside down. Just like a bomb.
Paul Wannemacher: And that was originally O'Shea's tank.
Mike Anderson: Oh yeah. And we lost that one. So then when
we get back ours was patched up and we finished the rest of the skirmish in
that one.
Les O'Riley: I've got a question, if you remember, I've got
a copy of the TO (table of operations) in there, and I keep trying to remember
what the headquarters company, it's been so long ...
Mike Anderson: We had three assault guns and three tanks.
Les O'Riley: Yeah, we had three tanks. One of them was for the liaison air raid officer,
one was for the colonel and I can't remember who the other tank was authorized
for.
Clark Mazure: Maybe it was the executive officer, I don't
know.
Les O'Riley: Somebody asked me how many we had, and I said,
Well, now we had three tanks, or two tanks at least, and then we had three
assault guns and a couple halftracks in the assault gun platoon, but then we
had assault guns that were authorized to the medium tank companies, and at one juncture
we took those assault guns and put them, added them to the assault guns for
headquarters and we had an artillery battery. We did that in back of Metz,
firing one time as artillery or something, but I couldn't remember without
digging out that damn TO.
Mike Anderson: We had three regular tanks and three assault
guns. Then we had the mortar platoon.
Les O'Riley: They had four halftracks, three gun sections
...
Clark Mazure: It is in there, it's on the first page, right
there.
Paul Wannemacher: It's the very first entry.
Clark Mazure: That's the after action report.
Mike Anderson: The 359, okay. The guy must have been
standing on the wrong side of the tank. I would say it's the right track that
got knocked off, but that's a minor details.
Les O'Riley: Well this is what David Barker wrote in the
first sergeant's report which later was incorporated.
Mike Anderson: Yeah, but where did the first sergeant get
the info?
Les O'Riley: Well, recon platoon brought this back, but in a
company, the first sergeant, he would write down who reported, who was demoted,
who was killed, this sort of stuff, then this was all given by company to the
headquarters and they in turn consolidated it in a journal. So what I said,
this all probably came from something as
nebulous as the first sergeant's report, so it could have been the left side of
the tank or the right side of the tank, and he didn't give a damn, you lost one
track.
Mike Anderson: Like I say, that's a minor detail but that's
it.
Les O'Riley: I'm amazed that we kept, that we had any kind
of a ... Now we had a, Clark [Mazure] got a picture of German footage of this
German soldier, probably a sergeant, running by Headquarters 6, 105, something.
This is German footage. And the assault gun was kind of in a ditch on the side.
Mike Anderson: When you say in a ditch, you don't have our
90th book, do you.
Les O'Riley: No.
Mike Anderson: I'll tell you where that one was, too. When
we got off the LSTs, and got on the beach, got on the hardtop road, and then the
Germans had everything flooded, so when we were driving along the hardtop road,
coming back, opposite us, were the Ducks (DUKW)s. You know what a duck is...
Aaron Elson: What's a duck?
Mike Anderson: It's an amphibious ...
Paul Wannemacher: It's an amphibious personnel carrier.
Mike Anderson: They were coming back this way now when we
got off and the hardtop isn't too wide, you've got a shoulder, then you've got
a lot of water. Now when we're driving along, this Duck seemed like he was a
little over too far, and we were gong to have a little collision. So I moved
the track over a little bit, and I moved it just off the hardtop, and then the
whole bank gave way, and there we were.
Les O'Riley: You drove Headquarters 6? I can't figure out
how this German reel ...
Mike Anderson: That's when they were taking prisoners. Your
Rangers were on the beach and they had a coolumn of prisoners.
Clark Mazure: This guy's carrying a machine pistol, he's not
a German prisoner. You can see the pouches on his ...
Les O'Riley: There were a couple of places where this could
happen, now you remember ...
Mike Anderson: If he had a machine pistol and all, that's
not the area
Les O'Riley: Now you remember when we were up at Mayenne and
we had to pull back, and we had either a tank or an assault gun that was in the
ditch, and we had a medic, and we had some infantry out in front, and we had a
recon man who was hit, and one of the medics went out and got this guy back,
for that he got a Silver Star. And then we had to leave an assault gun or a
tank out there, we pulled back from Mayenne, went around through Laval and Le
Mans, we didn't have time, we just left the stuff there. That was another place
where we might have left a tank or an assault gun so that there could have been
a possibility of a German coming up and going behind it.
Aaron: Was there another time later on where your tank was
disabled?
Les O'Riley: I can't think of any point from that point on
where the Germans came in over where we were, except up in the Ardennes, and I
don't know of any incident up there where they pushed us back. We were always
pushing them. i don't know of any place where a German squad, platoon or
whatever would have been going by one of our vehicles.
Mike Anderson: The only other incident I remember when they
...
Paul Wannemacher: Let's come back to what you said earlier,
you and Johnny and DeFrancisco got out of the tank, went over in the hedgerows,
okay, while Sam and DeGaetano and ...
Mike Anderson: I would say Carlton ...
Paul Wannemacher: ...whoever the gunner was were firing the
rounds, okay, then Sam got banged up. Okay, so then they got Sam out of the
tank ...
Mike Anderson: Well he got up and then he needed help
getting down.
Paul Wannemacher: You stayed in the hedgerows ...
Mike Anderson: We were all in the hedgerows for a while.
Paul Wannemacher: And did you stay there that night?
Mike Anderson: Oh yeah, we spent the night there.
Paul Wannemacher: So then you had the tank within your view
that night. And then they came up and pulled it back the next day?
Mike Anderson: It was either the next day or the day after.
Paul Wannemacher: Then you were with it until they pulled it
back?
Mike Anderson: Oh yeah.
Paul Wannemacher: Well then it couldn't have been the
Germans running by there. That couldn't have been the incident.
Mike Anderson: We spent the night there.
Paul Wannemacher: What I'm saying is if there was a German
running by in this video with a schmeisser, you guys would have seen him if
that had happened, so that couldn't have been the incident then. Unless they
faked the film.
Mike Anderson: I'd like to see that film clip. I could tell
you better.
Clark Mazure: I have it.
Paul Wannemacher: He's got it with him.
Clark Mazure: The hotel doesn't have a VCR.
Mike Anderson: How about in here? Is there anywhere in here
where it showed that the, they took us away from you people and made a ...
Les O'Riley: Battery. An assault gun battery.
Mike Anderson: Well, it wasn't ... We were very mobile.
Les O'Riley: Remember Task Force Weaver and Task Force
Speiss(?). I talked about coming back from Mayenne, when we crossed the river,
and formed two task forces, one toward Lavalle and the other going toward Le
Mans, and we converged back over here with the infantry those two task forces
to pinch off the area there at Chambois, in that operation. In one of those we
had the assault guns massed as artillery in support, I distinctly remember
that. It fell to me to take the column of kitchens and everything else and to
make the big swing and loop and come in at the tail end of the column and I
went down about five miles and drove right through the German army that was
hiding out in the woods. I shot at them, but they never fired back.
Mike Anderson: We got tangled up with, oh it's like a recon
outfit. The only thing I can remember, there was a Greek lieutenant that was in
charge of this thing and he wasn't with our outfit.
Les O'Riley: Polish or Greek?
Mike Anderson: I think Greek. Maybe he was Polish. We had
infantry, we had anti tanks, we had light tanks, and we'd just get on those
autobahns or whatever and go, and if we could break through something without
getting tied up too far we just kept going. There was a time ...
Les O'Riley: Now that would have had to have been after we
crossed the Rhine River.
Mike Anderson: No, I think this was before the Rhine River
because we'd hit the Rhine River and then stop,
Les O'Riley: And then come back?
Mike Anderson: And then come back, and then hit another
point.
Les O'Riley: That was before the river crossing where we
crossed the river at Mainz. Now that would have been, let me see, what would
the dates have been ...
Paul Wannemacher: In March, wasn't it?
Les O'Riley: Actually, when we were doing that, that was
after Bastogne.
Paul Wannemacher: Because when we got into Triere it was
somewhere around the first of February, remember?
Mike Anderson: Before we went to Bastogne, where were we,
right outside of Metz. We stayed outside of Metz for a long time.
Les O'Riley: And then we got across the Saar river at
Dillingen.
Mike Anderson: That was an awful battle.
Les O'Riley: We crossed the Saar River at Dillingen. Above
us we had an area that was covered by some cavalry unit, now at that time there
may have been some screening probing actions above us that did not go across
the river.
Mike Anderson: There was a cavalry involved in this too.
This was a pretty good sized ...
Paul Wannemacher: Our recon outfit, we got attached
temporarily to a cavalry unit, but that was, I think that was either late
February or March, for about ten or eleven days, we didn't even know it, it was
all done on paper.
Les O'Riley: Now let's take a look at this portion of the
history: 21 March, the assault gun platoon attached to the sub task force
Wagnon, see, now see, in March we were way the hell and gone up into where we
were Oversaulheim(?), "crossed the
Rhine River at 2200," now that's where we crossed the Rhine River.
Now this again was with either Task Force Dye or Task Force Wagnon. And the
light tank company plus the assault gun platoon.
Mike Anderson: Oh yes, we had that and there were anti tanks
there. That's the time where, I remember, one of our little light tanks, 37
millimeter, hit a German 88 right in the barrel and peeled it like a banana. I
think you could stand out there for a million years and shoot at it, you would
never do it again.
Les O'Riley: Let's back up to where the TDs got involved in
this thing. Now this is back around the first part of March, this is when we
were doing a lot of the screening crap up here. "Task Force Spiess crossed
the Moselle," and this is when we were doing this probing action toward
the Rhine.
Mike Anderson: That's when we got detached from our outfit
and were in a task force. Oh, I remember that.
Aaron Elson: What happened then?
Mike Anderson: What happened after that, if we ran into
something we couldn't handle, we would try and consolidate until somebody came
up and relieved us, and then we'd pull back and try somewhere else.
Aaron Elson: Now if you say "if," obviously you
did run into some things.
Mike Anderson: We took...
Les O'Riley: This action here was a typical thing in that
probing, "and got eight prisoners, [sent] them back ..."
Mike Anderson: How many that didn't go back. That's why I
say that officer that was in charge of this little task force, what the hell
happened, there were a pair of 88s that were over a hill and, oh, I don't know,
we lost some light tanks and some, oh, he was a tank destroyer, he was with a
tank destroyer. That's when one of his tank destroyers got hit and he lost
quite a few people in there, and they look over and there's two huge 88s
focused in on them.
Les O'Riley: To clarify this for you, the TDs had better
guns, but
Clark Mazure: The turrets were open
Mike Anderson: Yeah, they had the rifle on them.
Paul Wannemacher: They had a better gun, they had 76s
Mike Anderson: But it was a rifle.
Paul Wannemacher: It was a 76 rifle.
Les O'Riley: When they formed these tak forces, they would
then send this thin-skin TD section along with our assault guns, and maybe a
couple tanks, whenever they could get them.
Clark Mazure: They had ammunition you couldn't too for those
TDs, it was hotter.
Les O'Riley: But that's the area when we're doing all that damn
stupid probing. Somebody got scratched with this hot ass needle that said we'll
form task forces. This task force stuff would drive you mad.
Clark Mazure: Did you have any of that - HEAP-T?
Mike Anderson: Oh, we had that.
Clark Mazure: That's a souped up round they put in the M-10.
Mike Anderson: Oh, you weren't here when I was saying ...
Les O'Riley: That's a tungsten carbide core in the middle of
this thing, and when it hit, the soft carrier would sort of stick to the mietal
and the tungsten carbide burns a hole in it.
Mike Anderson: We put 'em on our 105s. We unscrewed the end
of the shell and then you put ...
Aaron Elson: And what did the HEAT stand for?
Mike Anderson: High Explosive Anti Tank.
Clark Mazure: Is that a hollow charge like a bazooka round?
Les O'Riley: The armor piercing round that we got with a
tungsten carbide core.
Clark Mazure: That's a solid, then.
Les O'Riley: The tungsten carbide was about that big around.
The regular shell was about like this. Inside this is the tungsten carbide, so
when the soft metal hit, it would stick to the tank, it wouldn't ricochet, but
then the tungsten carbide then would bore on in, but if you just shot tungsten
carbide against the side of a tank, you'd get a lot of this, see, but with a soft
carrier on it, it would burn on through.
Aaron Elson: You'd
get a lot of this meaning it would bounce off?
Les O'Riley: Well, we were always bouncing off the German
armor. You know, it scares them inside when you hit it with a hammer.
Mike Anderson: That's like taking a .22 rifle and trying to
put a tank out.
Clark Mazure: The reason you never got better guns, I think,
in that book there it says the guy that was in charge of tank design, his name
was General McNair, and he was in artillery ...
Les O'Riley: Leslie MacNair.
Clark Mazure: He felt that tanks were supposed to be used to
support the infantry and if a tank ran into another tank, then you were
supposed to call for TDs and wait for them to get up there.
Mike Anderson: You'd be dead by the time they got there.
Clark Mazure: That was his official doctrine, and he
resisted upgunning the tanks, he said there was no reason for it.
Mike Anderson: If you fought the war by the book nobody
would come back.
Les O'Riley: I can tell you, if you sit in a tank long
enough under some of these circumstances and somebody came up and hit the side of that damn tank with a ball peen
hammer you'd just about come out of there. WHAM!
Mike Anderson: It's an awful noise when you get hit. I know
we got strafed a couple of times.
Aaron elson: Did you ever get hit with flak guns? Anti
aircraft, did they ever shoot those at the tanks?
Les O'Riley: Oh, hell, that little, it was about .50
caliber, .56 caliber, something like that, antiaircraft that they, and they
harassed us with those, they'd fire them into the trees.
Paul Wannemacher: Here it is, "On the 6, 7, 8 of
October the bulldozer tank and the tank section of one platoon of C Company
tanks supported the Second Battalion of 357 in an attack on Maizieres Les Metz.
The bulldozer tank cleared roadblocks in the town and fired direct fire at
enemy installations and personnel in the town." I was in that one. And
that's the one that, you remember the pistol ports that we had in the tanks?
Well, I was the loader at the time and I didn't know anything about, I forgot
all about the goddamn pistol port and it was wide open, and it was right at my
back. Right behind me, and this pistol port was open and we're going down
clearing out these roadblocks that they had set up in town, and the Krauts are
down in the basement and up on the second and third floor and just raining all
kinds of crap at us, and I don't know how they missed that hole, thank God, or
I'd have been gone. But that was it, Maizieres les Metz, "The bulldozer
tank cleared roadblocks in the town..."
Les O'Riley: What I mentioned, being over in Mayenne, one of
the things that happened to us, we take this bridge, we're gonna hold this
bridgehead in Mayenne, and hell, half the German army's right there ahead of
us. We just stopped and pulled in an orchard, I'm talking about the battalion
headquarters moved into this orchard, see, and the tank companies were
scattered out with these task forces whatever, and here we sit in this orchard,
and they set up there with those anti-aircraft, 20 millimeters, and there were
trees all around where we were in this orchard, and wham-wham-wham-wham-wham,
and it'd just be a barrage of this stuff coming in. And that little knife
cutting flak was all over the damn place. I mean, they punished us with that,
but that's what they had available, and they were making it hard to live there.
1992 Clark Mazure, Paul Wannemacher, Mike Anderson, Les
O'Riley
(?) Black powder...
Paul Wannemacher: Yeah, well wasn't that the one where Fetsch
was up there with his truck delivering gas at the time...
Les O'Riley: Was that when we lost Forrest, Sergeant Vinson,
he got the Soldier's Medal for pulling these people out of the damn building
that had collapsed around them.
Clark Mazure: Diorio got killed there. Private Diorio.
That's what it says here.
Les O'Riley: My memory's better than I thought it was.
Aaron Elson: Fetsch was wounded.
Paul Wannemacher: I'm pretty sure that's the one, because he
kept talking about this crazy boxcar that nobody knew was loaded with ammo or
something, and they hit this thing, he's got this whole six by six (truck)
loaded with gasoline.
Les O'Riley: Well, when you think about the Saar operation
and what we did, Clark, we sent gas trucks and ammunition trucks up to the
platoons that were with the infantry. Now the infantry's fighting out here and
there's a lull in the storm and here sits a tank up there and it's running low
on ammunition, and it needs rations and it needs water and it needs gasoline,
we don't pull the damn tanks back. We brought the truck up. And then these
heroes gotta get out of the tank and go back there and carry their gasoline up
there and load this thing up.
Mike Anderson: Five gallons at a time.
Les O'Riley: Yeah, five gallons at a time.
Paul Wannemacher: And Joe drove for A Company, and Emil I
think was for headquarters.
Les O'Riley: Yeah, and it wasn't parked 100 yards away, they
drove the damn truckload of gasoline up there behind the tank, throw so many
cans, went over to the next one, threw em so many cans, and the same thing with
water, and whatever else the guy needed.
Mike Anderson: We never drank water.
Les O'Riley: You had to wash.
Mike Anderson: You had the water can but you never had water
in it.
Aaron Elson: You a few minutes ago, Mike, were about to say
something about the task force, when you were ...
Mike Anderson: I remember some of it, I don't remember all
of it, we were with a task force for some time. And I don't know how many times
we got up to the ...
Aaron Elson: You were talking about the two 88s.
Mike Anderson: Ohhh, yes.
Aaron Elson: And then we changed course.
Mike Anderson: I shouldn't even tell you the ending. Well,
all right. They captured the German crew that was in the 88s, and, they don't take
prisoners out there, that's all.
Les O'Riley: We had too many incidents that happened up in
that probing action, for example, here a tank was, I can't remember who this
was, at night, they're stopped, and your tank crew, one guy stays in his
turret, alert. Everybody else is snoozing, but this one guy it's his turn to be
in the damn turret, alert and looking, and we had a man in the turret and his
arm was hanging down inside the guard around the breach of the gun, and a
German came up and shoved probably what was a potato masher grenade down his
tube. When it blew up, the gun recoiled. I can't remember who that was, of
course he had to be evacuated, it screwed up his arm. But this is the sort of
thing that ...
Clark Mazure: Sergeant Martin.
Les O'Riley: Anyhow, you had things that would happen.
Aaron Elson: I'm having trouble visualizing. He's sleeping?
Les O'Riley: No, he just didn't, you don't see everything,
it's dark as hell, mostly you're just listening. And this guy can sneak up,
hell, I've been in a foxhole and had 'em crawl right by me. And I've done a
little crawling by people in foxholes too. So as far as being able to do this
hell yes, if you're persistent enough, that's what you want to do, you can do
it. So the guy crawls in front of this tank, raises up real easy, shoves this
damn potato masher in there and about three seconds later, POW! That gives him
time to ...
Aaron Elson: And he put the grenade into the gun barrel?
Les O'Riley: The breach is closed, there's a projectile in
the, usually a high velocity, HE round, in the chamber, but since it had not
been fired and the safety pin had not come out, it wouldn't detonate. But the
breach recoiled and hit his arm.
Paul Wannemacher: Here we are: "April 3rd. The gasoline
truck attached to A Company driven by T5 Joseph Fetsch was knocked out by enemy
bombing. Fetsch was transferred to an evac hospital. One truck from the platoon
was sent to replace it. The kitchen truck from A Company which was knocked out,
it was necessary to call in an ammo truck from each A and C companies for
hauling gasoline."
Mike Anderson: I remember seeing one of the line company
tanks that was hit. Remember that little armor that they used to armor plate
that they would weld in the front, extra armor."
Paul Wannemacher: It was square, wasn't it?
Mike Anderson: They would weld it in front there. Well, the
Germans would shoot at the weld, and there was one line company somewhere, they
hit the weld and that shell was right here in the driver, it's still there, the
shell didn't go off, didn't explode, the shell just penetrated that. Got him
right in the ...
Les O'Riley: We got tanks, replacement tanks, that had been
hit, evacuated to ordnance, repaired and returned to us. It was kind of a damn
morale problem when somebody comes up to you with a tank right out of ordnance
painted all in green and all that sort of crap, and you look up there on the
side of that damn turret and there's a hole that big around, where they welded
in a plug, big deal, or down on the front where it's been hit, they put on a
one inch of armor plate down here slightly over the front of them, then you've
that one inch of armor seam sticking up on top of this. All sorts of stuff like
that but that's what we got back from replacement. Patch 'em up and send em
back up. When you get in one of them things you know the damn thing has been
hit one time, you wonder if they're gonna hit it again.
Aaron Elson: Was there ever a shortage of tanks?
Les O'Riley: Yes. When I took over A Company in the Falais
Gap, we were down to seven tanks, out of 17. Personnel wise I was down to where
I was using my cooks and cooks helpers, and I stripped the company headquarters
to man those tanks in the Falais Gap. And then we got replacements within a
couple days, and those people went back to cookin' or whatever. But in the
meantime Sergeant Vinson and I stripped the company headquarters, made us both
unpopular for a while. And lots of those cooks said "I can't do
that." Well, you learn how to fire that machine gun in basic training.
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