How cold was it in the Battle of the Bulge? It was so cold that an assistant driver from Tennessee told George Bussell that when he got home, if it was the middle of July and he thought about how cold it was, he'd go out and build a fire. The mountainous roads going into Luxembourg and Belgium were so icy that 37 and 44 ton tanks were sliding all over the place. These are a few of the many stories about the Bulge told by veterans of the 712th Tank Battalion.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Sam and Joe
Sam Cropanese and Joe Bernardino were members of the same crew in A Company of the 712th Tank Battalion. They were both wounded at the Falaise Gap in mid-August of 1944. I interviewed Sam in Cape Coral, Florida, in 1993, and Joe in Rochester, New York, in 1994, 50 years after the war. Their story presents a vivid picture of life and death in a tank in World War II. Warning: Contains some graphic descriptions.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
"The Iron Cross and a Three-Day Pass": Habscheid
In episode 36 of War As My Father's Tank Battalion Knew It, Bob Rossi, Ed Spahr, Tony D'Arpino and Grayson Lamar offer their perspective on a battle that took place in Habscheid, Germany, a village in the Siegfried Line, on February 8, 1945. Warning: Graphic content.
Sunday, April 5, 2020
A couple of tankers talking World War II
Jim Knispel and Bill Whitley joined the 712th Tank Battalion as replacements in France. This interview, at the battalion's 2001 reunion, touches upon some of the significant events in the history of the battalion's A Company. Knispel was wounded when his tank was hit by a panzerfaust in a confrontation with SS troops who were defending the town of Merkers, where vast amounts of treasure were stored in a mine that would be depicted in the movie The Monuments Men.
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