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Tank Warfare
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McGinnis - March 20, 1944
I told them to keep their weapons in case some stupid fanatic German comes by. It was a quiet night. In the morning at daybreak, I said, “Leave your weapons here.” I and the two guys that were with me marched 120 prisoners up to the place where they took them to the prisoner work camp. I said, “That went smoothly, it could have been a disaster.” Well that’s why they have young people fight wars; they don’t have old people fight them.

McGinnis - September 11, 1944
He said Jack’s Tank spied a nest of Jap artillery and they were firing on it when the Jap’s fired back and it hit Jack’s Tank and it killed every one in the Tank but one – he was wounded in both knees. He said Jack died instantly. He said he didn’t have time to say a word. Jack was hit in the head I guess he never knew what hit him. He is buried in the 2nd Division Marine Cemetery in Saipan. I just think it is terrible but I can rest a little better to know he didn’t suffer long.

Del Bordner Interview
When we went into Austria I was riding on a tank. That was a day or so before the war ended. I was able to get my squad up there so we didn’t have to walk and I took this picture from on top of the tank.

William Gilliam Interview
I live up in Brumley, Missouri. I’ve tried to locate the rest of my [tank] crew all these years, and I didn’t know what had happened to them. When I punched the name in [the computer for] Lieutenant Moore…he got killed the next day and there was another boy from Missouri, who pulled me out of it (their tank), and he got killed ten days later, so that only left one. He wasn’t in the system so I don’t know if he made it back or not.

Joesph Keller Interview
I was in the first Marine division. Drove a tank. I felt very, very secure in there, I really did. I used to volunteer to go and pick up people that were pinned down. Take the trap door down and take him back where I left from. Drop the trap door and straddle some guy that was pinned down. He could crawl up the tank. I’d take him back and everybody cheer and say hooray, you know. I had a lot of fun doing that. I don’t know. I was 17 and 18. If we came to a bridge and they weren’t sure it would hold the tanks up, for some reason they would always ask me to check it out and make sure it would hold us. I never once felt insecure. I think that my mother and father prayed me back because we had a lot of near escapes.

Harry Marek Interview
I was going back to an aid station, and I saw Megglen. The fighting was fierce. That was the last time I saw him alive. I got to an aid station, and don’t know how. The building had a red cross on it, but that made no difference to Tiger Royal (the German tank). He lowered his 88 and shot two shells into the basement window as we were leaving out the back door.

Dee Paris Interview
Our first action with the 9th Armor division in Europe was during the battle of the bulge. We were sent. There are three combat commands in the division and each one of these had a battalion of tanks a battalion of infantry a battalion of artillery, which are the combat arms, and they had support by recon, engineers and signal and other people, medics and so on. So you’re complete within yourself. And these three combat commands were widely separated when the Germans attacked.

Fred Werrell Interview
There is a trigger on it and you actually just squeeze it. I don’t know exactly how accurate it is, but when we fired at the German tanks, the shells just bounced off. They had such good tanks. To knock the tanks out you had to hit the tracks and then they couldn’t move. That’s what we aimed at most of the time.

Rose Young Interview
Oh yeah. We could see it. Looking down the hill, we could look right down and see them. We could go on the roof, and you could see the abandoned German tanks down in the fields because it was when the Germans ran out of gas, it stalled out their tanks and they were all right down there. No, we could look out and see ‘em. We didn’t go to bed, we didn’t go back to our quarters. We stayed in that room for ten days. One woman and seven corpsmen. They were from the lab because they could get into vans, but my crew was lab technicians.

Tank Images
Pictures of a Soviet T-34 Tank and a Soviet T-26 Tank


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