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SNIPERSON THE EASTERN FRONT

D-DAY DEBACLE AT SLAPTON SANDS,NAVY ACE ALEX ARACIU, NAZI GIRLS, BOOK & GAME REVIEWS, AND MORE!+

CROSSING THE RHINE

MONTGOMERYSFinal Assault on GermanyLATE TO WAR

Pershing Heavy Tank

Air Combat OVER PEARL HARBOR

Deadly Kamikaze Assault

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WWII HISTORY

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Contents

Features34 Infamy in the Air

Despite the element of surprise in favor of the Japanese, American airmen rose to defend Pearl Harbor.By Tom Yarborough

42 A BDM Girl Comes to AmericaA young German girl enrolled in a Nazi youth organization, survived the war, and made her way to the United States.By Don A. Gregory

48 The Final OffensiveAlthough lives were continuing to be lost, German resistance in northern Europe crumbled in the spring of 1945.By David H. Lippman

60 Training Stalins SharpshootersHopeful snipers learned their trade before taking to the battlefields of the Eastern Front.By Kevin M. Hymel

62 Holding the Picket LineOn May 11, 1945, the destroyer USS Hugh W. Hadley survived a series of kamikazeattacks off Okinawa but was shattered in the process.By Michael E. Haskew

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Editor ialNicholas Oresko Leaves a Brave Legacy.

ON OCTOBER 4, 2013, NICHOLAS ORESK O PASSED AWAY IN AN ENGLEWOOD,New Jersey hospital at the age of 96. He had fallen at the assisted living facility where he livedand was in surgery for a broken femur at the time of his death.

Oresko was the oldest living recipient of the Medal of Honor when he died. He was a platoonsergeant in Company C, 302nd Infantry Regiment, 94th Division. The 94th had come ashore inFrance three months after the Normandy invasion and been involved in clearing pockets of Ger-

man resistance in northern France as Allied spearheads pushed east-ward toward the German frontier.

In December 1944, the 90th Infantry Division was pulled out ofthe line and replaced by the 94th in General George S. Patton, Jr.sThird Army, relieving troops that had been hard pressed duringthe recent Battle of the Bulge. The division occupied territory in theSaar, west of the fortified Siegfried Line opposite the German 11thPanzer Division.

On January 23, 1945, just five days after his 28th birthday, Mas-ter Sergeant Oresko was leading a platoon of GIs near the town ofTettingen, Germany. When the Americans encountered stiff resis-tance, Oresko sprang into action. Pinned down by machine-gunfire on both flanks, the patrol could neither advance nor withdraw.

Under heavy fire, Oresko rushed an enemy bunker, tossed in a grenade, and then finished offthose enemy soldiers who survived the blast with his M-1 rifle. Immediately, a second machinegun opened fire, wounding Oresko in the hip.

Oresko refused to be evacuated and resumed command of the platoon, advancing at its head.Again under heavy fire, he ordered his men to halt and moved forward alone against a secondGerman bunker. With another grenade followed up by rifle fire, he silenced the second bunker.

President Harry Truman presented the Medal of Honor to Oresko at the White House on Octo-ber 30, 1945. His citation read in part: Although weak from loss of blood, he refused to be evac-uated until assured the mission was successfully accomplished. Through quick thinking,indomitable courage, and unswerving devotion to the attack in the face of bitter resistance andwhile wounded, M/Sgt. Oresko killed 12 Germans, prevented a delay in the assault, and made itpossible for Company C to obtain its objective with minimum casualties.

Oresko had been wounded four times in the span of just a few minutes. Years later in an inter-view with the Philadelphia Inquirer, he said that he and his late wife had returned in 1952 to theplace of his heroics. It was covered with bushes, but it was a good feeling to visit the place, hesaid. It felt good, but sad.

His memories of that day long ago remained vivid, and the hip wound reminded him of it reg-ularly. After a while, youre numb ... I just did what I had to do, he commented, noting thatinstinct had kicked in during the fight. As for the wound, he remarked, I still sometimes havepain from it.

In recent years, Oresko had become a familiar sight, appearing at veterans events and in numer-ous parades. He had worked in the claims department of the Veterans Administration and retiredin 1978. In 2010, Bayonne School #14 was renamed in his honor.

When Oresko died, he had no immediate family. He lived alone. During his last days, current members of the military, local veterans, and friends stayed with

him. They had learned of the ailing heros condition when a friend wrote about it on Facebook.They came in tribute to Nicholas Oreskos heroism and sacrifice 69 years ago.

Michael E. Haskew

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ON JUNE 23, 1944, LIEUTEN ANT (J.G.) ALEX VRACIU POSED FOR A PHO TO WITHVice Admiral Marc Mitscher, commander of Task Force 58, aboard the aircraft carrier Lexing-ton. The two stood atop the starboard wing of Alexs Hellcat, the diminutive Pete Mitscherwearing his usual khakis and idiosyncratic lobstermans hat, Alex his flight gear. Dis-played between them, just below the Hellcats canopy, were 19 rising sun decalsemblematic of Alexs aerial victory count. Just one kill shy of being a quadruple ace,Alex, at age 25, was indisputably the U.S. Navys leading fighter ace.

Four days earlier, Alex had posed for a more candid shot. On June 19, flying hisGrumman F6F Hellcat as a member of Lexingtons Fighting Squadron 16 (VF-16),Alex splashed six Japanese aircraft in the space of eight minutes using just 360 .50-caliber rounds. Back aboard Lexington, he flashed a wide grin and extended sixgloved fingers for an image that became part of the legend and lore of the GreatMarianas Turkey Shoot during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. During the one-sided

I By David Sears I

American Ace Guerrilla Fighter pilot ALex Vraciu fought

along with Filipino guerrillas onthe ground and in the air againstJapanese planes.

daylong melee, U.S. Navy pilots and shipboardgunners destroyed more than 300 Japanese air-craft against the loss of about 30 of their own.

Though Alex now held the Navy ace lead bya comfortable margin, other equally aggressiveaviators were gaining. One still distant but fastclosing competitor was 34-year-old Comman-der David Dashing Dave McCampbell, thecommander of Essex-based VF-15. McCamp-bell had begun June 19 with two confirmedkills but had increased his total to nine by night-fall. And very soon, for a time at least, Alexwould be sidelined. A few days after theMitscher photo op, Alex and the other Fighting16 pilots stood down. Ferried to Pearl Harboraboard the carrier Enterprise, squadron per-sonnel boarded the escort carrier Makin Islandbound for San Diego and 30 days leave.

The Navy devised a number of possible gim-micks to showcase its returning top ace. Alex,newly promoted to full lieutenant, was offeredthe chance to fly a captured Japanese Mit-subishi Zero on a national tour. There wasalso talk of pairing Alex with Lieutenant CookCleland, a Bombing 16 (VB-16) Dauntlessdive bomber aviator, for a War Bond drive,each piloting the aircraft he had flown in thePacific. The ideas were intriguing, but Alexsmain goal was to get back into action. I keptsaying [with outsized fighter pilot swagger,Alex later admitted], I dont want to talk toa bunch of draft dodgers!

Meanwhile, Alex made full use of his leavetime. On August 6, he was feted with a paradeand stadium reception in his hometown ofEast Chicago, Indiana. More important, Alexfound, wooed, and wed Kathryn Horn, a girlhe had known since childhood. Kathryn hadblossomed into an incredible beauty duringAlexs time away in college, flight training,and then the war.

But not even whirlwind romance curbedAlexs impulse to return to the Pacific. After ahoneymoon in New York, he was posted tem-porarily to Jacksonville, Florida, where anaccommodating admiral interceded with Wash-ington to get him orders back to the fleet. The

need for fighter pilots was urgent.The Japanese Kamikaze threatwas emerging, and with theJapanese surface fleet mortallywounded, the Navy was bolster-ing fighting squadrons and scal-ing back on bombing and tor-pedo squadrons. Adding toAlexs personal sense of urgencywas the fact that he was no

U.S. Navy fighter ace AlexVraciu stands next to thecockpit of his GrummanF6F Hellcat fighter planeprior to a mission. On theHellcats fuselage are ris-ing sun emblems repre-

senting nine confirmed aer-ial kills. Vraciu finished the

war with 19 victories.


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longer the Navys lead ace. On October 21,Dave McCampbell surpassed Alex with his20th aerial combat victory. Three days later,Dashing Dave claimed nine more in an aer-ial combat environment that had evolved intoa shooting gallery.

Alex initially received orders to VF-19, thesame squadron that had replaced VF-16 justmonths before. But when Alex finally reachedLexingtons forward operating base at Ulithi,he learned a November 5 Kamikaze strike hadknocked the carrier out of commission and VF-19 was homeward bound. In his determinationto stay and fight, Alex benefited from a secondintercession, this time by Lexington com-manding officer Ernest Litch, who arranged atransfer to the newly arrived VF-20 aboardEnterprise. Alex was finally poised to return tothe ace race.

On December 14, 1944, Alex got startedwith two combat sweeps, his first since earlyJuly, around Luzons Clark Field, part of thecampaign to soften up Japanese aerial defensesbefore invading Mindoro, another majorPhilippine island. An early morning hopinvolved mostly ground strafing because therewere few Japanese aircraft aloft. Alex burned aNakajima Ki-44 Tojo parked at Angeles Field,a kill that did not count in his aerial total.

A second late morning hop was producingmore of the same, destruction of a groundedMitsubishi G4M Betty at Clark and two Tojosat Tala Field. Then, things suddenly wentwrong. While pulling out of his last strafing runat Tala Field, Alexs Hellcat took a hit. Oilstarted gushing out of a hole just above his oiltank and began spraying into the cockpit. Oilpressure dropped steadily. I knew that Id hadit, he recalled.

Alex climbed to 900 feet and turned west,following advice from the Enterprise intelli-gence officer, to get away from the lowlands inthe direction of volcanic Mount Pinatubo. Aftertrimming his aircraft and opening the canopy,Alex tossed items from his plotting board andflight suit pockets, things he did not want tohave on him when he reached the ground.

Climbing out on the wing, Alex clung impul-sively to the side of his Hellcat cockpit for a fewseconds, what seemed to him an eternity, sothat he could get farther away from the low-lands. It was about noon. He judged his alti-tude to be down to 400 feet. Finally, when theplane started to feel mushyabout to stallAlex let go, raising his hands as he tumbled free,hoping to fend off a blow from the leading edgeof his horizontal stabilizer. Alex, he remem-bered thinking, what have you got yourselfinto now?

Alex hit the ground hard. He had not evenfully swung in his risers or been able to turn fora landing going with the wind. Though jarredand dazed, he already had his mind made upthat I was not going to be captured. He drewhis .45-caliber pistol and readied it as he sawmen running toward him.

Knowing he was down in Japanese-held ter-ritory, Alex was conditioned to think that any-one he saw was the enemy. But these men hadtheir hands raised, shouting, Filipino! Filipino!No shoot! Fortunately, Alex held his fire. Inno time at all, they got me out of my oil-soakedsuit and helmet, stuck a straw hat on my head,and had me put on a shirt and a pair of pants[so tight that] I could only get the bottom twobuttons done up.

Their leader, a young Filipino guerrillanamed Luis Ramos, hurried Alex along. TheJapanese were in hot pursuit. Equipped withhis .45-caliber, knife, canteen, supply ofatabrine tablets, and a money package, Vraciubegan his tour as an American ace guerrilla inthe Philippines, all recorded in a remarkableday-to-day diary that he shared with thisauthor.

After conquering the Philippines in the firstmonths of the Pacific War, the Japanese madeabortive efforts to persuade the people toembrace the Greater East Asia Co-ProsperitySphere. Failing at this, the Japanese turned toarrests (for baneful action), punitive expedi-tions, and summary executions to stem mount-ing opposition. However, the roughly 7,000islands of the Philippines spread across 1,000miles of ocean made it impossible for the Japan-ese to garrison and control more than key pop-ulated towns.

At the same time, with the Philippine Con-stabulary demobilized, parties of maraudingbandits began looting the countryside anddemanding tribute from defenseless farmers.The local vigilante groups that formed to com-

bat these raiders eventually combined forceswith escaped American and Filipino soldiers tocreate the core of the islands ultimately sub-stantial resistance movement.

It was early 1943 before clandestine opera-tions mounted by General DouglasMacArthurs Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA)command could begin assisting and integratingmajor guerrilla commands. Clandestine pene-tration missions by American and Filipinooperatives identified four classes of units: thosebuilt around a nucleus of U.S. and PhilippineArmy troops; those of purely local originformed to combat uncontrolled banditry; thosethat were outgrowths of prewar political orga-nizations; and a few lingering bands of rovingoutlaws.

For most of the war, Luzon, with its heavyconcentrations of Japanese troops, infrastruc-ture, and counterintelligence was an island toofar. It was not until mid-1944 that SWPAagents managed to contact American guerrillacommanders in southern and central Luzon,and it was September before cargo submarinescould infiltrate radio equipment and supplies.

Alex Vraciu, it turned out, had parachutedinto a disorganized and contested realm out-side the jurisdiction of two well-establishedLuzon guerrilla forces regional commands, U.S.Army Major Bernard L. Andersons easternregion and Major Robert Laphams centralregion.

According to Luis Ramos, Alex had landedon the Ramos family farm, part of the SouthTarlac Military District and just a short distancefrom the enemy-held town of Capas in TarlacProvince. Hoping to link up with CaptainAlfred Bruce, a U.S. Army MP and Bataanescapee turned guerrilla leader and South Tar-lac commander, the rescuers led Alex on an 18-kilometer trek, only to backtrack six kilome-ters when they learned that Bruce, fearing animminent Japanese raid, had retreated fartherinto the hills. The party was joined that day byFilipino guerrilla Major Alberto Q. Stockton,who told Alex of burying the remains of VF-20squadron mate Lieutenant (j.g.) D.N. Baker,who had also been shot down by flak.

By noon on the 16th, the group finallyreached Captain Bruces new camp, where Alexencountered another naval aviator, LieutenantF. Grassy Grassbaugh, a TBF Avenger pilotfrom Hornets Torpedo 11 (VT-11) who hadbeen shot down on November 6. They were inNegrito territory now, a region populated bysmall, dark-skinned aboriginal tribesmen thatAlex learned to call Balugas.

Bruces camp offered welcome comforts, achance to bathe and eat (chicken, duck, wild


Following a mission, Lieutenant (j.g.) Alex Vraciu (left) chats with Rear Admiral

Alfred Montgomery, recounting details of an encounter with the Japanese.

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pork, rice, corn, and bananas), and access tobooks and paper scraps for keeping a diary.Alex turned over his money package to Bruceand, along with the rest of the sizable band andtheir Baluga allies, hunkered down to await theexpected American invasion of Luzon.

Documents indicate that Bruces South Tar-lac District reported to an Army lieutenantcolonel named Wright via Wrights executiveofficer, another lieutenant colonel named P.D.Calyers. Bruces immediate band seemed orga-nized, but they were poorly armed and hadpractically no ammunition. Because of constantJapanese pressure, they could do little morethan evade and lay low.

Confirmation came from messengers thatMindoro had been invaded, and Al Bruce pre-dicted an imminent landing at Lingayen Gulf.Alex learned the bearded, gin-drinking Brucehad experienced his share of close calls with theJapanese. Once Bruce had watched as a fellowAmerican, a tanker lieutenant named JohnHart, shot himself in the head rather than becaptured. Alex also learned there was a heavyprice on his own head, one being paid by inno-cent Filipinos. Matter-of-fact reports told ofCapas villagers being killed by the Japanese inan effort to extract information about thenewly downed pilot. Under the circumstance,unless the Japanese got too close Bruce plannedto sit tight to await the American landing.Except for a December 22 bombing run by twodozen Army Consolidated B-24 Liberators, thenext days produced little evidence of a pendingoffensive.

Though he endured a Christmas Eve bout ofthe drizzles, and his atabrine supply wasdwindling, Alexs health and appetite remainedstrong. Alex received gifts of two fresh shirtsand two pairs of pants as tight as before andwith inseams five inches too short. More wel-come still was a ringside view of 45 minutes ofaerial dogfights between Army Lockheed P-38Lightning fighters and Japanese Jacks, duringwhich six aircraft, one American and fiveJapanese, crashed.

Alexs mood blended anticipation, envy, andfrustration as he watched the fighting overhead.On December 26, his diary reports that cloudsobscured dogfights (DAMMIT!) and recordshis disdain for the all too easily routed WILDEAGLES OF JAPAN as well as their ANTI-AIRCRAP ground gunners. Over the nextdays, Alex took four hopeful potshots with his.45 at formations of twin-engine Sally bombersflying directly overhead. He wrote that hecould well use a gunsight, mil reticule and sixfifties. Always wanted to see lots of Jap planes& am now getting the opportunity. But what a

way! After those four futile shots, he decidedto conserve his remaining rounds.

Alex the ace also displayed a proprietary andpredictably biased interest in how his own sidewas performing. At midday on January 4,1945, he watched in exasperation as just likeArmy fliers, the pilots of a dozen P-38s cruis-ing over the valley below missed a gloriousopportunity to annihilate 9 Jap planes flyinglow. Flew right over them.

Air action, both Navy fighters and Armybombers, was intense on the 6th and, despiterainy weather, on the 7th as well. At mid-morning on the 7th came the oddest sight Iveseen: more than 100 Army twin-engine A-26Invader bombers streaking low across the val-ley, apparently bound for Clark. Then, justafter noon, two dozen Hellcats bombed andstrafed outlying fields. Adding to the noise ofexploding bombs and chattering machines gunswas the distant but deep sound of artillery fireto the northwest, what Alex assumed was navalbombardment.

Artillery fire resumed early the next morn-ing. Bruce now reported that the invasion wasset for the 9th. Alex and Grassbaugh werejoined by another downed Navy pilot, injuredEnsign Allen Stover, member of a night-flyingfighter squadron (VFN-19) from the carrierWasp.

Concentrated naval shelling kicked off atmidnight and continued well into the morningof the 9th. Finally convinced that the momentwas at hand, Bruce decided to dispatch a guer-rilla contingent to link up directly with the

Americans. His intent was twofold: to assist theinvaders with maps and intelligence, but alsoto ensure that his men got their share of des-perately needed arms and ammunition. As Alexwas the only American fit to travel, he wouldbe going along as Bruces representative. Alexwas enthused and scarcely aware of the perilsahead.

Trekking north, the band skirted the foothillson the west side of the valley, using special cau-tion as they approached and crossed any roads.The guerrillas traveled in stages, picking upmore men as they went. They spent the firstnight at Major Stocktons satellite camp, wherethe party swelled to 75. The next morning theypassed within a few kilometers of CampODonnell, the terminus of the Bataan DeathMarch, where thousands of American and Fil-ipino prisoners were held in squalor. Afterreaching that days destination, a Tarlac Dis-trict camp run by Eliseo V. Mallari, Alexencountered a contingent of four more rescuedAmerican air crewman, including Ensign JamesW. Robinson, a VF-20 squadron mate who alsohad been shot down on December 14.

The four Americans declined to join Alexsjourney as the force, now totaling nearly 100,set off early on January 12 headed for the largeprovincial municipality of Mayantoc. This legtook them into the domain of American guer-rilla Albert S. Hendrickson, an Army privatebrevetted to captain, USAFFE. Alex wouldsoon learn how factions like Hendricksons jeal-ously guarded territorial prerogatives andstewed on internecine grievances.


Lieutenant Vraciu shows off a captured Japanese officers sword to fellow Navy pilots aboard a carrierafter his return from behind enemy lines on Luzon. After his Navy fighter was downed by antiaircraft fireover the Philippines, Vraciu joined a band of guerrillas and participated in operations against the enemy.


The crisis moment came in Mayantoc on Jan-uary 13. Alexs force had bivouacked in thetown plaza while he met with Mayantocsmayor and chief of police, a local guerrillamajor named Asuncion, and the American wifeof a native villager. The party was on its way tolunch when it was suddenly confronted by anarmed and glowering guerrilla. He had aJapanese pilots helmet on his head, half-cocked, and his rifle partly pointed at me,remembered Vraciu.

You Huk! he shouted.Huk was short for Hukbalahap, an anti-

Japanese movement comprised of CentralLuzon peasant farmers (the English translationwas The Nations Army Against the Japan-ese). Originally a prewar communist-orientedpolitical organization, Hukbalahap had joinedforces with the broad front of anti-Japaneseresistance organizations. They would eventu-ally mount a bloody post-World War II rebel-lion against the Philippine government, buteven at this stage the Hukbalahap, which heldsway over an area between Tarlac and Manila,had a reputation for fanaticism and terrorexceeding the bounds of the struggle with theJapanese. To some, Huk meant a righteouspopular movement. To others, though, it was aprovocation.

Alex instinctively grasped his service pistol,but he could see the armed man was as muchpuzzled as belligerent. No! Im an American!Whats going on here? Then, getting no answerbut sensing the mans indecision, Vraciu said,Okay, take me to your leader.

The party was following the man toward theplaza when one of the guerrillas in Alexs groupsuddenly ran toward him and was just as sud-denly felled by a burst of carbine fire. [T]heypractically cut this man in half and he bledto death there in ten, fifteen seconds.

Still under fire and equal parts startled andinfuriated, Alex (as documented in Eliseo Mal-laris and Alberto Stocktons written reports toAlfred Bruce) ran forward shouting, Stop fir-ing! Stop firing! The timely intervention likelyprevented a full massacre. As it was, when thefiring ceased, one of Bruces USAFFE troops laydead, another was wounded, and roughly aquarter of Alexs force had fled in panic.

The perpetrators of the incident turned out tobe a contingent from Hendricksons North Tar-lac District under a Filipino officer namedCleto. A parlay of sorts ensued, though itmostly involved shouted insults. Cleto pro-nounced Bruce a thief and a brute doing noth-ing but sleeping in the mountains. Hendrick-son not Bruce, Cleto asserted, held jurisdiction

over all of Tarlac Province.Not surprisingly, Cletos better armed contin-

gent prevailed. All of Bruces men except Alexand Stockton were disarmed and sent to con-finement in several Mayantoc homes. They weresubsequently released to return to Bruces camp.

Alexs quest for freedom now detoured intothe surreal. With Alex perched atop a smallhorse (which repeatedly turned to nip at hisriders legs), Cletos men departed Mayantocjust after midnight January 15. They marchedall night through countryside rife with Japan-ese to reach Hendricksons headquarters nearthe town of Gerona. Arriving there at mid-morning, Alex got his first glimpse of the SouthTarlac commander. The impression was notgood: Capt. H. a drunkard all right. Big blowto boot. Hopped up on liquor and then sendsout men to attack.

The next uneasy hours only deepened Alexsfirst impression. Hendrickson and his unrulysubordinates lay passed out by midafternoon.Belligerent and often incoherent, Hendricksonruled with a heavy, impulsive hand. He wasliving like a Capone off the land, threateningto betray Filipinos who did not meet demandsfor food and liquor as pro-Jap when theAmericans arrived. Meanwhile, Hendricksonseemed content to wait for MacArthurs


Gift Certificatesnow available!

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advancing troops, almost as if they shouldreport to him.

January 16 brought an alert. A sizable Japan-ese force was reported bound for a river cross-ing near Hendricksons camp. Armed with acarbine and 75 rounds of ammunition, Alexjoined a tense but anticlimactic night-long vigil.He was stunned by his unlikely transformationfrom aerial knight to jungle ground pounder.Im laying on my stomach on the side of thisriver and waiting for the Japanese. I said tomyself: Whats a good fighter pilot doing onhis stomach in the middle of this Godforsakencountry?

By the time the sleepless men straggled backinto Hendricksons camp the following morn-ing, word finally came by runner that AmericanGIs would be reaching Panique, a town northof Gerona, by midafternoon. Hendrickson wasat last disposed to move and determined tomake a grand show of it.

As it set out on the afternoon of the 17th andmoved north on the road to Panique, Hen-dricksons procession took on a quixotic air. Ahorse-mounted Hendrickson led the paradeAlex and a few others were also on saddlebackwith guerrillas on foot behind. FlagsAmer-ican, Philippine, and even guerrillafluttered,and a bugler trumpeted raucously. The clamor

inevitably attracted followers, mostly women,children, and dogs from the villages en route.Just outside Panique, the procession encoun-tered its first American GI, a bewildered check-point sentry from the Armys 129th Division,an Illinois outfit.

Cleared to continue, the parade finallyreached advanced elements of the 129th, and arelieved Alex Vraciu was finally in Americanhands. An American brigadier general appearedto personally debrief him, a process that wasrepeated three times during the next few daysas Alex passed through the lines.

In a day or so, Alex boarded the amphibiouscommand ship Wasatch off Lingayen. There heencountered a foreign correspondent who hadbeen aboard the Lexington during the Mari-anas campaign. The reporter recognized Alex,scraggly beard notwithstanding, and inexchange for an exclusive story promised to getword of Alexs safe return to Kathryn.

Eventually Alex reached Ulithi and reportedaboard the Lexington. With his Japanese offi-cer sword and pistol and his store of firsthandaccounts of Philippine resistance life, Alex wasan instant shipboard celebrity. During Lexing-tons transit back to Pearl Harbor, Alex, bask-ing in the celebrity, clung stubbornly to histrimmed beard, a sore point with the Lexing-

tons executive officer. He simultaneously clungto his determination to stay in the Pacific, some-how arranging a transfer to another squadronfor the inevitable carrier strikes on Japanshomeland.

It was not to be. Because Alex knew names,conditions, and circumstances from hisextended time behind enemy lines, his possibleloss to the Japanese could simply not be risked.Alexs aerial combat days were done, his acetally capped at 19. He was reassigned to theNaval Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland,for the duration.

Alex Vraciu ended the Pacific War as the U.S.Navys fourth-ranking fighter ace. He is nowthe nations highest ranking surviving aceamong all service branches. The Navys overallleading ace was David McCampbell, a Medalof Honor recipient with a final combat total of34 aerial kills, many of them in the closing daysof the war. Meanwhile, Alex, though a recipi-ent of the Navy Cross, has been nominated forbut has never received the Medal of Honor. nn

David Sears is a New Jersey-based historian,author, and former U.S. Navy officer. PacificAir, his most recent book, is a dramatic historyof U.S. Navy aviation combat during WorldWar II.



WE HAD BEEN ASSURED BY OUR OFFICERS BEFORE WE INVADED FRANCE IN1944, recorded Bill Harris, that our Sherman tanks could take care of any Nazi armor wemet there.

Harris, a tank gunner in the U.S. 2nd Armored Division, had been told over and over againthat the American M4 Sherman Medium Tank (the Allies main battle tank) was as good, if notsuperior, to any armored fighting vehicle in the Wehrmachts arsenal. Unfortunately for hundredsof U.S. and Allied tankers, including Harris, who had three Shermans shot from under him dur-ing the war in Western Europe, the nine savage weeks of fighting in the Normandy hedgerow coun-try and the following dash across France proved the Sherman was far from theequal of the German Tiger, Panther, or even the outdated Panzer IV.

Regardless of what the Dog Faces were told about their tanks before the Nor-mandy invasion, some of the high brass in the U.S. Army knew otherwise due toreports coming from the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Army was scramblingduring 1943 to come up with an answer to the new German heavy MK VI Tigertank and the medium MK V Panther. In mid-1942, even as the Sherman first enteredmass production (48,000 would eventually be manufactured between 1942 and1945), the United States Army Ordnance Department, in fits and starts, embarkedon a search to improve the M4. This quest started with the design of the T20 pro-totype intended as an improved version of the Sherman.

I By Arnold Blumberg I

Late to the PartyThe American M26 Pershing heavy tank arrived too late todramatically impact the course of World War II.

The main difference between the twoarmored vehicles was a lower silhouettedengine that made the T20s overall profilesmaller than the existing M4. In addition, theT20 was to be armed with a new 76mmM1A1 cannon, as well as fitted with 3-inchfrontal armor compared to the 2.5 inchesfound on the Sherman.

Other contenders as upgrades for the Sher-man appeared in the form of the T22 and T23.The former was an M4 with a smaller two-manturret. The T23, like the T22, was a mediumtank, but with an electrical transmission andcast iron turret able to house a 76mm M1A1gun. Both were finally rejected (although theturret of the T23 would be used in all future

76mm upgunned Shermans) fortwo reasons. First, their designsrequired entirely new and sepa-rate training, maintenance, andrepair procedures. Second, theSherman with its 75mm guneven by late 1943was thoughtby the Army to be adequateenough for modern tank warfare.Besides, as many military menargued, it would be courting

During field trials atAberdeen Proving Grounds,

an M26 Pershing heavytank negotiates a muddyhillside. The 90mm mainweapon of the Pershingwas comparable to the

88mm gun of the GermanTiger tank; however, the

Pershing reached Europeanbattlefields late in the war.


OrdnanceAll Photos: National Archives

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trouble to impose a new tank design on thearmored force with the 1944 campaign inFrance only months away.

As the Army Ordnance Department looked toimprove upon the existing Sherman model, oth-ers in the Army sought the M4s replacementaltogether. Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, who in1943 directed the buildup of U.S. forces for theinvasion of France and earlier was head of theArmys armored forces, advocated the replace-ment of the Sherman with a more powerful tank.

What Devers had in mind was the T26E1,Americas first heavy armored fighting vehicle.The T26E1 had greater firepower and armoredprotection than the Sherman. The new tank,weighing 46 tons, sported a 90mm M3 cannon,100mm frontal armor, a new type of gyrosta-bilizer, and a crew of five. Unfortunately, its 8-cylinder 500-horsepower Ford GAF engine andpowertrain were not powerful enough for atank of its weight. The engine was similar tothe one used in the Sherman even though thePershing was 26,000 pounds heavier. The resultwas that the machines powerplant was notalways reliable, and its maximum speed only20 miles per hour.

During discussions in September and Octo-ber 1943, Devers urged production of the T26be accelerated and that 250 of them be pro-duced immediately. Upon delivery he wantedthe new model deployed on a scale of one T26to every five M4s, much like the Britishintended to do with their 17-pounder mountedSherman Firefly tanks.

Deverss quest to replace the M4 with theT26 was greatly hindered by a number of fac-tors. First, the officers of the only two U.S.Army tank divisions to have seen combat in thewar up to that point, the 1st and 2nd ArmoredDivisions, could not come to a consensus as towhether it would be more appropriate to gowith a upgraded Sherman like the T23 or witha new heavy tank like the T26.

Second, Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, head of U.S.Army Ground Forces, opposed the heavy tankconcept. He had fathered the tank destroyerdoctrine for the U.S. Army, which stated thatenemy armor would be taken care of by tankdestroyers such as the self-propelled M18 Hell-cat, M10, and M36, while friendly armorwould be relegated to supporting the infantryand exploiting breakthroughs in enemy lines.He also opposed the introduction of the T26due to the need to prioritize war materialshipped to Europe over the 3,000-mile supplyline from the United States to England. Scarceamounts of shipping transport and time,according to McNair, could not be wasted ondelivering an untested weapons system at that

critical point in the war. McNair also argued that the Sherman

appeared to be superior to the German tanks,the Panzer MK III and early versions of the MKIV, commonly encountered up to that time.Even the appearance of the German Tiger Ifailed to impress McNair with the need tocounter that armored monster. He wrote Dev-ers in the fall of 1943, There is no indicationthat the 76mm antitank gun is inadequateagainst the German Mark VI (Tiger) tank.

McNair was the prime proponent of armingShermans with a 76mm gun, thus alleviatingthe need for the 90mm-toting T26E1. Lastly,he reasoned, because of the dominance of histank destroyer doctrine and the absence ofany tank versus tank combat theory in the

U.S. Army at the time, there was no guidanceavailable for the employment of heavy tankswhose primary responsibility would be to fightother tanks.

Pressing his view that the Pershing wasneeded, Devers went over McNairs head toArmy Chief of Staff General George C. Mar-shall, who overruled McNair in December1943 and authorized the production of 250T26E1s. But manufacturing of the tank,ordered in January 1944 and designated pro-duction model T26E3, did not begin untilNovember 1944. Between December 1944 andMarch 1945, a total of 436 units were pro-duced with over 2,000 made by the end of1945. In March 1945, the tank entered combatin Europe redesignated the M26 Pershing.

ABOVE: An M26 in action near the Rhine River in March 1945. The M26 Pershing heavy tank entereddevelopment with the U.S. Army in mid-1942, just as full production of the medium M4 Sherman tank

was getting under way. BELOW: One of the M26 tanks from the 14th Tank Battalion that supported thecapture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine on March 7, 1945.


By September 1944, the U.S. Army OrdnanceDepartment realized the critical need for anAmerican tank that could take on the GermanPanther and Tiger after reviewing battle reportsof armored actions that had taken place inFrance since the Normandy landings in June.They clearly revealed the superiority of the Ger-man machines over the M4. Yet it was not untilthe end of the year that the first batch of T26E3tanks, the first 40 off the production line, wereready to be committed to combat. Of these, 20were immediately shipped overseas and the oth-ers moved to Fort Knox, Kentucky, to undergoextensive field testing. The new tanks arrived atthe port of Antwerp, Belgium, in January 1945,and were the only Pershings in the EuropeanTheater. The next shipment was not expecteduntil April.

To hurry along the introduction of the newmachine and observe its performance in com-bat, a specialist team known as the Zebra Tech-nical Mission, under Maj. Gen. Gladeon M.Barnes, head of the Armys Ordnance Depart-ment Research and Development Service,arrived in Paris on February 9. At a meetingwith Supreme Allied Commander GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower, it was decided to getthe new tanks into action as soon as possible.To that end, all 20 Pershings were assigned tothe U.S. 1st Army and divided equally betweenthe 3rd and 9th Armored Divisions. On Feb-ruary 17 the tanks were transported to aninstruction facility near Aachen, Germany. Bythe 23rd, training for tank crews and mainte-nance personnel had been completed.

On February 26, one day after friendlyinfantry had secured a bridgehead over theeast bank of the Roer River between the townsof Julich and Duren, the U.S. 3rd ArmoredDivision broke out of the bridgehead andrushed eastward. The 3rd Armored, known asthe Spearhead Division, commanded byMaj. Gen. Maurice Rose, operated as part ofLt. Gen. J. Lawton Collinss VII Corps, U.S.First Army.

The carefully planned American assaultacross the Roer River was designed to clear theterritory west and up to the Rhine River. Themain effort was to be made by the U.S. NinthArmy in the north with Collinss commandfrom 1st Army guarding Ninth Armys rightflank as far as the Rhine. After this was done,VII Corps was to capture the German city ofCologne, then head south along the Rhine torejoin other First Army units pushing southeastto the Ahr River. Within hours of the AmericanRoer offensive, the Pershing would undergo itsbaptism of fire.

In its drive for Cologne between the Roer and



Rhine, VII Corps would traverse 35 miles ofgood tank country except for the area of theHambach Forest, which stretched betweenDuren and Elsdorf. Defending the vast Ham-bach wooded region were two depletedinfantry divisions and Lt. Gen. Fritz Bayerleinsad hoc panzer corps made up of the remnantsof the 9th and 11th Panzer Divisions and the3rd Panzergrenadier Division.

In its drive toward from the Roer, 3rdArmored, with the 13th Infantry Regiment, 8thInfantry Division, attached, formed five mobiletask forces, four of which were made up of onetank battalion, one armored infantry or stan-dard infantry battalion, and a platoon of tankdestroyers and engineers. The divisions left wasmade up of two such task forces under Com-bat Command B leader Brig. Gen. Truman E.Boudinot. Their immediate objective was theimportant road junction at Elsdorf.

February 26, 1945, was a cold day with rainfalling on the muddy secondary roads uponwhich the 3rd Armored Division was traveling.Boudinots Combat Command B was split intotwo elements, Task Force Welborn on the leftaiming for Elsdorf and Task Force Lovelady onthe right heading for the village of Berrendorf.The former group was led by Lt. Col. John C.Welborn. Within his 1st Battalion, 33rdArmored Regiment was one of the new Persh-ing tanks, No. 38, christened Fireball by itscrew. Fireball took the lead as Task Force Wel-born bore down on Elsdorf. Ironically, this Per-shing was originally one of Task Force Love-ladys complement of four attached toCompany F, 2nd Battalion, 33rdArmored Reg-iment. How it ended up spearheading Wel-borns advance has never been explained.

The deserted village of Elsdorf had been pre-pared for defense by the Germans with logroadblocks set up at each western approach,a few antitank guns on the outskirts of town,and some German soldiers deployed withinthe hamlet.

As dusk arrived, Fireball reached the edge ofElsdorf and halted in front of a log barricade onthe Steinstrass Road near a level railway cross-ing. Upon seeing the arrival of the Pershing, theGerman infantrymen panicked and quit theirposts. This encouraged the Pershings crew totry to cross the log barrier by driving over it. Asthe American tank tried to pass over thewooden obstacle, three Tiger I tanks fromHeavy Panzer Battalion 301, attached to 9thPanzer Division, entered Elsdorf from the eastand moved through the village toward its west-ern end. Two of the Tigers stopped halfwaythrough the village, while the third, No. 201,continued to scout ahead in the dark.

Meanwhile, as Fireball tried to barge its wayover the log roadblock, an American M4 droveup and stopped just behind the Pershing. Sud-denly, the night sky was torn by an explosionas the newly arrived Sherman was ripped apartby either German Panzerfaust or artillery fire.The flaming U.S. tank silhouetted Fireball per-fectly in the darkness, allowing the Tiger to firethree fast rounds at only 100 yards. All threeGerman shells hit the Pershing, knocking it outof action and killing two of its crew.

In seconds the first Pershing on the WesternFront had been destroyed in action. However,the jubilation the Tiger crew must have felt at itsvictory over an unknown American tank typewas short lived. Reversing violently to changeposition after shooting the American, the Tigergot hung up on a pile of rubble, its front still fac-ing the roadblock. After several vain attemptswere made to free the Tiger from its trap, theGerman crew abandoned the vehicle.

The U.S. attack on Elsdorf continued nextday with support from Allied fighter bombers.By noon, after fierce fighting, the village wascleared of the enemy. The afternoon of Febru-ary 27 saw the Wehrmacht launch a counter-attack to retake Elsdorf with four Tigers andtwo MK IVs leading the advance. Fortunatelyfor the Americans, Task Force Lovelady, under

Lt. Col. William B. Lovelady, was just to thesoutheast and in an excellent position to bluntthe German attack.

Pershing No. 40, under the command ofSergeant Nick Mashlonik, moved forward. At1,000 yards and while on the move, the Persh-ing killed a dug-in Tiger with four rapid highvelocity armor-piercing rounds. Mashlonic wasjust getting started. He remembered, Threeother German armored vehicles were leavingElsdorf and were on the road to my right. Iwaited until all of them were on the road withtheir rear ends exposed and then I picked offeach one with one shell each. Just like shootingducks. The sergeants achievement confirmedthe effectiveness of the Pershings firepower.

By the end of the 27th, Elsdorf was firmly inAmerican hands. This allowed division main-tenance to retrieve Fireball and take it back toDuren for repairs. The tank returned to dutyon March 7.

While one Pershing was lost at Elsdorf due toenemy action, another of Combat CommandB, 3rd Armored Division, experienced mechan-ical trouble and was withdrawn from the fronton March 1. It had broken down as it crosseda Bailey bridge over the Erft Canal four mileseast of Elsdorf. That same day, Pershing No.22, attached to Company A, 14th Tank Battal-ion, 9th Armored Division, was disabled by a150mm artillery shell southeast of Duren,killing its commander.

On March 6, Pershing No. 25, from Com-pany H, 33rd Armored Regiment, 3rdArmored Division, was knocked out of actionin a northern suburb of Cologne by an 88mmround fired from a German Nashorn tankdestroyer at 300 yards. The crew bailed outsafely, but the hit set off the stored ammuni-tion, burning out the turret. That same day, asthe Americans tightened their grip on Cologne,elements of the 3rd Armored Division nearedthe Dom Cathedral in the citys center. Onefinal short skirmish with a lone Panther tank inthe cathedral square started as the German hita Sherman tank, killing three crewmen. A Per-shing down the street immediately reacted,exchanging cannon shots with the German.The Panther burst into flames after being struckthree times. Two of its five crewmen weretrapped in the vehicle and burned to death.

While the tankers of the 3rd Armored Divi-sion, including the first Pershing tanks sent toEurope, saw fighting in World War II and com-pleted the capture of the city of Cologne, oth-ers of the original 20 machines rushed intoaction in February 1945 were experiencingtheir own trials in combat. On the morning ofMarch 7 in the Bonn-Remagen area about 13


ABOVE: Photographed after it was recoveredfrom the battlefield, the M26 Pershing tanknicknamed Firefly was the first of its kind

knocked out during World War II. BELOW: Sergeant Nick Mashlonik, right, poseswith an unknown soldier in front of a German

Tiger I heavy tank that was destroyed in combat by his M26 Pershing.


miles northeast of the bridge at Remagen span-ning the Rhine River, the new commander ofCompany A, 27th Armored Infantry Battalion,9th Armored Division, Lieutenant Karl H. Tim-mermann, was called to the command post ofthe 14th Tank Battalion, which was spear-heading the 9th Armored Divisions movetoward the Rhine. There the young junior offi-cer was instructed that he and his companywould act as the vanguard for the entireadvance, and that Company A, 14th Tank Bat-talion, with its new Pershings, would supporthis unit.

Timmermanns men soon started on theirway toward the Rhine and the Ludendorffrailway bridge that crossed it at Remagen. At11 AM they ran in to an ambush as Germaninfantry fired panzerfaust antitank weapons.In response, an M26 was brought to the headof the American column, where its cannon firenot only quickly dispersed the threateningenemy but forced their surrender as well. Oncenear the bridge at Remagen and seeing thatthe Ludendorff structure had not beendestroyed by the Germans, Timmermann con-tacted his superiors. At 1 PM Brig. Gen.William M. Hodge, leader of Combat Com-mand B, 9th Armored Division, arrived andordered Timmermann to seize the town ofRemagen and try to secure the bridge. Persh-ings provided fire support.

At 3:20 PM Timmermann moved up to thebridge and gave the traditional Follow megesture. As he and his 120 men moved onto thespan, a Pershing fired at one of the bridge tow-ers ahead of the assault team to silence Germanmachine-gun fire. Soon another Pershingopened up on an enemy machine-gun posi-tioned on a half-submerged barge moored 200yards upstream. With an American toehold onthe east bank of the Rhine, the first U.S. tanksrolled across the great river at midnight.Although the Pershing crews insisted on cross-ing first, they were not authorized since thebridge was considered too weak to support theM26s weight. As a result, the first U.S. armorto cross the river was the lighter M4 Shermanalong with even lighter tank destroyers.

With World War II in Europe nearing its con-clusion, the Pershing tank displayed one lastexample of its battlefield prowess. On April 21,1945, near the town of Dessau, Germany, atthe junction of the Mulde and Elbe Rivers, atank versus tank contest occurred. It was trulya heavyweight bout. An American Super Per-shing slugged it out with a German King Tiger.

The U.S. tank was manned by an experiencedcrew under the command of Staff SergeantJoseph Matira of Massachusetts. The brave and

capable noncommissioned officer had oneweakness. He was severely claustrophobic, andduring any fighting he usually stood up in theturret of his vehicle firing the tanks .50-calibermachine gun. Although this habit exposed himto enemy fire, it allowed him a better view ofhis surroundings. His gunner was CorporalJohn Jack P. Irwin of Norristown, Pennsyl-vania. Matria had been in combat for ninestraight months, while Irwin dropped out ofhigh school to enlist in the U.S. Army in 1944.The 18-year-old Irwin was sent to Fort Knox,Kentucky, qualifying as a tank gunner. Whileat that station he worked on some of the 20new Pershing tanks sent there for testing.

Matira and Irwin were with Company I,33rd Armored Regiment, 3rd Armored Divi-sion. After joining Matiras M4 Sherman crewin March 1945, Irwin experienced a sustainedstring of combat actions. After driving 12 milesout of the American bridgehead at Remagen onMarch 25, Irwins tank was hit in the turret byenemy fire. As part of Task Force Welborn, onthe 26th Irwins Sherman dueled with German88mm antitank guns in the fight for the townof Altenkirchen. Moving 90 miles on March 28to the town of Paderborn, Company I fought avicious battle against German soldiers from theSS Panzer Replacement and Training Centerlocated nearby. There Matiras Sherman gotstuck on a heap of rubble and had to be aban-doned. On March 30 near the town of Ettelnin the Ruhr Valley, Irwins tank was struck byfire from an enemy self-propelled gun. Theentire crew bailed out, but the tank was notseriously damaged.

On April 1, Matira and Irwin were againfighting near Paderborn when their crewencountered a German Tiger I tank. The hitsMatrias tank scored merely ricocheted off theNazi tank. Finally, a high explosive shell forcedthe enemy crew to abandon the Tiger due tothe concussion.

After the fight at Paderborn, Task Force Wel-born sped on to the Weser River, reaching it onApril 7. Three days later the Sherman was dis-abled by panzerfaust fire in the village ofEspchenrode near the Harz Mountains. Thatafternoon they received a replacement tank, aSuper Pershing (T26E4). This machine, whichhad been in action before, was one of only twodeployed to Europe during World War II. Addi-tional armor protection had been installed, andit was equipped with a new long-barreledT15E1 90mm gun that was designed to out-perform the high-velocity 88mm cannon foundon the German Tiger I and King Tiger.

The 90mm gun could successfully penetrate8.5 inches of armor sloped at 30 degrees from



a distance of 1,000 yards. The gun had a muz-zle velocity of 3,850 feet per second, 600 feetper second faster than the 88mm gun used bythe German Tigers. The new gun was alsofound to be extremely reliable and accuratewith good range. The tanks large tracks helpedit move almost effortlessly through rough fieldsand muddy terrain.

By April 12 a score of German villages andtowns along Task Force Welborns advance hadbeen fought over, captured, and left behind asthe Americans moved eastward. In many ofthese actions Madiras tank had been hit, butthe Super Pershing had sustained little damage.On April 14 Task Force Welborn crossed theSaale River heading for the Elbe River. As itrushed forward, Task Force Lovelady advancedto its south. The next objective for both com-bat teams, as well as the entire 3rd ArmoredDivision, was the city of Dessau. NearingDessau Matrias tank was ordered to backtrackfive miles and clear the American supply route,which had been interdicted by marauding Ger-man units. Using high-explosive and whitephosphorous shells, the Super Pershing clearedthe way and reopened the supply line.

From the 18th to the 20th, Task Force Wel-born stood down while bitter fighting occurredin the villages south of Dessau. On April 21, the3rd Armored Division initiated a four-prongedattack on Dessau. The Americans advancedfrom several directions, Task Force Hogan fromthe west, Task Force Boles and Task Force Orrfrom the southwest, and Task Force Welbornfrom the south. At the time the city wasdefended by soldiers of the Wehrmacht Schoolof Combat Engineers and some SS units.

Task Force Welborns approach to Dessauwas blocked by concrete antitank barriers,which the U.S. tanks were not able to breakthrough or climb over. Instead, the Americansused their guns to demolish the barriers, whichproved to be a slow process. Once over the con-crete obstacles, the tanks of Task Force Wel-born, closely followed by the half-track-mounted soldiers of the 36th Armored InfantryRegiment, fanned out along the city streets.

Matrias Pershing reached an intersection andbegan to round the corner. Waiting in ambushjust 600 yards away stood a German King Tigertank. The German fired at the M26 but missedits mark as its shell went high. John Irwinreacted immediately, firing a high-explosiveround at the enemy vehicle, which merelybounced off the German tank and thenexploded in the air. The Pershing cannon hadbeen loaded with high-explosive ammunitionsince the crew expected to be conducting com-bat against infantry rather than enemy armor

within the city. Irwin shouted for his loader to put an armor-

piercing round in the gun. Before he could shoot,the American tank was hit by antitank fire,which did no damage to the Pershing. It wasnever discovered if the shot that hit Matiras tankhad been fired by the Tiger or some other Ger-man weapon. The latter was most likely the casesince a hit at that range from a King Tiger wouldlikely have destroyed the U.S. tank.

Irwin then got off his second shot, which hitits target as the Tiger slowly moved forwardover a rubble heap, exposing the Germansthinly armored underbelly. The 90mm roundhit near the enemy tanks ammunition holdresulting in a tremendous explosion, whichblew the Tigers turret loose and killed the crew.The contest between the American and Germanbehemoths lasted only 20 seconds.

The next morning, the Super Pershing par-ticipated in repulsing a German counterattackin Dessaus center. The American encountereda Tiger tank that fired its 88mm gun. A Ger-man shot passed between the M26s tracks!Another German tank came on scene asMatria backed his vehicle into an entranceway that overlooked a road. As the GermanPanther approached, Irwin fired, disabling thePanthers drive sprocket and left sponson. Asecond shot slammed into the enemy tankstwo-inch side armor, igniting gasoline andammunition. The Panther became a flamingtorch, its wreckage blocking the Pershing untilit was towed away later. Within seconds,another German tank appeared, but beforeIrwin could get off a shot at the newcomer theNazi crew, out of ammunition, abandoned itstank and surrendered.

The Battle for Dessau did not conclude untilApril 24. It was the last combat action the Per-shing took part in during World War.

By mid-April 1945, a total of 185 new Per-shings had arrived in the European Theater. Ofthese, 110 served with the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 9th,and 11th Armored Divisions by wars end.There were 310 M26 tanks in theater on May8, 1945 (VE-Day), of which 200 were actuallydelivered for frontline service.

It is safe to say that due to the difficultiesinvolved in transporting the machines andtraining their crews, the only Pershings thatcould have seen sustained action were those 20experimental models introduced in February1945. As a result, since the Pershing arrived solate and in such small numbers, it had no majorimpact on the fighting on the Western Front. nn

Military historian Arnold Blumberg lives andwrites from his home in Baltimore, Maryland.



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SNOW FLURRIES SWIRLED OUT OF THE D ARKNESS OVER THE BAL TIC SEA. Chunks of ice floated on the water, and lookouts shivered at their posts. The German ship MVWhilhelm Gustloff plowed through the choppy water, her cabins, decks, saloons, and even herdrained swimming pool jammed with refugees.

It was the night of January 30, 1945, and disaster awaited her.On land, Soviet armies, enraged by earlier German atrocities, were moving into Poland and Prus-

sia from the east, avenging themselves against the military personnel and civilians they met. Flee-ing before them, refugees were streaming into the German-held Baltic ports, clogging the docks,and mingling with the wounded soldiers left by German ambulance trains. Horsesthat had pulled the cars that brought them and dogs that had tagged along wereabandoned and wandered through the city. The roads and railways to the westwere regularly being cut.

The only way out was by sea.The Gustloff along with other liners, fishing boats, cargo ships, pleasure craft,

and other vessels had been pressed into service to evacuate these refugees and mil-itary personnel, military technicians, and wounded soldiers in an operation that hasbeen called the German Dunkirk.

I By Chuck Lyons I

Tragedy in Icy SeasThe sinking of a German liner resulted in the greatest loss oflife on the high seas in history.

But the Gustloff would not make it.Not long after she began her journey west,

she was spotted by the Russian submarine S-13, which launched three torpedoes. All threehit the Gustloff, and within an hour she sanktaking down with her as many as 9,500 peo-ple. It is the largest known loss of life of anysinking in maritime history, a loss of life morethan three and a half times the total of those inthe sinkings of the Titanic and the Lusitaniacombined.

From January to May 1945, as the Red Armyadvanced from the east, German refugees, mil-itary and civilian,were being evacuated throughGerman-held ports on the Baltic Sea. Includedamong them were potential U-boat crews thathad been training in the Bay of Danzig,wounded soldiers from the Eastern Front, Naziofficials, military families, and other civilians.

The evacuation, codenamed Operation Han-nibal, was under the control of Admiral KarlDnitz, who later succeeded Adolf Hitler ashead of Nazi Germany. In that role, Dnitzwould sign the Allied terms of unconditionalsurrender on May 8, 1945.

In January, however, he had taken charge ofthe evacuation and had requisitioned ships ofall kinds, including 25 substantial cargo shipsand 13 liners. One of those liners was the MVWilhelm Gustloff. The ship had been built asthe flagship of the German Labor Front andhad been used by its Strength Through Joyorganization to provide recreational and cul-tural activities for German functionaries andworkers and to serve as a propaganda tool tout-ing the glories of German power.

She was 684 feet long, 77.5 feet wide,weighed 25,484 gross tons, and could accom-modate 1,465 passengers in 489 cabins. Shewas launched in May 1937 and was namedafter Wilhelm Gustloff, the head of the NaziParty in Switzerland, who had been assassi-nated in 1936. Gustloff had been an ardent sup-porter of Hitler almost from the beginning ofthe latters rise to power and came to be con-sidered a Nazi martyr after his assassination.

The Gustloff had been pressed into service asa transport ship during the Spanish Civil War,

was later converted to a hospitalship, and in 1940 was convertedagain, this time to a barracks shipfor U-boat trainees in Gdynia,Poland, on the Bay of Danzig.

By early 1941, the Sovietadvance westward had freed theNavys submarine fleet, whichhad been bottled up in Leningrad

The German liner WilhelmGustloff is shown in the

harbor at Hamburg, Germany, in 1938, the

year the vessel was com-missioned. The Wilhelm

Gustloff was torpedoed bya Soviet submarine withgreat loss of civilian life.


Insightakg-images/Interfoto

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and Kronstadt. The subs surged into the BalticSea and the Gulf of Finland with orders toattack any shipping they encountered. The Ger-mans, however, did not consider the sub-marines a menace, believing they were few andbadly handled. A greater danger, the Germansbelieved at the time, came from British torpedoplanes and bombers as well as from mines.

The Gustloffs original Operation Hannibalassignment was to carry to safety the 2ndTraining Division of submarine recruits, menwho had bunked on her during training. Shewas also to carry a number of women auxil-iaries, some of whom had served in antiaircraftand artillery positions to free men for the frontlines, and some wounded soldiers.

We considered the Wilhelm Gustloff a safe,comfortable trip. It was for this reason that itbecame the first official evacuation ship for ourgirls, Wilhelmina Reitsch, who was in com-mand of the 10,000 female naval auxiliaries inthe area, later said. Because road and railtransport was so dangerous at the time, it wasconsidered best to send these girls on the Gust-loff. The auxiliaries were all between 17 and25 years old. We carefully sifted through theauxiliaries and gave seaborne priority to thosewho had family or other responsibilities.

As the ship awaited her orders to load pas-sengers and leave Gdynia, there were dailybombing raids on shore, and the citys electric-ity and water systems had broken down. Thedock area was jammed with refugees andwounded soldiers trying to escape to the Westand cluttered with horse-drawn covered wag-ons that had brought them to the docks.

There must have been 60,000 people on thedocks, Walter Knust, the Gustloffs secondengineer, later said.

When the ships gangways were finally letdown, refugees charged the ship trying to getaboard, fighting for a place on what they con-sidered the only hope they had of findingsafety. The ship was finally pulled a few yardsaway from the dock to stop the rush, and thosewith precious boarding passes were taken byferry to the far side of the ship and up aguarded gangway.

About 1 PM on January 30, the Gustloff castoff. Aboard were 6,050 people: 173 crewmem-bers, 918 naval officers and men, 373 womensnaval auxiliaries, 162 wounded soldiers, and4,424 refugees, including numerous womenand children. It was windy and cold with hailbombarding the deck and the few passengershardy enough to be outside. Bursts of snowmixed with the hail. Hunks of ice could be seenon the surface of the sea.

Lifejackets had been provided for all, but there

were not enough lifeboats. Over the years, as theship stood at the dock serving as a barracks, anumber of the boats had been borrowed forother uses around the harbor. Lifeboats and raftsaboard the Gustloff could, if the need arose,accommodate only 5,060 people.

The ship was forced to stop almost immedi-ately after casting off, however, when it wassurrounded by a flotilla of small boats filledwith refugees pleading to be picked up. Somewomen were holding up their children. Givingin to the pleading, the Gustloffs officersordered boarding nets to be dropped from theship, and refugees scrambled aboard. No onebothered to count them, but radio officer RudiLange later said, I think I remember being toldby one of the ships officers to send a signal thatanother 2,000 people had come aboard.

That figure was probably an estimate at best,but if close it sent the Gustloffs complement toabout 8,000 people. Other investigators, how-ever, have claimed that number is actually quitelow and estimated that those aboard totaled asmany as 10,582 passengers and crew. The exactnumber will never be known.

The Gustloff then left Gdynia harbor accom-panied by the passenger liner Hansa, which wasalso filled with civilians and military personnel,and with two torpedo boats to serve as a mea-ger escort. The Hansa and one of the torpedoboats soon developed engine problems, how-ever, and were forced to turn back.

Over the years since the sinking, historianshave argued about whether the Gustloff was alegitimate war target and whether her sinkingshould be classified as a war crime. Despite thewounded men on board, the Gustloff was notlegally a hospital ship. She was armed with anti-aircraft weapons and was also carrying a siz-able number of military personnel. In addition,she was not marked as a hospital ship. She wasa legitimate target.

Oddly, she also had two lead captains, onecivilian and one military.

The military commander, Lt. Cmdr. WilhelmZahn, a submariner, argued that the ship shouldstay in deep water and make as much speed aspossible either on a direct course or, preferably,zigzagging. He was overruled by the senior civil-ian captain, Friedrich Petersen, who argued thatthe ship could not maintain her top speed forlong and was too large to hold a zigzag course.In addition, the ship was informed by radio of anumber of German minesweepers in the area,and Zahn recommended turning on the shipsgreen and red navigation lights to avoid a colli-sion in the dark. German intelligence had alreadyinformed the Gustloff that there were no knownSoviet submarines or surface ships in the area.


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That report of no submarine activity waswrong, and the running lights would make theWilhelm Gustloff easy to spot in the dark.

Meanwhile, the crowded conditions belowdecks had overwhelmed the ships ventilationsystem, making it oppressively hot. To makethemselves more comfortable, people beganremoving their lifejackets.

As the ship sailed 15 to 20 miles off Leba,Poland, the Soviet submarine S-13 was prowl-ing the area, and its commander, CaptainAlexander Marinesko, was preparing to slipinto the Bay of Danzig itself in hopes of find-ing targets.

I decided, he later said, that I would bringthe war to them.

As the submarine headed for the bay, how-ever, Marinesko noticed the running lights ofthe Gustloff and resolved to attack her on thesurface, slipping close on the shore [port] sideof the ship to fire torpedoes with greater accu-racy. Snow flurries and clouds obscured themoon and helped hide the silhouette of the sub-marine against the darkness of the shore.

They would not expect an attack from thatdirection, Marinesko remembered. Theirwatch would be concentrating on looking outto sea.

The S-13 worked itself around the ship andto fewer than 1,000 meters from the Gustloff.The torpedoes were set to run three metersbelow the surface. Marinesko fired.

Before leaving on patrol, S-13s Petty OfficerAndrei Pikhur had painted slogans on theboats torpedoes. These torpedoes ran silentlytoward the Gustloff with the first, which had

been labeled For Motherland, striking theGustloff near the bow. The second torpedo,marked For Soviet people, hit just ahead ofamidships, and the third torpedo, ForLeningrad, struck the engine room below theships funnel, cutting off electrical power. Afourth torpedo, For Stalin, hung up in itstube.

The Gustloff lurched to starboard and thensettled to port and began listing. Her nose wasdown. At first, some of the officers thought theship had hit a mine, but Zahn, himself a sub-mariner, realized the ship had been hit by threetorpedoes. The engines had been knocked out,and the ships telephone and public address sys-tems were down. Those lucky enough to havecabins were able to quickly get out on the slant-ing deck, but below people were screaming andrunning around while alarm bells and sirens bel-lowed. Water poured into the ships corridors,and panicked people waded through first knee-deep and then thigh-deep streams. Anyone whofell was trampled. The wounded and the manypregnant women aboard, lacking mobility, weretrapped below.

Those who made it to the boat deck foughtto get on the few lifeboats. Others jumped intothe water. Many of the davits holding thelifeboats in place were coated with ice, and theinexperienced crew struggled to knock themfree and launch the boats. Others boats cap-sized as they hit the water, dumping thoseaboard into the freezing Baltic, or snarled whenbeing lowered, spilling their passengers.

Meanwhile, the ships list to port continuedto grow, and people began to slip and slide


Photographed during sea trials in 1937, the Wilhelm Gustloff is accompanied by tugboats that rendered assistance entering and exiting harbors. Named for the assassinated leader of the

Swiss Nazi Party, the liner was pressed into wartime service.

National Archives


across the wet and icy deck into the water. Iron-ically, the PA system had been quickly repaired,and messages meant to reassure the panickedpassengers continued to sound.

The main radio system was not operating,and water was pouring into the engine room.An emergency transmitter, which had a rangeof only 2,000 meters, was pressed into service,but it could not reach the naval headquarters.Its messages were picked up by the escortingtorpedo boat, which then relayed them on itsmore powerful transmitter. But it transmittedthe messages for help on a frequency reservedfor warships. Valuable time was thus lost innotifying potential rescue ships.

Finally, the great ships bulkheads and water-tight doors gave way under the pressure of thewater pouring into her, and she turned over onher port side, spilling those people still on thelower promenade deck against the windows,then out into the Baltic as the glass gave way.Others were caught and drowned.

On the bridge, 45 minutes after the torpedo-ing and with the ship listing 25 degrees, Zahnwas overseeing the destruction of the shipspapers when steward Max Bonnet, wearing hiswhite jacket, politely appeared with a tray andglasses offering the officers on the bridge afinal cognac.

The bridge officers drank their cognacs andreturned to work. Shortly after that, the shipbegan her final slide to the bottom. Her boilerexploded, somehow reactivating her generatorsand lights as she slipped beneath the waves.

Suddenly it seemed every light in the ship hadcome on, said passenger Ebbi von Aydell, whohad been lucky enough to get aboard one of the

lifeboats. The whole ship was blazing withlights, and the sirens sounded out over the sea.

Another witness, Walter Knusts wife, Paula,also watched the Gustloffs last moments froma lifeboat.

I could clearly see the people still on boardclinging to the rails. Even as she went underthey were still hanging on and screaming. Allaround us were people swimming or just float-ing in the sea. I can still see their hands grasp-ing at the sides of our boat, she remembered.

In less than an hour, the Gustloff was gone,sunk in 144 feet of water. The Gustloffs escortboat and other ships in the area, including theGerman cruiser Admiral Hipper, converged onthe area and began bringing aboard as many ofthe Gustloffs survivors as they could.

In all, 1,063 people were rescued, includingboth of the ships captains, but some of those res-cued died later. In the panic that had followed thetorpedo attack, a number of people were tram-pled and killed, and others were killed outrightby the three torpedo blasts. The majority died,however, in the frigid Baltic water. The air tem-perature that night was no higher than 14degrees Farenheit, and ice floes were forming onthe surface of the sea. The actual number killed,like the actual number aboard the ship, isunknown but estimates range from about 7,000to as many as 9,400 people.

Depth charges were also fired, which mayhave killed some of the people floating andswimming in the area. The sudden movementsof some of the rescue ships trying to evade thesubmarine may have killed others.

The ships took many of those rescued west toSassmitz on the German island of Rugen off the


This artists rendering depicts the attack on the Wilhelm Gustloff by the Soviet submarine S-13 on the night of January 30, 1945. Loaded with refugees and wounded German soldiers,

the ship was torpedoed and went to the bottom of the Baltic Sea.


Pomeranian coast. There they were met by theDanish hospital ship Crown Prince Olav. Oth-ers drifted for hours before being picked up byother vessels and taken to shore. A group ofseven survivors, including one of the few navalauxiliary women to survive, was taken to Gdy-nia. Twenty-four hours after they had disem-barked, these passengers were back in the sameplace they had left and were taken to the militaryhospital there. Of the seven only two were wellenough to walk ashore under their own power.

The final rescue came at dawn when a Navydispatch boat was edging through the ice. Shehad all but given up on finding any additionalsurvivors when she came on a lifeboat with sev-eral people huddled aboard. Chief Petty OfficerWerner Fisch jumped into the boat and itappeared that all the people on it were dead,apparently frozen to death. Looking further,however, he found buried in the mass of deada baby who was still alive. Fisch took the childback to the dispatch boat and later adopted it.

After the sinking, Marinesko continued hispatrol and in February sank another liner, the14,660-ton Steuben, that was also being used inthe evacuation. The Steuben went down withalmost 4,000 wounded German soldiers, civil-ians, Army and Navy personnel, and crewmenaboard.

For its exploits in the Baltic, S-13 was madea Red Banner boat, and every member of thecrew was granted the Order of the Great Patri-otic War.

As the war wound down, Marinesko wrotea book, An Analysis of Torpedo Attacks by theS-13, which was never published. The book didanger many of his superiors with its criticism ofSoviet tactics and equipment. This, as well asMarineskos outspoken views and less than cir-cumspect behavior, led to his eventual dismissalfrom the service. Out of the Soviet Navy, hecontinued to get in trouble with the authoritiesand ended up being sentenced to a three-yearterm at a Siberian labor camp.

Zahn was called before a German navalboard to answer for what had happened, but asthe Third Reich collapsed no decision was ren-dered and no blame was ever placed for theships overcrowding or for the running lightsthat had made her so conspicuous.

Zahn spent the remainder of his life as asalesman, and civilian captain Petersen neverwent to sea again.

For weeks after January 20, 1945, frozenbodies washed up on the Baltic coasts.

Author Chuck Lyons has contributed to WWIIHistory on a variety of topics. He resides inRochester, New York.


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OPERATION BOLERO, THE MARSHALING OF ALLIED FORCES FOR THE PLANNED1944 invasion of Normandy, was in full swing by late 1943, and much of England had beenturned into a great armed camp.

While the British, Canadian, and Free French Armies trained in the east, south, and north,American armored, infantry, and airborne divisions were concentrated in the Midlands, the South-west, and southern Wales. Across the meadows and farmlands of Dorset, Wiltshire, and Devon,thousands of young GIs made their new homes in Nissen huts and tents, gripedabout warm beer and the weather, and made friends with local folk in teashops andinns during off-duty hours.

They learned battlefield tactics in wide-scale maneuvers and sweated throughgrueling route marches while long columns of tanks, jeeps, trucks, and half-tracksrumbled through ancient villages and clogged the narrow, winding lanes. Storesof equipment, vehicles, and fuel were hidden in woodlands and spread acrossfields. Massive preparations were under way for the long-awaited liberation ofWestern Europe.

The American soldiers training was made as realistic as possible, with an empha-sis on amphibious tactics because they and their Allied comrades would be land-ing in northern France from the English Channel, stubbornly opposed by seasonedGerman defenders. While many of the other Allied troops had little or no combat

I By Michael D. Hull I

Exercise in TerrorA pre-invasion exercise at Slapton Sands went horriblywrong, and senior Allied commanders covered up the seriouslosses and potential breach of D-Day secrecy.

experience, the vast majority of the Americanshad seen no action at all. Out of 15,000 men inthe U.S. 29th Infantry Blue and the GrayDivision, newly arrived and destined to land onOmaha Beach, only five had been under fire.

Late in 1943, the British War Cabinetapproved the building of two 25-square-mileassault training centers for the U.S. troops inDevonone on the scenic northern coastbetween Appledore and Woolacombe and theother between the ports of Brixham and Sal-combe on the southern coast. The centralstretch of the latter coastline, Slapton Sands inStart Bay, was earmarked for the U.S. 4thInfantry Ivy Division because it was strik-ingly similar to Utah Beach, the divisions

assigned invasion beach in Oper-ation Overlord.

From the summer of 1943onward, southwestern Englandbecame an American trainingarea. The U.S. Navy took overseveral bases in the Royal NavysPlymouth Command, and theStars and Stripes was hoistedover six new landing craft main-tenance and repair centers alongthe southwestern coast.

At public meetings early in

American landing craft millabout off the English coast-

line at Slapton Sands inpreparation for a D-Day

landing exercise. Note thebarrage balloon floating

above the vessels to wardoff strafing German fight-ers and dive bombers. Thedevastating attack at Slap-ton Sands, however, camefrom the sea in the form of

German E-boats.


Top SecretAll Photos: National Archives

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W-Wargaming FP LW14_Layout 1 11/7/13 11:53 AM Page 2

November 1943, officials of the six principalvillages in the Slapton Sands area wereinformed that about 2,750 residents were to bedisplaced and 17,000 acres of farmland placedunder U.S. Army control by December 20. Thatmonth, Royal Navy officers set up offices in thearea and supervised the evacuation of familieswho for generations had fished in the Channelwaters or farmed the surrounding countryside.

Full-scale practice landings for the D-Dayinvasion got under way in the early months of1944. One of the biggest rehearsals was Exer-cise Tiger, planned at Slapton Sands in April for23,000 men of Maj. Gen. Raymond O. TubbyBartons 4th Infantry Division and support ele-ments. The operation commenced on Wednes-day, April 26, when riflemen and tank, combatengineer, and medical troops were taken out intothe choppy English Channel. The first assaultwave stormed the broad Slapton beach, facingsimulated machine-gun fire and even fake deadbodies, at dawn on the 27th. The landing wasmarked by wild confusion, with troops arriv-ing in the wrong order, traffic jams, and a lackof senior naval officers to take charge.

The troops forming the second and thirdassault waves were loaded aboard eight hulk-ing, flat-bottomed LSTs (landing ship, tank)with massive bow doors, each of which couldcarry 300 men and 60 vehicles straight onto abeach. Men, vehicles, and supplies werecrammed into the 322-foot-long vessels, nick-named Large Slow Targets.

The opening phase of Exercise Tiger waswatched briefly on April 27 by General DwightD. Eisenhower, supreme commander of theAllied armies, General Bernard L. Mont-gomery, Allied ground forces leader, and Admi-ral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the overall D-Daynaval commander, but things started to go awryfrom the beginning. On that morning, RearAdmiral Don P. Moon, the U.S. naval com-mander of the exercise, postponed H-hour for60 minutes, and some units of the 4th InfantryDivision did not receive the message.

Royal Navy destroyers had been assigned toprotect the LSTs, but owing to an error in thepaperwork the landing craft and their escortswere on different radio frequencies and couldnot communicate. Further, one of the ships,HMS Scimitar, had to return to base at Ply-mouth after being holed in a ramming on April26, and her captain was unable to inform theAmericans. He asked for permission to rejointhe convoy but was refused. This left the rearof the invasion flotilla unprotected.

Commander Bernard Skahill was the U.S.officer responsible for the LSTs. Directing theflotilla from the bridge of LST-515, he had no

way of knowing on April 27 that he was to beprotected only by the destroyer HMS Saladinand the underarmed corvette HMS Azalea. TheSaladin was 30 miles away and did not catch upwith the LSTs until after 3 AM.

During the night of April 27-28, the heavilyladen LSTsinadequately protected and vul-nerableand two pontoons of Admiral Moons337-vessel Force U churned slowly throughLyme Bay, off the Dorset resort of Lyme Regis,heading for Slapton Sands, about 40 miles west-ward. Then, shortly before 2 AM while the flotillawas 15 miles off the Dorset peninsula of Port-land Bill, all hell suddenly broke loose when ninediesel-powered German E-boats from Cher-bourg appeared on the scene. They were likefoxes loose in a chicken coop.

Painted black and almost invisible, theraiders screamed across the dark water amongthe landing ships and fired streams of green

tracer shells that spread panic and chaos. Oneof the enemy boats fired two torpedoes, and asheet of flame leaped from LST-507. Fatallydamaged, she started sinking as some of the447 soldiers and sailors on board began throw-ing themselves into the sea. Men yelled, Weregonna die!

Lieutenant James Murdoch, who survivedthe death of LST-507, reported later, All ofthe Army vehicles naturally were loaded withgasoline, and it was the gasoline which caughtfire first. As the gasoline spread on the deck andpoured into the fuel oil which was seeping outof the side of the ship, it caused fire on thewater around the ship.

For Lieutenant Eugene Eckstam, the great-est horror was the screams of soldiers trappedin the high, roaring furnace fire where truckswere exploding on the LSTs tank deck. Com-mander Skahill saw the LST-507 inferno, but


ABOVE: LST 289 (Landing Ship, Tank) lies in the harbor at Dartmouth, England, following the devastatingattack by German E-boats during Exercise Tiger on the night of April 27, 1944. BELOW: In this painting bya German war artist, swift, maneuverable E-boats roll in heavy seas in the English Channel. On the night of

April 27, 1944, E-boats disrupted Exercise Tiger with torpedoes and gunfire, inflicting heavy casualties.

W-LW14 Top Secret_Layout 1 11/7/13 3:45 PM Page 32

he had no idea what had happened because ofan earlier order for radio silence. Worse was yetto come.

Fifteen minutes later, two E-boats closed inon another landing ship. Two torpedoesslammed into the side of LST-531, and shestarted listing to starboard, rocked by explo-sions. Her demise was even swifter than that ofLST-507. Emanuel Rubin, a crewman aboardLST-496, saw a gigantic orange-ball explo-sion, like something from the movies, a flamelike it had come from hell, with little blackspecks round the edges which we knew werejeeps or boat stanchions, or men. Injured menscreamed for help as they were thrown intopools of burning oil on the Channel surface.

Floundering helplessly in the black water andtrying to calm panic-stricken men, Navy Corps-man Arthur Victor watched ammunitionexplode from LST-531s bow like a Fourth ofJuly celebration and bodies flung in all direc-tions like rag dolls.

By now, confusion swept through theambushed LST flotilla. Exercise Tiger, a dressrehearsal for the Normandy invasion only amonth and a half away, had swiftly turned intoa nightmare of blind firing, panic, and suddendeath. One LST crewman said that the E-boatshad the landing ships trapped and hemmed inlike a bunch of wolves circling a wounded dog.

Confused soldiers shot at their own boats,believing they were firing at the Germans.Other GIs, unaware that they had been issuedwith live ammunition, thought that the explo-sions and flames around them were part of theexercise. Men drowned, and Sherman tanksand trucks sank.

Around 2:30 AM, an E-boat loosed a torpedoat LST-289. Another explosion lit up the Chan-nel waters, and the LSTs stern was severelydamaged, but her crew managed to keep herafloat. A Royal Navy task group led by thedestroyer HMS Onslow raced to the area, butthe E-boats eluded it.

By 3:30 AM, Commander Skahill decided notto risk losing more of his men, so he sent theremaining six LSTs back to port. Before doingso, one of his ships landing craft movedthrough the wreckage and picked up 45 sur-vivors. When dawn broke, hundreds of soldierswere found floating upside down in the coldChannel waters. Improperly instruct