Chapter 1 The Gentle Giant September 2, 1944 Occupied Belgium, during World War II Twilight fell on a country crossroads. The only sounds came from insects buzzing in the surrounding blue fields, and something else. Metallic. The sound of hot engines ticking and pinging, decompressing after a long drive. With silent efficiency, tank crewmen worked to rearm and refuel their tired Sherman tanks before the last hues of color fled the sky. Crouched behind the turret of the leftmost tank, Corporal Clarence Smoyer carefully shuttled 75mm shells into the waiting hands of the loader inside. It was a delicate job--even the slightest clang could reveal their position to the enemy. Clarence was twenty-one, tall and lean with a Roman nose and a sea of curly blond hair under a knit cap.
His blue eyes were gentle, but guarded. Despite his height, he was not a fighter--he had never been in a fistfight. Back home in Pennsylvania he had hunted only once--for rabbit--and even that he did halfheartedly. Three weeks earlier he''d been promoted to gunner, second in command on the tank. It wasn''t a promotion he had wanted. The platoon was in place. To Clarence''s right, four more olive-drab tanks were fanned out, "coiled," in a half-moon formation with twenty yards between each vehicle. Farther to the north, beyond sight, was Mons, a city made lavish by the Industrial Revolution.
A dirt road lay parallel to the tanks on the left, and it ran up through the darkening fields to a forested ridge, where the sun was setting behind the trees. The Germans were out there, but how many there were and when they''d arrive, no one knew. It had been nearly three months since D-Day, and now Clarence and the men of the 3rd Armored Division were behind enemy lines. All guns faced west. Boasting 390 tanks at full strength, the division had dispersed every operational tank between the enemy and Mons, blocking every road junction they could reach. Survival that night would hinge on teamwork. Clarence''s company headquarters had given his platoon, 2nd Platoon, a simple but important mission: guard the road, let nothing pass. Clarence lowered himself through the commander''s hatch and into the turret, a tight fit for a six-foot man.
He slipped to the right of the gun breech and into the gunner''s seat, leaning into his periscopic gun sight. As he had no hatch of his own, this five-inch-wide relay of glass prisms and a 3x telescopic gun sight mounted to the left of it would be his windows to the world. His field of fire was set. There would be no stepping out that night; it was too risky even to urinate. That''s what they saved empty shell casings for. Beneath Clarence''s feet, the tank opened up in the hull, with its white enamel walls like the turret''s and a trio of dome lights. In the bow, the driver and bow gunner/assistant driver slid their seats backward to sleep where they had ridden all day. On the opposite side of the gun breech from Clarence, the loader stretched a sleeping bag on the turret floor.
The tank smelled of oil, gunpowder, and a locker room, but the scent was familiar, even comforting. Ever since they''d come ashore, three weeks after D-Day, as part of this M4A1 Sherman had been their home in Easy Company, 32nd Armor Regiment, of the 3rd Armored Division, one of the army''s two heavy tank divisions. Tonight, sleep would come quickly. The men were exhausted. The 3rd Armored had been charging for eighteen days at the head of the First Army, leading two other divisions in the breakout across northern France. Paris had been liberated, the Germans were running back the way they''d come in 1940, and the 3rd Armored was earning its nom de guerre: the Spearhead Division. Then came new orders. The reconnaissance boys had spotted the German Fifteenth and Seventeenth Armies moving to the north, hightailing it out of France for Belgium and on course to pass through Mons''s many crossroads.
So the 3rd Armored turned on a dime and raced north--107 miles in two days--arriving just in time to lay an ambush. The tank commander dropped into the turret and lowered the split hatch covers, leaving just a crack for air. He slumped into his seat behind Clarence, his boyish face still creased by the impression of his goggles. Staff Sergeant Paul Faircloth of Jacksonville, Florida, was also twenty-one, quiet and easygoing, with a sturdy build, black hair, and olive skin. Some assumed he was French or Italian, but he was half Cherokee. As the platoon sergeant, Paul had been checking on the other crews and positioning them for the night. Normally the platoon leader would do this, but their lieutenant was a new replacement and still learning the ropes. For two days Paul had been on his feet in the commander''s position, standing halfway out of his hatch with the turret up to his ribs.
From there he could anticipate the column''s movements to help the driver brake and steer. In the event of a sudden halt--when another crew threw a track or got mired in mud, for instance--Paul was always the first out of the tank to help. "I''m taking your watch tonight," Clarence said. "I''ll do a double." The offer was generous, but Paul resisted--he could handle it. Clarence persisted until Paul threw up his hands and finally swapped places with him to nab some shut-eye in the gunner''s seat. Clarence took the commander''s position, a seat higher in the turret. The hatch covers were closed enough to block a German grenade, but open enough to provide a good view to the front and back.
He could see his neighboring Sherman through the rising moonlight. The tank''s squat, bulbous turret looked incongruous against the tall, sharp lines of the body, as if the parts had been pieced together from salvage. Clarence snatched a Thompson submachine gun from the wall and chambered a round. For the next four hours, enemy foot soldiers were his concern. Everyone knew that German tankers didn''t like to fight at night. Partway through Clarence''s watch, the darkness came alive with a mechanical rumbling. The moon was smothered by clouds and he couldn''t see a thing, but he could hear a convoy of vehicles moving beyond the tree-lined ridge. Start and stop.
Start and stop. The radio speaker on the turret wall kept humming with static. No flares illuminated the sky. The 3rd Armored would later estimate there were 30,000 enemy troops out there, mostly men of the German Army, the Wehrmacht, with some air force and navy personnel among them--yet no order came to give pursuit or attack. That''s because the battered remnants of the enemy armies were bleeding precious fuel as they searched for a way around the roadblocks, and Spearhead was content to let them wander. The enemy was desperately trying to reach the safety of the West Wall, also known as the Siegfried Line, a stretch of more than 18,000 defensive fortifications that bristled along the German border. If these 30,000 troops could dig in there, they could bar the way to Germany and prolong the war. They had to be stopped, here, at Mons, and Spearhead had a plan for that--but it could wait until daylight.
Around two a.m. the distinctive slap of tank tracks arose from the distant rumble. Clarence tracked the sounds--vehicles were coming down the road in front of him. He knew his orders--let nothing pass--but doubt was setting in. Maybe this was a reconnaissance patrol returning? Had someone gotten lost? They couldn''t be British, not in this area. Whoever they were, he wasn''t about to pull the trigger on friendly forces. One after the other, three tanks clanked past the blacked-out Shermans and kept going, and Clarence began to breathe again.
Then one of the tanks let off the gas. It began turning and squeaking, as if its tracks were in need of oil. The sound was unmistakable. Only full-metal tracks sounded like that, and a Sherman''s were padded with rubber. The tanks were German. Clarence didn''t move. The tank was behind him, then beside him. It slowed and sputtered then squeaked to a stop in the middle of the coiled Shermans.
Clarence braced for a flash and the flames that would swallow him. The German tank was idling alongside him. He''d never even hear the gun bark. He would just cease to exist. A whisper shook Clarence from his paralysis. It was Paul. Without a word, Clarence slipped back into the gunner''s seat and Paul took over. Clarence strapped on his tanker''s helmet.
Made of fiber resin, it looked like a cross between a football helmet and a crash helmet, and had goggles on the front and headphones sewn into leather earflaps. He clipped a throat microphone around his neck and plugged into the intercom. On the other side of the turret, the loader sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes. Clarence mouthed the words German tank. The loader snapped wide-awake. From his hatch, Paul tapped Clarence on the right shoulder, the signal to turn the turret to the right. Clarence hesitated. The turret wasn''t silent, what if the Germans heard it? Paul tapped again.
Clarence relented and turned a handle, the turret whined, gears cranked, and the gun swept the dark. When the gun was aligned broadside, Paul stopped Clarence. Clarence pressed his eyes to his periscope. Everything below the skyline was inky black. Clarence told Paul he couldn''t see a thing and suggested they call in armored infantrymen to kill th.