Commander Wallace sat on his stool looking through the slits in his hatch. Ahead he could see the rear of the lead tank in the platoon. He looked down over the gun to his gunner, James. He was looking through the gun sight. Directly bellow Wallace sat the young loader Henry Smith. In the front of the tank sat John Dowling in the driver’s seat and Wallace could hear the assistant gunner and radio man, Ross Copeland, listening to the chatter. They were all waiting for the order to head out. Wallace’s crew sat in a brand new M4A3E8 Sherman tank. Their previous M4A1 had lasted them since North Africa, they had shared so many memories in that tank. Then it all changed when a shot from a German 88 anti aircraft gun went right through their medium tanks thin side. Now they sat in this new tank unfamiliarly clean and the smell of steel and wood filled the inside, not the putrid smell of urine and sweat in the old. It also sported the new 76mm high velocity canon that could actually penetrate the front of the fearsome German Tiger tank from more than an inch away. This excited James but Wallace secretly didn’t yet trust their new tank. It was yet unproven. He was snapped out of this track of thought when the lead tank began to pull out of camp. The new engine revved as Dowling played with the new engine to catch up to their lead. Wallace turned around to see the other two Shermans in their platoon lagging behind but making progress. Wallace was the only commander of the E8 or Easy 8 as the new tank was affectionately named by the designers back in America. The others had the regular thin tracks and short low velocity 75mm canon. The 75 was an outdated gun for tank warfare with its low penetration value in the armor piercing department but when loading high explosive, the gun made quick work of soft targets. The ground ahead was a desolate marsh. There was fog all around discouraging allied air support. The Germans had blown up all the dams making the entire area of flooded and tank travel hard. Brown mud stretched from horizon to horizon only to be interrupted by fog or smoke.
The new wide tracks pulled the 36-ton tank along to towards their destination just coming up on their horizon, a group of houses that seemed to be abandoned but a scout earlier had noticed activity building up again. Wallace eyed it wearily through his periscope.
About an hour later they pulled into the town. Rubble lay in the street from bombed buildings. The tanks heaved up and over the heaps making a lot of commotion. They drove out onto a road that extended above the un-traversable terrain bellow. It was then that the lead tank drove over a mine destroying its track and buckling its floor. Dowling yanked the tank to a halt. Wallace looked behind just in time through his commander’s hatches slits to hear the blood curdling screech of an 88 shell flying through the error then the ghostly white explosion of the rear tanks ammo rack, as it turret rocketed into the sky before falling to the ground burning 100 feet away. Wallace’s crew and the other tank were trapped on together between the stuck tank ahead and what was left of the smoldering tank behind. Wallace quickly located the location of the shot. A quarter mile away to his right he made out of the boxy shape of a Tiger tank previously hidden in a garage. It began turning its turret slowing toward his tank. He quickly filled in his crew in on the commotion from outside. James began to turn the turret to face the Tiger. The tank behind them fired a shell at the Tiger but it merely just glanced off and ricocheted into the garage. By this time James had the gun sight on the tank but the Tiger was angling its armor making penetration even with the newer gun near impossible. He began to aim for the Tiger’s largest week spot: the chink of armor between the turret and the hull. James fired but he missed and the shell just embedded itself but not penetrating in the Tigers angled front. At any second the Tiger would be reloaded and a shell at this range from it would slice through his tank like a hot knife through butter. Smith loaded another shell into the breach as James readjusted the aim. A shot from the lead tank also pinged of the Tiger’s armor but the Tiger quickly finished it off with a final crippling blow, Wallace hoped their entire crew wasn’t still inside. James fired again, this time the shell hit home lodging in between the Tiger’s turret and hull. However, this only disabled the Tiger’s turret rotation. it could still adjust for aim by rotating the hull, which normally wouldn’t be a problem, but since Wallace and the other tank where trapped on the smell stretch of road the Tiger could take it’s time. Wallace quickly ran through his options. He radioed over to the other tank to fire a smoke round. It complied by blinding the Tiger in a fog of gray. He was just going to have it take his chances with the mud bellow. The driver slammed the tank of the road and into the mud. He felt the sinking immediately, Dowling pushed on faster. The tank behind them followed in their tracks firing another smoke round. They began to slowly make it across to what looked like firmer ground towards the Tiger. A silhouette of a house revealed itself through the smoke and mist thirty feet away. They slowly began to make their way toward it through the thick stifling mud. Once they were within ten feet the ground became firmer and Dowling hauled the tank out of the mud. Wallace began to map the landscape out in his head. This house was about 500 feet from the road they had come from. The houses firing location was about eight hundred feet from the Tiger’s original firing position. Stick his head out of the hatch above his head, Dowling could see another road forming behind the house but the smoke from the shells was beginning to evaporate.
“Should I head for the road or the behind of the house?” Dowling asked over the intercom.
“we take road and our friends behind can take the house.” Wallace replied. “Relay my message Copeland.”
Copeland tapped the message over to the take behind them and they replied with a double click meaning affirmative.
“Onward Dowling.” Wallace ordered.
The tank’s engine went back to it’s work labored-moan as they began to round the corner. There was the Tiger approaching the house about fifty feet to their right.
“Dowling, Tiger, to our right.” Wallace passed along on the radio.
Dowling turned his periscope, “I see it!” he replied.
“Strafe it, don’t let them turn there gun towards us,  James aim the gun!”
By this time the Tiger had seen them and was turning in the mud towards them. The turret still seemed to be stuck at thirty degrees from the tanks angling earlier. The Tiger was almost turned to the point where it could shoot Wallace’s tank but it was literally stopped in it’s tracks when a high explosive shot from the other Sherman blew off its track. Dowling finished his maneuver to a un-angled spot of the Tiger’s armor and James fired. The shot went into the blowing up the large tank’s magazine. There was a bright flash as chunks flew in all directions, pinging off the front of Wallace’s tank. Dowling brought it to an abrupt stop. As the fire dissipated it was soon clear that where the side of the Tiger had once been were no more, now it just glowed red forbiddingly shooting out sparks, the turret smoldered on the ground nearby. The barrel of the long gun was split like a banana, indicating a shot was in the breach at the time of the explosion. The Tiger’s crew had no chance of survival after the explosion of the magazine. Wallace’s justified it in his head with, neither did the other two crews of his platoon.
From behind the house, three figures appeared. James swung the turret around to great the surprise arrival but through the scope Wallace could make out the 3 gold inverse chevrons of a sergeant. These were survivors from the first tank before.
~~~~~
Wallace and the other tank returned back to base, haunted by the near death situation. However, for him this was a day to day occurrence, and had been for years. He did not spend the time to know the other crew’s names for they were constantly changing that it was too painful to get attached then lose one. Wallace didn’t care anymore all that mattered was his tank and his crew and no Germans could get between him and them.