“The 3rd Armored Division entered combat in Normandy with 232 M4 Sherman tanks. Death Traps, Belton Cooper’s aptly name book about American armored divisions in WW2 evidences this fact. It was for this reason that the Army thought the Sherman would be able to hold its own during the invasion of Normandy and into Europe. At the time they fared well against the German equivalent tank, the Panzer IV. Sherman tanks first saw action in North Africa in 1942. Perhaps it is more appropriate to say that it was the soldiers within these tanks that bore the brunt of the Sherman’s problems. On the contrary, this tank suffered from serious design flaws. The popularity of the Sherman was not due to its superior design, but its availability and mass production. It also became the main tank of the other Allied countries, except for Russia. The M4 Sherman was the primary tank utilized by the United States army during World War Two. Unfortunately, many Sherman operators of WWII were not this lucky. The steel walls of the compartment prevented the molten metal from striking the interior of the hulland ricocheting throughout the tank. The earlier modes of the M-4 “Sherman” medium tank did not store ammunition under the turret floor. A white hot eighteen pound projectile entered the empty ammunition rack under the floor. The interior of the tank was lit by a ball of fire caused by the terrific friction of the penetration.
Earl retells his experience with the Sherman in a 1983 letter to Lt Colonel Haynes Dugan, one of the G-2 intelligence officers for the 3 rd Armored Division. “Sherman Tank” RS 26/20/70, MMischnick Sherman, Germany, February, 15-26, 1945.Įxperiencing WWII from the inside of a M4 Sherman tank was famously dangerous. A Glimpse of the lives of American soldiers constructed with materials of the 3 rdArmored Division Archives, housed at the University of Illinois Archives Research Center.
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