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Spearhead : an American tank gunner, his enemy, and a collision of lives in World War II / Adam Makos.

by Makos, Adam, author.

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New York : Ballantine Books, [2019]

Smoyer, Clarence, 1923-

United States. Army. Armored Regiment, 32nd -- Biography.

United States. Army -- Officers -- Biography.

Tank crews -- Biography.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- Western Front.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Germany -- Tank warfare.

M26 (Tank) -- History.

Panther (Tank) -- History.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Germany -- Cologne.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Regimental histories -- United States.

9780804176729 (hardcover : alk. paper) :

0804176728 (hardcover : alk. paper) :

xiii, 393 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

The gentle giant -- Baptism -- "Bubi" -- The fields -- The foray -- Beyond the wall -- Respite -- The fourth tank -- Hope -- Something bigger -- America's tiger -- Two miles -- Hunting -- The fire department of the west -- Going first -- Victory or Siberia -- The monster -- The conquerors -- The breakout -- The American blitz -- The fatherless -- Family -- The giant -- The duel -- Getting home -- The last battle.

When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner's seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He's a natural-born shooter. At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division -- "Spearhead" -- thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit. After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art "super tank," one of twenty in the European theater. But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That's how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the "Fortress City" of Germany. Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent on a suicide mission to stop the Americans. As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence to the modern day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last time.

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