Tigers spotted on the Eastern Front!

[CWO Marc]

@UrJohn:

Yep! My great uncle, Jim, among many other courageous US tank crewmen in World War II, survived his tank getting blown up. They put him in another tank and sent him on into Germany.

He was a lucky guy to survive that, given how easily Shermans caught fire when they were hit.  There was a WWII joke – I can’t recall if it was a British or German one – saying that if you hit a British-manned Sherman with a hammer, the crew would scramble out before you had time to hit it again.

[Gargantua]

survived his tank getting blown up

Did they jump out Gi-Joe/Cobra style?

[hkytown1]

Yea, no one ever died in those cartoons, always jumped out or parachuted out!!! That’s why they where elite.
Do you remember the BAT robots destro made?  the Joe’s blew the piss out of those things.  It’s more kid friendly when robots are being destroyed.
Star Wars episode I took that idea as well.

[Yavid]

I heard the joke about Shermans was that the G.I.s called them Ronson (after the lighter) because they lite first time, everytime.

[UrJohn]

@CWO:

He was a lucky guy to survive that, given how easily Shermans caught fire when they were hit.  There was a WWII joke – I can’t recall if it was a British or German one – saying that if you hit a British-manned Sherman with a hammer, the crew would scramble out before you had time to hit it again.

He did mention that the tank was on fire when it got hit.

@Gargantua:

survived his tank getting blown up

Did they jump out Gi-Joe/Cobra style?

Actually, yes, he did. The other 3 guys in the tank weren’t so lucky. 1 was killed by the blast. A second was mortally wounded. And the tank commander jumped out first, and picked the wrong side of the tank to jump out on. Uncle Jim said he heard gunfire and never saw the commander again. He jumped the other direction and escaped by crawling into a nearby bramble thicket. He said he thought some Germans saw him crawl in, but they went on because he was way in there, stuck, out of sight, and unarmed. They had bigger problems than that. However, a couple days later when US forces pushed back the Germans in that area, theys cut him out, patched him up, and put him in a new tank.

[Yavid]

I would love to see Russian Shermans and/or Lees (American Lees too btw)

[Witt]

UrJohn: Do you know in which campaign, or battle, the incident you describe was from?

[UrJohn]

@wittmann:

UrJohn: Do you know in which campaign, or battle, the incident you describe was from?

I know it was in France in 1944.

[Gargantua]

How many Krauts did he kill?  :evil:

[UrJohn]

He didn’t like to talk about that kind of stuff. The story about the tank was about the only one he would tell.

[Witt]

@UrJohn:

He didn’t like to talk about that kind of stuff. The story about the tank was about the only one he would tell.

Thank you.
My Italian grandad was the same. Had stories and they would come out, other times he would clam up or stop and start to cry and my gran would comfort him and say he shouldn’t talk about it.
He said he was up a telegraph pole, repairing it, when he heard voices. At first was laughter, then pleading(he picked up some Russian), he wanted to interfere, but knew he had to pretend he was not there. A shot rang out. A group of young German soldiers had chanced upon a Russian peasant girl and getting no where, one had shot her.
He was lucky to be invalided out in Feb 42.