Tank Killers

^{An M3 finds a hull-down position in the Tunisian desert. But the long flat vista behind the wadi illustrates why this was often difficult to do. Patton Armor Museum}

^{A reconnaissance team from the 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion begins a mission at Kasserine Pass in February 1943. NA}

^{A reconnaissance team from the 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion (right) passes a wrecked M3 “Purple Heart box” in Kasserine Pass in February 1943. Several destroyed tanks are visible in the middle distance. NA}

^{Captain Michael Paulick (front left) from Reconnaissance Company, 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion, examines a map at El Guettar on 23 March 1943. The recon peep behind Paulick carries the pedestal- mounted .30-caliber machine gun. The M3 TD in the background is in one of the defilade positions from which the Americans pounded the 10th Panzer Division. NA}

^{View from American lines of the 10th Panzer Division attacking the 1st Infantry Division at El Guettar. NA}

^{One of the first M10s committed to battle. This one near Maknassy, Tunisia, in early April 1943 belongs to the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion. NA}

^{The towed 3-inch gun undergoing testing at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The Signal Corps caption observes, “Army Ordnance Department tests have proved the 3-inch antitank gun as superior to the German 88mm antitank gun as an antitank weapon.” Ordnance was wrong. NA}

^{Staff Sergeant Raymond G. Murphy and the crew of the “Jinx,” who were awarded silver stars for their 25-minute spree of destruction against the German counterattack at Salerno. L to R: Murphy, Sgt. Edwin Yost, T/5 Alvin Johnson, PFC Joseph O’Bryan, and Pvts. Clyde and Clasoe Tokes, twins from Oklahoma. NA}

^{Number-3 gun (M10), 2d Platoon, Company A, 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion, shells the enemy in the Mignano sector, Italy, in December 1943. NA}

^{An M10 from the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion moves up at Anzio Beachhead, 29 February 1944. Note the extra ammunition stacked on the rear deck. NA}

^{An M10 engages a German machine gun nest on the outskirts of Rome on 4 June 1944. NA}

^{BM10s approach the historic Coliseum as the Americans liberate Rome. NA}

^{German prisoners pass a camouflaged M10 in the Normandy bocage in July 1944. The terrain forced the self-propelled TDs to operate as tanks or artillery because they rarely had long fields of fire. NA}

^{An M10 blasts retreating Germans at St. Lo on 20 July 1944. NA}

^{A 3-inch gun crew uses building parts for camouflage during street fighting in France, in August 1944. NA}

^{One of the Panthers dispatched by the 645th Tank Destroyer Battalion during the battle in Meximieux, France, on 1 September 1944. The panzer ran into a building after being hit. NA}

^{Back in Brittany, an M18 crew in the streets of Brest, September 1944. NA}

^{Black crewmen from the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion fire their 3-inch gun in England before heading to the Continent, September 1944. NA}

^{The battle for the border begins. An M10 fires on enemy positions at Riesdorf, Germany, on 14 September 1944. NA}

^{The TDs engage in fierce fighting inside Aachen on 15 October. The image graphically illustrates the vulnerability of crews in open turrets to fire from upper stories during urban warfare. The wartime censor’s pen has obscured the unit designator on the M10. NA}

^{An M36 from the 607th Tank Destroyer Battalion in the streets of Metz in November 1944. NA}

^{The crewmen of an 801st Tank Destroyer Battalion 3-inch gun reposition their weapon in Hofen. The battalion lost seventeen guns in the first day of fighting. NA}

^{A Royal Tiger knocked out in Stavelot, Belgium. It appears to be the one nailed by the men of the 825th Tank Destroyer Battalion—who had been assigned to security duties—in their only combat action of the war. NA}

^{The crew of this camouflaged 776th Tank Destroyer Battalion M36 destroyed five panzers during a German counterattack at Oberwampach, Luxembourg, in January 1945. NA}

^{First Army troops clear Cologne on the Rhine River, 6 March, 1945. NA}

Notes

Chapter 1: Seek, Strike, and Destroy

1. Dr. Christopher R. Gabel, Seek, Strike, and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in World War II (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1985), 5. (Hereinafter Gabel.)

2. Kent Roberts Greenfield, Robert R. Palmer, and Bell I. Wiley, United States Army in World