The last mission in November ended with our M4A1 getting knocked out by a Panther that we were engaging. Patterson, our Loader, didn’t make it.. Everyone else only got a few bruises and scratches.. He was 19 and he’d been with us for 2 weeks..

My crew has learned the effectiveness of the German Armor the hard way. Besides the Panther that knocked out our second tank, we’d also lost a previous M4A1 Early tank to a Tiger at the end of the summer…

We’d all gotten a few days of rest, waiting for a replacement tank and a replacement loader. We’d heard new tanks were coming in.. Called “Easy Eights”. That meant we didn’t have to take a used tank which could contain pieces of the last crew, so we were all feeling good about that..

It was a sunny day, and we’d been given the order to mount our new shiny tank. She was a beauty. We’d already named her, “Emma”, after my high school sweetheart. Baker, our new loader, thought that was bad luck. We told him to shut up, because the only bad luck was talking about bad luck.

Today’s mission was an attack on enemy positions. Hopefully we would have a relatively calm day, to get used to this new tank. We advanced over open terrain, the sun was shining on the blue winter sky and even though we we’re all on edge, we couldn’t help to enjoy the feeling of the warm sun rays on our faces.

We had a lot of bad weather lately, which meant no air support.. That kinda made me wonder, why hadn’t we seen any of our fighter planes today? Maybe the br… “ENEMY TANK!! 11 O’CLOCK!!” – The driver screamed. Once pointed out, it was hard to miss.. A giant.. A behemoth.. No, these words did not give it justice.. No words could, for this terror.. The KING TIGER.

All we wanted to do was to jump down in the tank, pop smoke and reverse.. But we can’t do that. We have our orders, and most importantly, we have our friends out there. and they are counting on us!!

The Germans ambushed our task force, but luckily our tank was not the target. The commander screamed the orders at the top of his lungs, fueled by both fear and duty! MOVE THAT TANK! WE NEED TO GET IT POSITIONED FOR A FLANK SHOT!

He knew there was no way, even with our shiny and big 76L gun, to penetrate that massive frontal armor of that big horror…

We managed to slip through some bushes, and get a perfect line of fire on that bastard. “ROTATE THE DAMN TURRET AND FIRE FOR EFFECT!”

It was weird. Thinking about this, afterwards. I never thought we would survive. I never thought I would survive. But we weren’t scared, besides for the first seconds after spotting “it”. Somehow, all of that just went away, and we just did our jobs.

The turret rotated. The gunner screamed “ON THE WAY!” and the shot went out. (I was at long range with no modifiers, and thus needed a roll of 2-5 to hit with 2 D6. I rolled 3.) Perfect shot.

It all happened in slow motion.. I remember it, every time I smell the smell that I smelled that day.. The oil from the tank, the fumes from the engine, the gas from the round going off.. It all comes back like I am there again, that exact second.. (Since we had fired a flak shot, we needed a roll of 4 to 12 with 2 D6 to destroy the Tiger II. I rolled 11). It sliced through the tiger like butter!! The King tiger is a burning wreck!!! WE GOT HIM ON THE VERY FIRST SHOT!!

It was impossible not to scream, to celebrate, we had done the impossible.. “HEY FOCUS UP! WE STILL GOT SMALL ARMS FIRE PRESENT!” – said the Task Force leader over the radio. The enemy infantry squads must have been more shocked than us.. Hitting the dirt and hiding in their fox holes, it only took 2 HE rounds to make them flee for their lives. The day was over, and we we’re still alive. One step closer to Berlin. One step closer to ending this nightmare.

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