Across Germany From Inside of a Sherman Tank                                                                                 - January 1945 to April 1945- Told by Verl II Sterns

"I served with Company B, 16th Tank Battalion in General Patton's Third Army," American, Verl Sterns tells. " After enlisting in the Army Reserves at age 17, I was inducted into the Regular Army at Camp Dodge, Iowa a few days after turning 18. Most of those inducted at that time were sent to California for infantry training and ultimately sent to the Pacific war operation. A few of us were selected for Armored Training and sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky for Armored Basic Training. After training there, I was assigned to the 16th Tank Battalion in Camp Chaffee, Arkansas."

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The Sherman Tank

" I was part of a 5 man crew in a 30 ton Medium General Sherman Tank. The tank was equipped with a 76mm cannon, two 50 caliber machine guns, a smoke grenade gun, and each crew member carried a 30 caliber sub-machine gun we called a 'burp gun'. Each tank had a driver, an assistant driver, a gunner, a cannoneer, and a tank commander. In basic training, each one had to learn to drive the tank, man the cannon, and to do operational maintenance. The name painted on our tank was 'Brooklyn Baby.'"

" A short time after Christmas [1944], our unit was deployed to the European Theater of Operation. At that time I was 19. There was a government stipulation that one must be 19 before being deployed overseas. Our unit was crowded on to a small Liberty Class ship. In convoty with other troop and supply ships zigzagging across the ocean to avoid Nazi submarines, we arrived at the French port after 14 days at sea."

"The Battle of the Bulge had begun. With fierce fighting, the Germans were driven back in retreat." Sterns along with his unit had to fight through the heart of the Nazi empire after crossing Germany's last natural barrier - the Rhine in late March 1945.

"While pursuing the Nazi army eastward across Germany, I remember the tragic scene of miles of refugees, hopelessly trudging westward away from the war. Old men and women, mothers, [and] children carrying or pushing in small carts what little they could salvage from the havoc of war, going they knew not where."

" In one of the German cities, we seized a Gestapo headquarters. The Germans had made a hasty and confused retreat: leaving a cache of weapons and equipment. I was able to retrieve a 38 caliber Browning pistol, a bayonet, a small Nazi flag and some swastika arm bands."

" In the later months of the war, it was troubling to see many of the German soldiers we captured were boys only 13 or 14 years old and older men. Many of them seemed relieved and even happy to be captured. They were given new fatigue outfits, good food, and a secure environment away from the front. Many would be sent to prison of war camps in the States."

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