 First edition | |
| Author | Adam Makos |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Ballantine Books |
Publication date | February 19, 2019 |
| Pages | 446 |
| ISBN | 1782395806 |
Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II is a book about Clarence Smoyer, written by military history author Adam Makos, and published by Ballantine Books in 2019. [1] [2] [3]
The book reached number 3 on The New York Times Best Seller list on February 27, 2019. [4] [5]
The book honors an unsung hero, Clarence Smoyer, who despite his hatred for violence, becomes the gunner of one of the first Pershing tanks in the European Theatre. Smoyer and his tank crew lead the American invasion of Nazi Germany. Smoyer, whose tank crew is instrumental to the Battle of Cologne, recounts his step-by-step moves in the battle, particularly, shooting a car which unbeknown to him is carrying civilians. At the same time, the car is being shot by a German tank whose gunner is named Gustav Schaefer. Schaefer and Smoyer shoot each other for a few seconds. It ends when Smoyer's crew shoot down a nearby building which disables Shaefer's tank, but leave the Germans inside the tank unharmed. Schaefer and one of his friends escape while the rest of the crew decides to stand and fight. Schaefer credits Smoyer for saving him and his friend. [10] [11]
The biography comes to an end with the meeting of Smoyer and Schaefer in Cologne, sharing their war stories and getting up to date since the war.
The book has received generally positive reviews. As of 18 April 2019 [update] , it had a 4.61/5 community rating on Goodreads. [12]
It was listed on The New York Times Best Seller list on 26 February 2019. [13]
On September 18, 2019, Makos presided over a ceremony at the National World War II Memorial in which Smoyer and the other members of the Pershing tank crew were awarded Bronze Star medals with "V" device for valor. Smoyer attended the ceremony in person while the families of the other crewmembers, who have passed away, received the medals on their behalf. [14]
The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank from World War II. When introduced, its 76.2 mm (3 in) tank gun was more powerful than its contemporaries, and its 60-degree sloped armour provided good protection against anti-tank weapons. The T-34 had a profound effect on the conflict on the Eastern Front, and had a long-lasting impact on tank design. The tank was praised by multiple German generals when encountered during Operation Barbarossa, although its armour and armament were surpassed later in the war. Though, its main strength was its cost and production time, meaning that German panzers would often fight against forces several times its size. The T-34 is also a critical part of the mechanized divisions that form the backbone of the Deep Battle Strategy.
The M26 Pershing is a heavy tank/medium tank formerly used by the United States Army. It was used in the last months of World War II during the Invasion of Germany and extensively during the Korean War. The tank was named after General of the Armies John J. Pershing, who led the American Expeditionary Force in Europe in World War I.
The 3rd Armored Division was an armored division of the United States Army. Unofficially nicknamed the "Third Herd," the division was first activated in 1941 and was active in the European Theater of World War II. The division was stationed in West Germany for much of the Cold War and also participated in the Persian Gulf War. On 17 January 1992, still in Germany, the division ceased operations. In October 1992, it was formally inactivated as part of a general drawing down of U.S. military forces at the end of the Cold War.
Kelly's Heroes is a 1970 World War II comedy-drama heist film, directed by Brian G. Hutton, about a motley crew of American GIs who go AWOL in order to rob a French bank, located behind German lines, of its stored Nazi gold bars. The film stars Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas, and co-stars Don Rickles, Carroll O'Connor, and Donald Sutherland providing the comic absurdity, with secondary, comedic roles by Harry Dean Stanton, Gavin MacLeod, Karl-Otto Alberty, and Stuart Margolin. The screenplay was written by British film and television writer Troy Kennedy Martin. The film was a US-Yugoslav co-production, filmed mainly in the Croatian village of Vižinada on the Istria peninsula.
The Universal Carrier, also known as the Bren Gun Carrier and sometimes simply the Bren Carrier from the light machine gun armament, is a common name describing a family of light armoured tracked vehicles built by Vickers-Armstrongs and other companies.
Rudolph B. Davila, born in El Paso, Texas, was a United States Army officer, of Spanish-Filipino descent, who received the Medal of Honor for his actions in Italy during World War II. He was the only person of Filipino ancestry to receive the medal for his heroic actions in the European theatre. He was initially awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. However, in 1998, after an extensive review, his medal was upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
Matt Braddock, VC and bar, is a fictional World War II bomber pilot who first appeared in prose adventures in the story paper The Rover in 1952, and later as a comic strip in The Victor (1961–83) and Warlord (1974). Some of his stories were published in book form as I Flew With Braddock.
Hai was a wolfpack of German U-boats that operated from 3 to 21 July 1942 in the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II. They attacked the Liverpool to Freetown, Sierra Leone convoy OS-33, sinking eight ships for a total of 61,125 gross register tons (GRT).
Francis Sherman Currey was a United States Army technical sergeant and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor, for his heroic actions during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.
Herbert H. Burr was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military's two highest decorations—the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross—for his actions in World War II.
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor is a real time strategy video game stand-alone expansion pack to Company of Heroes. It was released on April 9, 2009.
The Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident occurred on 20 December 1943, when, after a successful bomb run on Bremen, 2nd Lt. Charles "Charlie" Brown's B-17F Flying Fortress Ye Olde Pub of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was severely damaged by German fighters. Luftwaffe pilot Franz Stigler had the opportunity to shoot down the crippled bomber but did not do so, and instead escorted it over and past German-occupied territory so as to protect it. After an extensive search by Brown, the two pilots met each other 50 years later and developed a friendship that lasted until Stigler's death in March 2008. Brown died only a few months later, in November of the same year.
Fury is a 2014 American war film written and directed by David Ayer. It stars Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal; all members of an American tank crew fighting in Nazi Germany during the final weeks of the European theater of World War II. Ayer was influenced by the service of military veterans in his family and by reading books such as Belton Y. Cooper's Death Traps, a 1998 memoir that underscores the high casualty rates suffered by American tank crews in combat against their better-equipped German counterparts.
The 5th Guards Cavalry Division was a military unit in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the Great Patriotic War.
T-34 is a 2019 Russian war film written and directed by Aleksey Sidorov. The title references the T-34, a World War II-era Soviet medium tank used during the defense of the Soviet Union. The film narrates the life of Nikolai Ivushkin, a tank commander who gets captured by the Germans. Three years later, he begins to plan his ultimate escape, alongside his newly recruited tank crew. It stars Alexander Petrov as Junior Lieutenant Ivushkin, with Viktor Dobronravov, Irina Starshenbaum, Anton Bogdanov, Yuri Borisov, Semyon Treskunov, and Artyom Bystrov.
Adam Makos is an American author and military historian. His works include A Higher Call (2012), which recounts the Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident, and Spearhead (2019), a detailed biography of World War II tank gunner Clarence Smoyer. Both books have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list. The 2022 film, Devotion, is based on his 2015 book of the same title, which tells the true story of a friendship between two U.S. Navy pilots in the Korean War.
Moshe Levy was a half-track commander in the Israeli Armored Corps, and was awarded the Medal of Valor for his fighting in Sinai during the Yom Kippur War.
A Higher Call is a non-fiction book by Adam Makos with Larry Alexander, published in 2012 by Berkley Books. It recounts the story of the Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident of 1943, which took place in the skies of Germany during the Second World War. In it, Franz Stigler, a German Luftwaffe fighter ace flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109, guided a severely damaged American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress out of German airspace after failing to persuade it to surrender, an act of chivalry.
The Battle of Cologne was part of Operation Lumberjack and refers to the Allied advance that took place from 5 to 7 March 1945, which led to the capture of the western German city of Cologne.