Battle Strategies

We came in contact with some of the German units, because already the Italians weren't that much involved. We, I don't think we lost...we lost a couple of tanks, that's about all. Because we had a, being in the Sherman tank, our policy was to chase the German's tanks, and when they, we got close enough, we found we couldn't hit them because our shells weren't not long, couldn't fire them long enough, and the Germans could with their 88's. So we used to turn around and hightail it out of there. But what we did was turn our turret around, because we had a 190 circle. Well the Germans couldn't do that, because they were on an angle like this... The 88's only can go from there to there. They couldn't understand. They see we're running away and we're hitting them and knocking tanks out. So that was a trick we learned during the war, during some of the battles, is to pretend we're retreating and catch them on the way, as they came up to us and start chasing us, we would catch them.

We didn't have the armament to compete with the 88's. But we found ways of doing it you know, we were, and this goes further up. In one of the towns we went into, where the lead tank was going up the street, a German tank was in front of them. They just appeared out of nowhere. It was only the gunner that had the reaction, that he fired right away and we blew the tank up. And that's something that happens. You don't realize it's just a shot in a million that you pull it off.

Because we had a lot of rain at that time too, we were using donkeys to carry equipment, fuel, armament. Take up to the front line because we just couldn't move, the trucks couldn't move through the mud. And, that was the position there at that time.