PDA

View Full Version : Sherman tank taught Marines to coordinate



thedrifter
04-04-06, 01:35 PM
April 10, 2006
The lore of the Corps: Sherman tank taught Marines to coordinate

By Robert F. Dorr
Special to the Times

To Marines during World War II, the words “Sherman” and “tank” belonged together.

American factories rolled out thousands of M4 General Sherman medium tanks during the war years. Splashy, full-color magazine ads depicted the Sherman as an invincible battleship of the land, rolling over everything in its path while sweeping triumphantly toward victory.

In reality, critics panned the Sherman’s high center of gravity, its voracious fuel consumption and its tendency to founder in mud.

Fortunately for Marines in the Pacific, the Japanese did not have an opposing tank as the Germans did.


The typical Sherman was armed with a 75mm gun that wasn’t ideal for tank-versus-tank conflicts, but it was effective in flushing out Japanese resistance on Pacific atolls.

The Army Ordnance Department at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., tested the prototype, known as the T6, in late 1941. The Army ordered the new tank into production in July 1942, and 21,000 were produced in 1943. By then, deliveries to the Corps were well underway.

With rubber-block treads that had about five times the life expectancy of Japanese steel tracks, the Sherman was an enormous improvement over the pre-war M3 General Grant tank, which had flimsy armor and an almost useless 37mm gun.

Marines took to the 33-ton Sherman and had a company of M4A2 models available in time for Operation Galvanic, the invasion of Tarawa, in November 1943 — the first time leathernecks used a tank in an amphibious landing.

The tanks came ashore near Tarawa’s Betio Pier courtesy of the dock landing ship Ashland. But they made it to shore too late to prevent chaos and carnage during the initial landing, and five of them were lost on the way to shore.

Leathernecks had not yet learned how to carry out a coordinated action using good communications, so the Shermans initially attacked whatever appeared in front of them. By the second day of the Tarawa fighting, Marines were using a more-coordinated approach, and the Shermans were a great help.

The Marines later combined the power of the Sherman tank with the burning capacity of the flamethrower during the June 1944 invasion of Saipan in the Mariana Islands.

When Marines landed on Iwo Jima in February 1945, they used flamethrower-equipped Shermans to burn the enemy and bulldozer blades mounted on Shermans to seal Japanese bunkers.

After the subsequent battle of Okinawa, Maj. Gen. Lemuel Shepherd wrote in his after-action report that, “if any one supporting arm can be singled out as having contributed more than any others … the tank would certainly be selected.”

The writer, an Air Force veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. He is the author of books on military topics, including “Chopper,” a history of helicopter pilots. He can be reached at robert.f.dorr@cox.net.

Ellie