Joey wrote_
Spring 1945
I crossed the Rhine River clinging to the deck of a Sherman tank on a hastily built pontoon bridge that was swaying dangerously in the pitch black night.
The entire Tank Battalion, with Armored Infantrymen hanging on their backs slipped into the Bridgehead on the other side of the river.
The 9th Armored Division through a stroke of luck, and a dash of brilliance, secured the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen.
The 1st and 104th Infantry divisions widened the bridgehead and my outfit, 3rd Armored Division, crossed on that acursed pontoon bridge at Honnef.
The Division spent the next three days enlarging the bridgehead. The entire Unit crossed and organized.
We were ordered to spearhead a drive to Paderborn, their Armored Force training grounds. Germany's Fort Knox.
Four separate Armored columns went down four separate roads, at top speed, which was about 25 mph, with a squad of Armored Infantry hanging on for dear life.
The driver of the tank I was riding on made the mistake of opening his hatch cover to be able to see the dusty dirt road we were racing down.
In a normal battle mode the driver closes his hatch and peers through a periscope.
Unfortunately, as we went around a bend in the road, we over ran an Anti-Aircraft Battery and they lowered the 20 MM ack-ack guns on us.
The drivers head was sheared off, I was hit in the arm and the leg with shrapnel, and the tank rolled over and into a ditch. Everybody bailed out and watched the rest of the column fly by.
When spearheading in enemy territory, the column does not stop to rescue one tank. We were on our own, way behind enemy lines.
Freedom isn't free.
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