Valor Friday

M4 Sherman tank “Bomb” in 1945

For the several thousand men who landed at Normandy on 6 June 1944, many wouldn’t make it to VE Day just shy of one year later. As with the men that fought, the equipment was even more disposable. So it’s unusual that a tank like the M4 Sherman pictured above, named “Bomb”, would make it from D-Day to the end of the war largely unscathed.

From Wikipedia;

Bomb was built at General Motors’ Fisher Tank Arsenal in Flint, Michigan as an M4A2 Sherman Tank, serial number 8007. It was shipped to England, where it was issued with the War Department number T-152656. The tank was assigned to B Squadron of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers as the regiment converted from older training tanks to new Shermans in preparation for the invasion of France as part of the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. The tanks of B Squadron all had names that started with B such as Barbara and Be Good. The name Bomb was inspired by the Fusiliers’ cap badge which features a stylized grenade.

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The original crew was led by commander Sergeant Harold Futter. The driver was Lance-Corporal Rudy Moreault with co-driver Trooper “Red” Fletcher. The gunner was Trooper A.W. Rudolph and Trooper J.W. ‘Tiny’ Hall was the loader.

Futter was wounded in July 1944 and replaced by Lieutenant Paul W. Ayriss as commander until he in turn was wounded in September and replaced by Lieutenant John W. Neill MC. Neill was wounded in late February 1945 and his replacement was Lieutenant Walter M. White in March. White was wounded in April and Lieutenant Ernest Mingo became the commander and remained so for the duration of the war.

Fletcher was wounded in July. Hall was co-driver until July, when Ken Gerow, became the co-driver and Hall became loader-wireless operator. Rudolph was the gunner for the duration.

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Bomb landed at Juno Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, with the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment (27th Canadian Armoured Regiment) at Bernières-sur-Mer. Bomb served continuously in B Squadron for 11 months and participated in every major operation of the regiment until VE-Day.

In the afternoon of D-Day, the SFR’s three untested but thoroughly prepared tank squadrons and regimental headquarters arrived in France in a follow-up to the initial landings and the tanks barely got wet. Falling short of their assigned objectives due to traffic congestion, road damage, and a cautious pace, the regiment formed a defensive harbour formation overnight to prepare for the next day. During that first night, a German anti-tank gun fired at Bomb but missed. One of the accompanying Sherman tanks, a mine-clearing Flail, fired back destroying the anti-tank gun.

On the morning of June 7, the SFR’s advance resumed. The Germans held their fire and adjusted their defences to make contact with the SFR at Authie and Buron. In two days of intense combat, the Canadian tankers destroyed 41 enemy Panther and Panzer IV tanks. Two of those kills were Bomb’s. B Squadron started the battle with 15 Shermans and emerged with five tanks fit for battle, including Bomb. The other two squadrons were just as badly mauled. The 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade’s two other regiments took over the line, allowing the Sherbrookes to pull back and recover. After 11 days in reserve, the three fighting squadrons were rebuilt with serviceable, recovered and replacement tanks. Replacement crews from the echelons took over from casualties. Sgt Futter, who had commanded Bomb, was named Troop Sergeant of 2 Troop of B Squadron. The rest of June saw constant manoeuvring and probing, with frequent alerts always facing enemy fire.

By early July, the front had advanced to northwest of Caen. On 8 July an enemy shell hit the .50-cal anti-aircraft machine-gun on Bomb’s turret. Sgt Futter and loader-operator Fletcher were wounded inside the turret by the blast. Their replacements were crew member Tpr Gerow and crew commander Lt Ayriss. With a new commander, Bomb became the 1 Troop Leader’s tank. The original radio call sign on the rear of the turret was 22 (‘two-two’). When the troops were reorganized, Bomb was repainted with the call sign 21 (‘two-one’).

Later in July near to Bourguébus Ridge, in the Allies’ push south towards Falaise, a Panzer IV fired at and hit a spare road wheel mounted on Bomb’s hull. Expecting a follow-up shot, the crew bailed out. When there was no second shot, they inspected the damage, and decided it was insignificant. The crews and their officers appreciated the value of external layers of track sections, road wheels and stowage boxes, even though rear echelon technical staff disapproved. Two more enemy tanks were knocked out by Bomb in the fighting for Verrières Ridge, bringing the count to four.

The Canadian Corps’ concentrated and unrelenting operations had depleted the enemy’s ability to defend along multiple axes of attack. Hoping to bowl the Germans backwards, phase one of Operation Tractable on the west side of the Liaze River, had infantry and attached SFR tank squadrons pressing towards the village of Clair Tizon south of Bretteville-sur-la-Laize. On 14 August, an RAF bomber mission was planned against German defences on a hill between the two villages. However, there was a miscalculation with identification smoke signals and some bombs landed amongst B Squadron’s tanks. Bomb sustained unspecified damage. A 1945 newspaper story in the Sherbrooke Daily Record mentions a shell striking a drive sprocket. A week later, Bomb was repaired and rejoined the squadron for the attacks on Falaise.

In the closing weeks of August, as the Canadians, British and Polish divisions squeezed the Falaise Gap closed from the north against encircling American forces, the Germans fought just as hard to escape towards the east. On 17 August while Bomb was supporting the Fusiliers de Montréal in a disorganized close-range skirmish to clear a walled school compound, a German infantry anti-tank rocket hit a track link welded to Bomb’s turret. Again, there was no significant damage.

Even while the Falaise Pocket was collapsing, the Britain and Canadian armoured divisions turned left to pursue German units retreating out of Normandy. From their position on the east end of the pocket, the SFR was ordered to move quickly towards the Seine River to secure strategic routes into northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Command staff had recognized that the hard surface roads were undamaged and would be needed for main supply routes until other seaports could be liberated. Therefore, all steel tracked combat vehicles had to stay off the roads. With limited maps, the regiment’s recce troop of Stuart tanks looped back and forth to escort packets of tanks and other vehicles following along the edges of fields and down narrow trails. During this road move, Bomb suffered a burnt out clutch and was late arriving in the staging area. In early September in the Forêt de la Londe near Elbeuf, understrength Canadian infantry brigades tangled disastrously with rearguard German units with heavy losses. Lt Ayriss was reported injured in that fighting.

Bräun’s regimental history records Lt Neill taking command of Bomb in Falaise under fire on 17 August when Lt Ayriss was to be promoted but also that as a Lt (not Captain) Ayriss was still the crew commander in September. His name does not appear on the casualty lists for August or September.

Lt Neill replaced Lt Ayriss and commanded Bomb through the fall and early winter of 1944–45. His determined actions in the breakout from Cleve earned him an immediate Military Cross. The citation said “In the breakout from Cleve in late February 1945, Lt Neill was leading a B Sqn troop of four tanks and a column of Kangaroo APCs. With darkness, smoke, mud, artillery and mortar fire, vehicle and personnel casualties, lagging infantry, and just about everything against him, Neill dashed forward with another tank to secure the objective and hold it for the trailing APCs to catch up and fully ‘consolidate without appreciable loss’.”

During autumn 1944, the regiment was shared out to several British infantry divisions, the Irish Guards division, and the American 82nd Airborne Division, as well as Canadian formations. As in Normandy, the squadrons and troops were attached and detached as required to infantry battalions for fire support. The terrain was not advantageous for tank operations, and the squadrons suffered during the prolonged attrition. For their determination and contribution to the battle, the SFR was awarded the battle honours, Antwerp–Turnhout Canal and Battle of the Scheldt.

As winter set in the regiment had periods of idleness due to bad weather, lack of replacement crews and tanks, and supply shortages. Bomb received new engines on one occasion, and a new set of tracks on another. .

Lt Neill’s replacement was Lt Walter White of West Gore, Nova Scotia, who took command of the tank and for a short period led B Squadron of the Sherbrookes from Bomb. Lt White was already an experienced armoured soldier in another regiment, having risen to Sergeant Major before taking his commission and attending Sandhurst Military College. Postwar White recalled the names of the other troop tanks as, Barbara, Be Good, and Bohunk. After fighting in the Hochwald Forest in Germany, White claimed to have led a reconnaissance to the banks of the Rhine River. Bomb’s fifth and last confirmed tank kill was in Deventer in April 1945. Six weeks after assuming command, Lt White was wounded while dismounted during the offensive to capture the Pimple on Calcar Ridge, near Deventer.

After Lt White was evacuated, Lt Ernest Mingo, from Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, joined and remained as crew commander until the war’s end. The regiment’s tanks cleared enemy units along the Ijsselmeer, through the northern Netherlands and into Germany. Mingo’s postwar accounts of the final days described wasteful enemy counterattacks that left the fields in front of the Fusiliers’ positions covered with German dead. Finally, in the border town of Emden, Lt Mingo received news from the tank’s radio, “Unload, clear guns, the war is over.”

By VE Day, the tank had fired 6,000 rounds in battle, had five enemy tank kills, used two engines and two set of tracks and taken two direct hits from enemy shells and been hit by an infantry anti-tank rocket, yet never missed a day of action. The tank and crew members Rudolph, Moreault and Hall were the subject of a Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit short documentary made in 1945 entitled The Green Fields Beyond (number 2090) in 1945.

Bomb on display

Bomb has been preserved, and is on display at the William Street Armoury in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

Category: Army, Historical, Valor, We Remember