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Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II

by Adam Makos

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333978,321 (4.5)None
Biography & Autobiography. History. Military. Nonfiction. HTML:THE NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, LOS ANGELES TIMES, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER 

??A band of brothers in an American tank . . . Makos drops the reader back into the Pershing??s turret and dials up a battle scene to rival the peak moments of Fury.?
??The Wall Street Journal
From the author of the international bestseller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner??s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel??and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.

When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner??s seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He??s a natural-born shooter.
At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division????Spearhead???thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.

After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art ??super tank,? one of twenty in the European theater.
But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That??s how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the ??Fortress City? of Germany.
Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent on a suicide mission to stop the Americans.
As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence to the modern day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last time.
Praise for Spearhead

??A detailed, gripping account . . . the remarkable story of two tank crewmen, from opposite sides of the conflict, who endure the grisly nature of tank warfare.?
??USA Today (four out of four stars)
??Strong and dramatic . . . Makos established himself as a meticulous researcher who??s equally adept at spinning a good old-fashioned yarn. . . . For a World War II aficionado, it will r
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Showing 1-5 of 9 (next | show all)
Very well illustrated with photographs, but I was less impressed by the writing and research. ( )
  breic | Jul 23, 2022 |
Adam Makos has written a very thorough work about some American and German soldiers who fought in tanks in World War II. The book follows Clarence Smoyer and his companions in the 3rd Armored Division of the US Army and Gustav Schaefer who had a similar role in the German Army. On March 6, 1945 their lives came together on the street in front of the Cologne Cathedral. Both Clarence and Gustave fired their tank's machine guns at the car they thought was military but turned out to hold two fleeing German civilians. Gustav never saw what happened but Clarence did and was haunted by it for the rest of his long life. A German girl Kathi Esser and her employer were in the car and they were trying to get out of the city to safety. Right after both tanks fired on the car Clarence used his Pershing tanks canon to knock a brick wall onto Gustav's tank which was hidden behind the wall. Gustav decided the war was over for him and pushed the bricks off his hatch and walked off to surrender to the Allies. The Panther Tank wasn't destroyed and most of the rest of the crew went on to fight some more, they were never seen again. Later when they met as men in their 80s Gustav told Clarence that knocking down the wall saved his life. I picked up this book from the library because I have been interested in tanks since childhood. My father had the same position as Clarence in the Second World War. Dad always told us that he was glad to be inside a tank because he was quite safe there. Reading about all the men who were killed inside their tanks makes me think that my father didn't want us to know how dangerous his situation had been. A good well researched study by Adam Makos, I am glad I found it. ( )
  MMc009 | Jan 30, 2022 |
Thought it was a good book, better than [b:A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II|15808816|A Higher Call An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II|Adam Makos|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1350889524s/15808816.jpg|22171084], but still had issues with it. More than anything, it is the story of a WWII tank gunner, Clarence Smoyer during the last 6 months of the war. But there's an awful lot of other people involved, many of whom end up dying after a page of introduction. It makes for an awkward read. The previews about the book also seemed to talk up a big confrontation between Smoyer and a German gunner. There was a confrontation, but it wasn't that big. We never hear from the Germans who were in the bigger tank that was part of a bigger confrontation. In the last chapter, we end up finding out why this story was written now and not long ago...I wonder if I would have felt more comfortable if some of that was in the beginning? As it is, I kept wondering why the story was featuring some of these people who seemed to have minor parts. Good story, not especially well-written. ( )
  Jeff.Rosendahl | Sep 21, 2021 |
I really enjoyed this, especially how the author incorporated the perspectives of soldiers on both sides of the war. ( )
  SGTCat | Feb 25, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 9 (next | show all)
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Biography & Autobiography. History. Military. Nonfiction. HTML:THE NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, LOS ANGELES TIMES, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER 

??A band of brothers in an American tank . . . Makos drops the reader back into the Pershing??s turret and dials up a battle scene to rival the peak moments of Fury.?
??The Wall Street Journal
From the author of the international bestseller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner??s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel??and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.

When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner??s seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He??s a natural-born shooter.
At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division????Spearhead???thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.

After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art ??super tank,? one of twenty in the European theater.
But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That??s how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the ??Fortress City? of Germany.
Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent on a suicide mission to stop the Americans.
As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence to the modern day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last time.
Praise for Spearhead

??A detailed, gripping account . . . the remarkable story of two tank crewmen, from opposite sides of the conflict, who endure the grisly nature of tank warfare.?
??USA Today (four out of four stars)
??Strong and dramatic . . . Makos established himself as a meticulous researcher who??s equally adept at spinning a good old-fashioned yarn. . . . For a World War II aficionado, it will r

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