Steel Victory: The Heroic Story of America's Independent Tank Battalions at War in Europe

Advancing at the speed of the infantry, the U.S. Army independent tank battalions ground slowly across the continent during World War II, from the bloody beaches of Normandy; through forests, villages, and cities in France, Belgium, and Germany; and into Czechoslovakia at the war’s end. Greater in number than the battalions in the vaunted armor divisions, the infantry tanks were doled out to a platoon here and a company there to undertake the war’s dirtiest mission–prying enemy troops from every position across the breadth of the great Allied offensive line of 1944-45. The bold American tank infantry teams of WWII’s European theater have become the stuff of legend. But the true details of their amazing missions have never been revealed in one comprehensive work of popular history . . . until now.

Using the words of the tank soldiers themselves, and the radio logs of their real-time communications, Harry Yeide vividly brings back all the men and machines of this crucial method of combat–one that, in the end, may have won the war. Here are startling revelations of the treacherous fighting, and the challenges and dangers of battling a better-equipped enemy in outmoded, slow-moving “death traps.” Inside you will discover:

• Tank commanders were often trained only for invasion–and were given no tactical training for what to do after penetrating the maze of hedgerows
• Tankers learned to fear their own air force in friendly fire from the “American Luftwaffe”
• Due to inadequate periscopes, commanders often entered battles with their heads stuck out of the turrets, becoming “priority targets” for German snipers
• Many tanks sank 1,000 to 5,000 feet away from the Normandy shore on D day.

Steel Victory recounts how tank planning, expertise, and accuracy grew as the war roared on–and reveals the inside story of how tank battalions turned the tide in the Battle of the Bulge and other major encounters of the European war. Here is an honest, painstakingly researched history of these man-driven vehicles that, in the words of one soldier, “saved the day, shot the hell out of the Germans, and had the hell shot out of them.”