![]() ![]() A door opened, and a passenger fell onto the street. So did the gunner in the enemy tank, a Panzer. When a car raced into the intersection, Smoyer blasted it with machine-gun fire. In the rubble-strewn inner city March 6, Smoyer saw a German tank creep out from a street corner and pull back quickly. The metropolis was in ruins from Allied airstrikes. He recalled his lieutenant saying over the radio: “Gentlemen, I give you Cologne. Smoyer was now the gunner on a new Pershing “super tank,” one of only 20 operating in Europe. In February 1945, the division crossed into Germany and pushed toward the Rhine River at Cologne. ![]() Smoyer remembered cold nights in the Ardennes and weeks of confusion about exactly where he and his crew were, and whether friend or foe was in the next field. ![]() The 3rd Armored, called the “Spearhead” division, reached Germany by mid-September and redeployed to Belgium to help beat back the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. ![]()
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